In 1995 I had a very unique Near Death Experience that resulted from being burned in an accidental gas explosion. In 2022 Jeffrey Long of the Near-Death Experience Foundation, NDERF, the largest website in the world with over 5,000 documented cases, said it may be the most extensive and detailed such experience he read to date. In 2023 I was interviewed about this by Randy Kay, who specializes in studying near death experiences. He said that after interviewing thousands of individuals about their NDEs, he said mine was unique not only because of the level of detail recounted, but that it was the only one to His knowledge that involved becoming one with our Creator God
At the request of Alec Holmes I have written this article highlighting three incidents from my NDE that provide unique perspective and insight about the afterlife: dealing with demons, using spiritual gifting to heal and resurrect my dead body, and observations from observing the operations of the mind of God.
Demons are real spiritual beings. They are intelligent, predatory, malevolent, and prey on human souls. Prior to my NDE experience, I had only a few memorable encounters with demons. In one case when I was about 8 years old I felt an evil presence in my bedroom. I followed the “feeling” to its source and found an imp lurking in my closet! I confronted it and demanded to know what it was and why it was in my closet. The creature was roughly shaped like a naked, hairless dwarf, with mottled skin. It was grossly misshapen and stood between 2 and 3 feet tall. It did not answer me, but gradually faded from view. The next time I saw a demon was in 1991, when I was about 29 years old, and it appeared in a hotel room where I was staying on a business trip. This one initially appeared angelic: in appearance it was like muscular, well-proportioned man about seven feet tall with fair complexion, light blond wavy hair and brilliant light blue eyes. It was dressed in a white tunic and it wore a wide, woven golden belt around its waist. Though its appearance might have been considered angelic, what made it demonic were three discrepancies: no visible feet, an intensely hateful, evil presence that emanated from it, and that its otherwise handsome face was macabrely contorted in intense rage directed at me. I was paralyzed by its presence, even unable to breathe. I might have suffocated, but I rebuked it in unspoken prayer until it faded away and disappeared. Then the paralysis left.
The above paragraph is to introduce the situation in 1995 where, having died of pneumonia in my living room, I found myself out of my body. That led to three remarkable incidents.
INCIDENT 1 – INTERACTING WITH DEMONS
In the first incident, shortly after I died, two demons entered my living room and attempted to subdue my spiritual self and take me captive in chains to hell for eternity. There are other interesting details about this incident to relate, but they are lengthy to relate and recorded in the book I wrote about this subject titled, “The Ultimate Question – How will you answer it?” The short version is that I dealt with them by rebuking them in the name of Jesus Christ. This was very effective, immediately and forcefully expelling them out of my house! This action also invoked the Lord Jesus Christ who shortly after that entered the same living room. After brief introduction He gave me a choice to either progress from there to an eternity in heaven (with nothing accomplished of merit in my life to that date), or return to this life to raise my children (at the risk of still going to hell if I did not mend my ways). I chose to return, which involved healing and resurrecting my injured body. I will go into more details about that later in this article.
The main point in this first incident is that the process of healing my body was interrupted by the return of the two demons which had tried to abduct me the first time. Their stated goal was to take me to hell where they would mercilessly torment me to derive from me what they considered desperately needed food and fuel for their purposes. (One thing I immediately sensed about the demons was that they were unmistakably and ravenously hungry). In their second attempt, instead of approaching me cautiously while declaring their intent and describing the horrors awaiting me in hell, the demons rushed at me in a focused and determined effort to capture me as expeditiously as possible, without the previous drama.
The second time the demons came for me, Christ was standing to my immediate left and I initially presumed He would protect me from the demons. However He said and did nothing either to warn me or to stop them. This surprised and shocked me. With no other recourse, I rebuked the demons as I had before. This forcefully expelled them a second time from the room, not to return.
Jesus and I then resumed the process of healing my body. It was after that that the third incident happened. However, before describing that I offer an analysis of what was happened in the second time the demons tried to capture me.
For years afterwards I wondered why Jesus Christ, standing right next to me, had neither intervened to stop the demons, or informed me what I should do. Initially I considered Him to have been rather cold-hearted and indifferent to my fate. This conclusion did not fit the model of a loving Savior I had been taught about and observed in person shortly before this incident. However, a suitable explanation escaped me for decades.
After much prayer, study and thought on the subject, I understood the situation and realized these important principles regarding spiritual warfare.
- The Lord is truly God and we are created to serve His purposes. Therefore He expects us to treat Him with proper reverence, zeal and obedience. This means we should diligently search the Scriptures (and other sources) to know Who He is, who we are and who our mutual enemy, the devil, is.
- We need to know the “Rules of Engagement” of spiritual warfare. Among other things:
- In this case Jude 1:9 gives us the example where the archangel Michael rebuked the devil in the name of the Lord – that is also how we are to confront demons! Engaging demons in a two way dialogue is of limited use and fraught with risk.
- Mark 3:14, 15 gives believers the authority with power to cast out demons. (And to preach). This costs us nothing and saves much trouble, so “when in doubt, cast it out!”
- Luke 10:19 is a critical verse where Christ delegated to believers not only the authority with power to crush demons, but the responsibility to do so. It is not an option! As a bonus, this verse assures believers that no demon can directly harm them in any way.
- Because Christ had already given to me as a believer all of the above, I had the responsibility to deal with the demons accordingly. He was not going to do for me those things He had already delegated to me. He also fully expected me to both know these principles and understand how to apply them in practice. This is so critical that even when my eternal destiny was at stake, He would not break character, step out of His role, to save me! If I had not reacted correctly, I might be spending eternity in unspeakable torments right now, forever!
- Our enemy, the devil and his demons know these things well too, including the “Rules of Engagement.” They knew that Christ would not protect me from them directly because it was not His role to do so, but it was my role to fight them. The demons depended on my ignorance to cause me to hesitate long enough for them to bind me (and presumably silence me) so they could then take me captive into hell. I wonder at how many people are in hell already simply because they did not understand or hesitated to apply this!
INCIDENT 2 – HEALING MY INJURED BODY
The second incident was that in between the two demonic attempts at abduction, the Lord showed me how to heal my injured body. One remarkable revelation He gave me was that I had a pre-incarnation existence where God the Father had created me from His own essence. The process was analogous to creating a smaller hologram from a larger one by cutting off a piece. As should be known, cutting a hologram into pieces does not make a puzzle of unique parts like would be the case with an ordinary photograph. Instead, each piece of a hologram is actually a copy of the original image with a lower resolution! So also, the combined human soul (mind-memories & experiences, emotions and will – the personality) and spirit (the capabilities and capacities for spiritual functions) is God in miniature, though lacking certain capacities and characteristics reserved for God alone. (Incidentally, the different qualities of male and female are both inherent in God the Father, but are separated and not interchangeable in humans by gender – of which there are only two: male and female. This important distinction is intentional, so that only in the union of a husband and wife are all the attributes of God present in humanity. That is why the combined prayers of a married couple are far more effective than those of single adults of either gender).
Another key revelation to me was that when God the Father made my spirit man (the combination of soul and spirit) He put in me the gift of healing and deliverance. That is one of 26 potential spiritual gifts¹. Christ then showed me how to use that gift to make my dead body viable again. In a vision state, He had me touch each of the damaged parts of my corporeal body with the outstretched hands of my spirit (which is roughly shaped like my body, but with important differences in structure and organization). Power flowed from Christ, through me, entering through my shoulders and exiting from my hands. It made the injured organs well again almost instantaneously. As they were healed, the damaged organs became transparent like the rest of my body in the vision. After all the damaged organs were healed, my body was viable, but still not alive. After a detour involving the third incident, my spirit man was then drawn back into my body, which quickened it again.
¹Isaiah 11:1-3
Wisdom
Understanding
Counsel
Strength
Knowledge
Sanctification
Fear of the Lord
Romans 12:4-8
Prophecy
Serving
Teaching
Exhortation
Giving
Leadership
Mercy
I Corinthians 12:4-11
Word of wisdom
Word of knowledge
Faith
Healing & Deliverance
Miracles
Prophecy
Spiritual Discernment
Tongues
Interpretation of tongues
I Corinthians 12:27-30
Apostle
Prophet
Teacher
Miracles
Healing & Deliverance
Helps
Administration
Tongues
Ephesians 4:11-16
Apostles
Prophets
Evangelists
Shepherds
Teachers
I Peter 4:10-11
Gifts of Speaking
Gifts of Serving
An important side note is that at the time of healing my injuries there were other defects previously present in my body such as scoliosis, astigmatism and etc. which probably could have been healed at the same time, but were not. I feel that was an oversight on my part, but I was only prompted to heal those organs that were visibly damaged in the vision. For in the vision, my prone body appeared naked and transparent. Only the damaged organs: eyes, throat, lungs and right hand with forearm were colored and opaque. Those defects present at birth were transparent like the rest of the body. My understanding is that the injuries were not part of the Lord’s will for me; but the birth defects were present for a purpose and would be healed later as a sign of God’s great mercy and goodness. Therefore the former were addressed at that time, but the latter were not.
The lesson here is that before we were conceived by our parents, our spirit-man was created by God the Father to a unique specification with a pre-determined purpose. Depending on His plan for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11, Hebrews 10:7) the Lord may add to our general makeup certain spiritual gifts. These are present even before conception and the potential for their use remains throughout our lives. We may or may not use them. A given gift might manifest automatically for one person or it may require training and activation for another to use it and even to learn to use them effectively and consistently. Some gifts even require the collaboration of other gifted persons, such as tongues and interpretation of tongues.
INCIDENT 3 – THE ANSWER TO ALL QUESTIONS
The most interesting incident was precipitated by my request to submit a list of unanswered questions I had compiled over the years to the Lord. In another NDE related in Dr. Richard Eby’s book, “Caught Up Into Paradise”, the author of that book was granted an opportunity to have any question he asked answered by God Himself! However, after reading the book, I felt that those questions were rather basic and could have been answered by ordinary means. Therefore a wonderful opportunity to ask deeper questions was missed. In response I compiled a list of my own questions to be ready in case I had a comparable opportunity.
Just before my body was to be resurrected, Christ gave me a choice between having the answers to my list, or the answers to His list of questions. I had little idea what His list was, but understood it must be far superior to mine. So, despite a powerful desire to know the answers to my list, I chose to have His list answered instead. It turned out that His list was all questions pertaining to the history of humanity.
The list of all questions was too vast and intricate for an ordinary human mind to grasp, so Christ invited me to become one with Him and share His mind so I could understand the process of answering all questions. There was no precedent for this, so I was apprehensive about the broader implications and possible consequences of such a union (e.g. would my personality cease to exist independently? could it be safely reversed? Would I be the same afterwards?, how much would I retain? etc.) , but trusting His good nature I agreed to this.
The union with the mind of Christ, and the mind of the Father (but not the mind of Holy Spirit²) was quickly done in what seemed like a totally natural and normal process. Not only was my individuality maintained, but this unity with God seemed like a state I had experienced before, though lost to memory. While being fully self-aware with all my personality and memories intact, I was also aware of God’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, activities and etc. I knew and experienced everything He did, and His being was infinitely vast and very, very dynamic! Yet in that state an infinity was a perfectly comprehensible concept, as easily understood and applied as counting 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C is to us. Another interesting quality of the mind of God is His ability to master multiple subjects and many levels simultaneously. He does not have to divert His attention from one subject to focus on another completely different matter. He can master an infinite number of vast and complex subjects simultaneously with complete ease.
For example, after a brief glimpse of God’s broader activities, He focused our attention on a singular subject, the history of mankind. From His perspective human history has already run its course from start to finish (The creation we live in was planned in infinite detail even before the first atom was called into being!) I was shown human history from two general perspectives. Graphically it took the form of bundles of threads. Each thread represented a human life. The thread started at conception and then ran along a time line until the aggregate bundles divided into two streams. One, the smaller bundle, drew upwards and terminated into an intense white light. This represented the saved who went to heaven. The remainder turned downwards and terminated in reddish flames. This represented the damned who went to hell. Proportionally it was 2.5%+/- 0.01% saved and the rest damned. The threads were different colors at different times in their lives. When they lived according to God’s criteria of selfless love, the thread was white. As their behavior departed from God’s standards, they darkened from beige through tan and brown to black for the most heinous sins: laziness, cowardice, selfishness, perversion, iniquity (i.e. attempting to displace God) etc. The threads were clearly bound together in distinct groupings beginning with family units, then communities, next larger groupings such as municipalities, counties or parishes, states, nations and empires. A particularly interesting feature was the occasional nodes where larger bundles came together. Here I learned that history was exceptionally malleable and a relatively small number of people who understood the related principals could readily have a profound and lasting impact on history.
The other way God viewed history was realized as an interesting exercise Christ led me through. As if watching a single person acting out their life alone on stage, we followed a particular person’s life from beginning to end. Each time they made a decision it would cause a branch in their personal history. One decision would put them on one course, and another decision would put them on another. In some cases the number of options were far more than just two. God foreknew every possible decision and the related outcome. In this way the Lord demonstrated literally an infinite number of possibilities for each person’s life. However, while the number of possibilities were infinite, the scope of the ultimate outcomes was carefully bounded and always lead to one of the two possible results: heaven or hell. Examining all the possibilities in a person’s life was for the Lord a very simple exercise that subjectively took but a moment.
²Holy Spirit has been on earth and absent from heaven since Pentecost1
The next step in the exercise was to see how two people’s decisions interacted. Mathematically this was an infinite number of permutations multiplied by another infinite number of permutations. Though it involved thoroughly analyzing ∞² possibilities, this was accomplished with minimal effort or subjective time. (Heaven, literally God’s presence or being, is outside of time and does not follow a linear time scale. Instead, activities in heaven progress in terms of cycles and levels – a deep and interesting subject too involved for this article). Following this step, the analysis was expanded to include families, communities, municipalities, etc. until the whole human race was examined. Subjectively this felt like about five minutes of casual observation. One remarkable thing I observed was that from God’s perspective human activity and history in general is very orderly, sensible and purposeful. Every detail is replete with meaning and purpose. Randomness, meaninglessness and chaos are far less prevalent than it appears from our perspective. Even the devil’s attempts to oppose God’s purposes and pervert His design ultimately work towards God’s goals and even enhance them! Seeing things from His point of view made it all seem so simple and inevitable, like looking over the design of a master engineer and seeing how the various components of an assembly all work together to function smoothly to transform a given input into a desired output.
Christ actually took me through this exercise three times, apparently because I missed the main point the first two times. For this unique and fascinating exercise thrilled and excited me so much that I overlooked a key point the first two times. To highly simplify the experience, I will just say that on the third cycle I finally grasped that the threads were white when the motives were right. That is, the criteria for righteousness was to make a person’s decision based simply on a motive of selfless, unconditional love. To the Godhead, motives actually count more than deeds! At that point I suddenly realized how important learning to love unconditionally and selflessly was to God. He created a vast universe so that on one small planet humanity, knowing good and evil, could exercise free will, have the priceless opportunity to learn selfless, unconditional love and learn to resist and reject evil in a way not possible in the perfect order of heaven. However, because we are eternal beings created in God’s image with the unlimited potential to grow, develop, unite corporately and etc., He also needed a way to absolutely confine and utterly destroy those that chose evil over good. For if evil people learned the secret of immortality, were allowed to escape the confines of earth, unite corporately and grow indefinitely, they would be an existential threat to heaven and the rest of us who learned to love God, our neighbor and ourselves with perfect love.
One final observation here was that since heaven is outside of time, and heaven and hell operate in independent eternities, from God’s perspective eternity in hell has already passed for the damned too. That was interesting to observe because the eternal, indestructible spirits of the damned were returned to God after their souls, the seat of the personalities that made them individuals, were completely destroyed by an eternity of infinite torment in hell. For made in the image of God, a person’s spirit-man is immortal and indestructible like God is. Only an eternity of infinite destruction could erase them. Thus the necessity of hell. From the perspective of the damned, they suffer infinite tortures for an infinite duration in hell. Yet from God’s perspective their body and soul are destroyed in hell (the damned get a new body on Judgment Day, which only serves to enhance their sufferings) and the eternal, indestructible spirit, purged of all traces of their personality, is returned to and incorporated back into God again, virtually instantly. All records of those damned to hell are also purged from memory in heaven. It is as if they never existed and even the history of creation is redefined to nullify the effects of their existence. The damned are neither remembered nor mourned.
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Karl Falken
Karl Falken was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He grew up in Central New Jersey with two siblings. He attended Juniata College and the Georgia Institute of Technology on a dual degree program in mechanical engineering from which he graduated in 1985. Karl currently lives in the great state of Wyoming where he works as a Mechanical Engineer, a profession he has worked full-time in for over 35 years. His hobbies include writing, gardening, family genealogy, traveling, camping and historical reenacting (living history). Above all, he seeks to live to the greater glory of God by being obedient to God’s revelation through the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit.
