Background

“I had a frightening childhood experience at age eight. As a result, I grew up fearful and obsessed with the question of evil and the need for human justice, but I didn’t think I could ever have any impact on the larger picture or that there was a Divine realm with greater power that could flow through my actions. I was happy to work as a secretary and support other people’s dreams, never marrying or opening up my emotional center to men. I was afraid to die, angry, and afraid to really live. Bookish, shy, and very serious, I kept to myself. I had been a “strange” child; reading the encyclopedia in elementary school, yet not finding any answers. I couldn’t understand how other children stayed naïve; I had an adult mind in a child’s body. I felt that I had been robbed of my childhood too young. “

Spiritually Transformative Experiences

Beverly’s near-death experience occurred following a motorcycle accident. Due to the great emotional and physical pain brought on by her injuries, she wanted her life to end. At the moment of her prayer for death, her NDE began. The entire account, including aftermath, can be read at this link or you may watch her tell of her experience here. Her NDE is the concluding one in Dr. Kenneth Ring’s book Lessons from the Light (2006). Her adult experience is also featured in Arvin Gibson’s They Saw Beyond Death (2006), Kevin Williams’ Nothing Better than Death (2002) and her childhood experience is in PMH Atwater’s books The New Children and Near-Death Experiences (2003) and Children of the New Millenium (1999).

Beverly’s frightening childhood experience at age eight can be read here.

Integration Issue(s)

“After my NDE, I was overflowing with joy and bliss during the most painful part of my recovery from a fractured skull. For short time, I saw things as they truly are, as Blake says, infinite. There is a spark of the love and light I merged with on the other side in every molecule, being, creature, object, and even every person. This could be a Garden of Eden, if we but recognized what is really here, God’s immanent presence underlying and supporting all existence. I rethought everything I’d ever been told and believed in the first two days , because nobody had ever told me about the Being of Light/God/All that is. I knew that if your assumptions were wrong, your conclusions were generally wrong. I realized that there is a Higher Power that loves us unconditionally, that each of us is here by design and connected to everything else, that this is not to a random universe, and that life continues both before birth and after death. My outer life changed as well. I had my first serious relationship with a boy, reconciled with my mother, went to college, even married and had a child, something I previously foreswore.”

“It’s hard to stay enlightened in American society; there are so many distractions and demands and worries. The major problem I faced was that I had been to a place of perfection, and I wanted to let others know about it. I was too open and loving. I felt reviled and misunderstood. I learned to keep quiet and to close my heart down.

Every Jewish funeral I went to I wanted to shout out that we don’t die, but I knew better than to share that insight. Everyone around me believed that when you’re dead, you’re dead, that consciousness is in the brain, and that the petty details of life—possessions, competition– were important. People believe that they are their life roles, only that. This coarsens our interactions with each other, and leaves no room for light to enter and to live in the present moment, because there’s always something we should be doing or thinking /worrying about. We are supposed to trust our bodies to doctors and drugs, rather than work with and trust the life force within. I believe this led to my stroke in December 2007.

I found the most support among psychics and mystics. They helped me learn to meditate, which was the greatest gift and most help to me. I learned that I can connect with that light and love, although it is much dampened down. It took my trying many, many different paths, and synthesizing the one that works for me, which is still a work in process. I try my best to live my message of love and peace, because if not me, then who will? This is not always easy, and I don’t always succeed, because I have many old patterns to heal, but it is also part of the Great Work. Using the alchemy of that which we receive above, we can transform the dross below into gold, perhaps platinum. The books that most helped me integrate my experience were:

• Life after Life – Raymond Moody. I learned I wasn’t alone in my experience.
• Life at Death—Kenneth Ring. I learned about IANDS and made that important connection.
• Lessons from the Light—Kenneth Ring. I’ve used parts of this book to help people understand the true meaning of life.
• Varieties of Religious Experiences—William James (Viking, Penguin, Harrisonburg, Va 1982). James believed that religious experiences, not theology, were the backbone of organized religion.
• Autobiography of a Yoga—Paramahansa Yogananda. (1946 reprint, LA. CA) This book proved to me that miracles were universal.”

Transformative Beliefs**

“I believe that life continues, that there is a fundamental unity that manifests in diverse forms, and that everything is alive. I believe in a Divine Creator that I call God that loves us perfectly, no matter what we’ve done. I believe we choose our challenges in life, that there are no victims; however, we must be compassionate for all beings, including the Earth herself. I believe that love heals everything; indeed there is nothing here but love, which is our essence. Our business and financial systems are based on greed and conquest, the win/lose mentality of warfare.

We need a more sustainable society, where we can live in harmony with each other and the earth and all its creatures and substances. I respect all people, even those I disagree with, and honor the native traditions that are dying out everywhere because of development. I find comfort in the discoveries and the language of quantum physics, that all life is entangled (interconnected) and holographic (as above, so below). What I yearn for is that there be a marriage of ancient mysteries and modern science.”

Current STE related activities

A Vassar graduate who retired from 28 years of service for the federal government as a business and computer analyst as well as team leader and mentor, Beverly speaks to many groups and the media on near-death and mystical experiences. Her latest project is writing her own book that includes research culled from 20 years of running support groups affiliated with the International Association for Near-Death Studies in Philadelphia and San Diego. She edited a newsletter that went out to an audience of over 3,000 subscribers for two years. She is also a non-denominational minister loosely affiliated with Science of Mind and does healing prayer and intuitive counseling.

“For the past 20 years I have run groups for near-death experiencers, given talks and seminars, written articles, done interviews both locally, on the Internet, and internationally. For the last seven years I have been a non-denominational Science of Mind minister, and have counseled people facing death and depression, giving them hope. I am still learning and growing in compassion, empathy, and understanding, in order to more perfectly live the truth that wherever I am, God is.”

Beverly is fascinated by the overwhelming evidence for the survival of consciousness after death. She was profiled in McCall’s; the BBC documentary The Human Body; did the first NDE program on Israeli public radio; and has been featured in Who’s Who in America for the past three years, as well as Who’s Who in American Women and Who’s Who in the World since 2007. She is working on her first book and was the assistant producer for the film Reflections: Beyond and Back.

How to contact Beverly

Beverly may be reached by clicking here.