Although she was revived after eighteen minutes of treatment, she had to be placed on life support. Four days later on June 13 at the age of twenty-four, she passed into the light. But her story did not end there. One year later on the anniversary of the day Kari was admitted to the hospital, her father Lance was busy at home working when the house alarm began to sound from the closet in the hall. He immediately went over to the closet where the alarm box was located. When he opened the door, the alarm suddenly stopped. At first it seemed odd because the alarm was disconnected. It was at that moment he looked down and noticed a child’s wooden sweater rack, which Kari’s grandfather had given Kari when she was a child. The rack is a wood cutout portrait of a little blond girl with the name “Kari” on it. Lance looked at this situation somewhat startled as he then turned his attention to the alarm box which he had disconnected one year earlier. You can just imagine his continued shock when he looked at the alarm. The electrical wires remained disconnected—black, red, and open ended, dangling downward pointing to the rack.
He then sat down in utter astonishment feeling his daughter’s essence all around him. As a bereaved father, he knew this must be a sign from his daughter. But as a scientist, his rational mind was trying to find a more logical explanation for what had just occurred.
Fifteen minutes later when his wife Leslie (Kari’s stepmother) came home, the alarm again sounded before he had a chance to tell her what had occurred. She smiled and cried along with him. Afterwards, the two took in the events of the day and started cooking dinner when for the third time the alarm sounded even louder and would not stop even after they had opened the closet door. At this moment with the alarm blaring away Lance sat down in front of the wood cutout rack of his daughter Kari, closed his eyes, and touched the name Kari. In that instant he saw a vivid scene in his mind of his mother, daughter, and father all waving and laughing at him in a bright light sitting down on a beautiful green hill. His dad was giving him the thumbs up as he often did. All three were young, healthy, happy, and radiating love. Finally the alarm stopped for the last time. The picture above is the photo Lance took of the closet on that day. (Notice the wires dangling from the alarm in the upper-right corner).
Four nights later was the first anniversary of the hour when Lance held his daughter for the last time and told her to go to the light. “I told her we will always love you, but you are free to go home,” he explained. On this night Lance was at his computer reading a story he had written two months earlier about Kari’s passing. He had several scanned pictures in the story. He was scrolling down the pages and happened to find the last photo taken of his daughter. But now, to his amazement, there was something distinctly different about this last picture of her. As bright as could be, a rainbow-shaped tunnel now appeared behind his daughter on a wall that was once barren and beige. While there was only sunlight on the wall before, now it showed all the colors of the rainbow.
Fortunately, Lance had two versions of this picture: the original one on his desktop computer and another on his laptop. He immediately went to the other photo on his desktop computer and confirmed that there was no such tunnel behind his daughter in the original. The walls were, in fact, barren. Below is the original photo, followed by the photo Lance found on that magical moment one year to the hour when he told his daughter they would always love her, but when the light comes, go to it.
In Lance Beem’s words, “that night I tried to transfer or print the photo, but each time it would only print without the rainbow in the background. This really freaked me out, and I was afraid I would lose the picture so I finally grabbed my digital camera and took a picture of the computer screen to send it to Dr. Melvin Morse and others that I trusted to witness what was happening. I was numb but convinced she was letting us know she was okay.” Her message was obvious, he said, “We are all from the light and never lost.”
Author’s Note: Lance William Beem has been working in agricultural sciences for the past thirty years. As a plant scientist, he has been researching, among other things, plant growth, physiology, and protection against disease. He has both a BS and MS in biology sciences. For more information, visit the Web site www.abeemoflight.com.
As I said earlier, this is one of the most incredible validations that I have ever heard. What are the chances of a disconnected alarm sounding three times on the anniversary of Kari’s admittance to the hospital? What are the chances of a once barren photo suddenly appearing with a rainbow in the background? Is this a coincidence? In fact, Dr. Melvin Morse, one of the most recognizable and trusted names in NDE research and a contributor to this book (see his story The God Spot: Our Connection to the Divine on page 237), reviewed the photos above and believes the rainbow resembles those shared by others who have had NDEs. As an example, he told of a young boy who spoke of going down a noodle (tunnel) with the colors of a rainbow.
An NDE refers to a wide range of personal experiences associated with those who have had a brush with death. In addition to encountering the colors of a rainbow and a Being of Light as mentioned earlier, there are several other characteristics which are believed to be common in an NDE. According to Melvin Morse, there are nine common traits:
1. Peace and no longer feeling pain
2. The sense of moving through a tunnel
3. Having a “life review”
4. Numerous aftereffects including everything from the loss of fear of death, increase in psychic powers, and higher level of spirituality to changes in personality
5. Having an OBE (out-of-body experience)
6. Having a sense of being dead
7. Encountering a “Being of Light” or Supreme Source
8. Encountering relatives or other “people of light” and
9. Being reluctant to return to life
It is important to note that death is not the only trigger for the near-death experience. As you will read in some of the accounts included in this book, trauma, fear, and shock are often causes of an NDE. And at other times, there is no trauma but an altered state of consciousness that triggers the NDE and/or out-of-body experience.
All the contributors in this book say they were transformed by their experience in many ways. In addition to the aftereffects mentioned above, experiencers often come back with a sense of knowing and purpose. They say that they don’t just believe there is a God, they know there is.
Cayce could not agree more and explained that his belief in God and the afterlife came from not only the experiences of his father and renowned grandfather but also his own. “For me, it’s not about a belief in an afterlife or God; it’s a knowing beyond knowing,” he states. “When you trust your experience, you just know. It’s not a belief.”
Regardless of your beliefs, my intent in this book is not to convince you that there is a God. Although I am a firm believer in God, Supreme Being, or whatever you choose to call it, I will not preach. What I will do is present credible near-death experiences and chapters written by respected experts in the field of NDE research so that you can arrive at your own conclusions. My hope is that after reading this book, you, too, will come to know that there is certainly a God and there is definitely no death.
1Good News Bible (New York: American Bible Society, 1978), 1.
2Dannion Brinkley, Saved by the Light (New York: Harper