Father Nigel's 2 NDEs (Near Death Experiences)

0:00 From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else. The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home. Welcome, welcome to RoundtripDeath everybody and to our very special guest today, Reverend Nigel Mumford.

0:46 Good morning, Nigel, how are you? I'm very good today, thank you, very good. I'm alive. Hey, we're both alive. And I will tell people, you gave me permission to call, just call you Nigel. Yes. I don't want to be irreverent or disrespectful. Does that still hold? Absolutely, sir. Yeah. Okay. Well, I appreciate it very much. Normally, at the beginning of our interviews, before we get into somebody's near-death experience, I ask a guest to tell us a little bit about themselves. We just like to get to know you. I want to do it slightly different with you. I want you to tell me, just take a minute or so, what is an average day like for you?

1:29 What do you do from sun up to sun down? Well, on a Sunday is different than the other days of the week. I only work in the mornings because I'm semi-retired, medically retired. But basically, I listen, love and pray to people all over the world in person and on Zoom. I've been called to the healing ministry 34 years ago. And as a former drill instructor in Her Majesty's War on Marine Commodos, I was a green beret. My job was to make Roman cry. Now I'm a priest. I still make Roman cry, and women and children. Not intentionally, of course. But I found my calling, and I just love my work. There's nothing else I'd want to do.

2:10 It would have been nice if it was in England, in my home country, but God has planted me here and we bloom where we're planted. So really, it's been an incredible journey. It still is, from wanting to be an English Bobby, failing the entrance exam three times, joining Her Majesty's War on Marine Commodos because I needed to prove myself, passing the entire green beret course in seven months' first time without failing. And then going to combat for a year of my life and going around the world. Prince Charles, I was on board ship with the now King Charles, he was my helicopter pilot. Lots of stories, written several books, and a life-changing moment of a woman one day coming into my shop saying, we've got a headache.

2:53 And I saw my hands gone to her head and she said, what did you do? The pain is gone. So my life has been totally changed from several, well, two major near-death experiences and 16 very close calls with that. By the way, if anybody wants to reach out to you later, it's fathernigel.com. It'll be in the show notes. And there they can learn about your books and how to get ahold of you and things like that. I can't imagine you as the tough drill sergeant guy making grown men cry because you are so kind and so gentle. And it would almost be funny to see that alter ego of you. Looking back on that, it was an absolute act I put on that face.

3:36 And it all was. I mean, it was all a big show because quite frankly, you're dealing with death and their possible death. If they didn't do combat right, if I didn't train them properly, they would die. Or their mates would die. So yeah, I was a mean, green, mean fighting machine. And I'm not so mean. And not so lean, I can tell you. Welcome to the club. Okay, let's go back to, let's see. Wow. Back when you were a Marine, this was, this isn't the NDE that we're going to talk about the most, but you have a couple of them. So let's start there.

4:16 You had a drowning incident. Tell me what happened. Well, it was 1975. I'd been in the Marines for a couple of years. It was a Sunday morning. I was in Malta in the Blue Lagoon, the Blue Cross, excuse me, in Malta. And I had a hangover. I didn't have breakfast. I'd never been diving before. I rented equipment. The weight belt was way too heavy for me and I didn't know how to remove it. And I very stupidly went down to 75 feet on my first dive, which is really stupid. I mean, we did a little test in the shallows and just went under to make sure that the equipment was working. But then for some reason, I just followed this valley under underwater and sat on the sand.

5:01 And I remember looking up thinking, how do I get here from there? I've seen movies of divers swimming this way and going down, but I've never really seen a dive go up and I didn't know how to go up. So I looked up and remembering, I absolutely freaked out. But I did too that. There was water in my mask that went up my nose. I didn't know how to clear it. And I choked. I panicked. And I shot up. After sitting in the peaceful surroundings on the sand at the bottom of this valley underwater, the realization of not knowing how to get from here is almost like looking at the ceiling today, realizing there's no way I don't know how to get to the ceiling. We can't get to the ceiling. But underwater you can. Not the illusion of pure, not the illusion, the pure panic that came about me realizing I didn't know the protocols.

5:46 And of course, I shot straight up. I didn't know that I had to continue to let my air out of my lungs. Otherwise, I'd have an embolism or the bends. I knew that. But Eric, I remember reaching the surface and screaming a few bad words. I was a marine. I've given them up, given them up mostly as a praise, but they do slip out. Sometimes once a marine or was a marine. I come out of the water and I get pulled down under and I come out again. And then I'm realizing somehow I'm next to the rocks and I'm trying to claw myself out with all the equipment. I couldn't get the weight belt off. I was clawing my way up the rocks, which were very jagged. The rocks in the Mediterranean are sharp, not softened like they are here in the waves.

6:29 Afterwards I had no skin left and all my fingers, all the skin had been ripped off. All my fingernails were split laterally. The pain was excruciating and my knees were all scraped up and I had 62, 3 quarter inch C.H. and needles in my feet as well afterwards. But anyway, so here am I being dragged under, dragged under. I couldn't get the weight belt off. And then I knew it was time. I knew it was time to die. But I knew I'd held my breath as long as I could. And I was in sheer panic, absolutely traumatized by knowing that this is it. And it was an extraordinary feeling because as I took in that breath. What I expected was totally opposite. It was absolute peace.

7:10 This peace of sort of filtered into me. No fear, no worry, total peace. And when that happened, I just relaxed and obviously I assume I just sank. Then I saw this yellow bright yellow disc circle like a tunnel. I always assume when we say where it's having we look up. But actually it can be from any point of the 180 from one side of the globe to the other. We can point this way, you know, and heavens over there. And that's what I realized that this tube wasn't a vertical tube. It was actually horizontal. So it sucked me up into this yellow, beautiful, peaceful vision experience of absolute joy.

7:54 And then I saw the, you know, I don't know if I realized I was supposed to see slides of my life. But that's what happened. I saw slides like a slide show, old fashioned slide show. Wonderful. And then gone, then lights out. So but I know I only got up to my waist and I was sort of hanging sideways. My body was here. My feet were hanging down. I could smile now, but at the time it was nothing to smile about. And then lights out. I was told later that there was a Royal Navy diving team around the corner that they came heard by my words of help. They came, called me out, resuscitated me to have any memory of that. Next memory I had of that incident was in the backseat of the rental car that I'd rented my friend Chris driving like a crazy man and vomiting copious amounts of sea water.

8:40 Gasping in between each breath has always water came out. And I got to tell you, Eric, that I thought this is a real bad day because when I came to, we were on the wrong side of the road headed for a Maltese bus. When the Maltese drivers, bus drivers, I know they're being pretty bad. I pushed myself up having rotted lots of water, realizing, oh God, I'm going to die in a car crash. Anyway, the next thing I remember was going to the hospital. I remember the noise of a helicopter because they were going to send me down to the diving chamber to, you know, put me in one of those, what do you call them? Isobaric chambers. Thank you very much. Thank you.

9:20 Yeah. I was in hospital for three days. They didn't find me down there. I spent three days in hospital and I was a mess. I really was. And I didn't tell anybody about the experience because I didn't think fellow Marines would appreciate my story. And I never told that story to anybody, not even to the physician, until I emigrated to America in 1980 and I saw a TV on NEDs, a TV show, and somebody described what I'd experienced. Whoa, I can talk about this. Now I'm not nuts. Well, back then, people did think you were crazy if you talked about it. In fact, the term near-death experience, I don't know if you know this. It was devised that very same year in 1975, I believe, by Dr. Raymond Moody.

10:00 Really? Really? So there's a 50th anniversary of that coming up this year. That doesn't mean NDEs didn't happen before then. We just didn't have a name for them. We didn't know what to call them. Bibliologically, I would challenge you on that. And because 2 Corinthians 12-2 writes about Paul, who was stoned almost to death and he survived. And he writes, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. So Paul is talking in the third person. He says, I know a man in Christ. It was him. So he's deflecting it. And he says, listen to this, whether it was in body or out of body, I don't know. So the Bible coined the term out of body experiences, which is what NEDs are.

10:42 NDE, excuse me. NDE, yeah. NDE, bit of dyslexia there. Anyway, and this is what my book was based on, knowing that Paul had had this experience and he was nearly killed by being stoned to death. Somehow he survived, but he was caught up into the third heaven, which is describing the highest realm where God's presence is most divine. And I like that. You know, Raymond Moody, yes, coined the phrase, NED, death experience, but this goes way back to even before Paul. I'm sure they've been going on forever. Most people didn't talk about him. Paul was gutsy enough to talk about it, and that's pretty cool.

11:23 Heck, Lazarus. I mean, he, the classic NED death experience, you know. Come out and he comes out with his grave clothes on. I mean, I love that story. And the woman who's dead, the child who's dead. I mean, it's in the Bibles. Jarius' daughter. Exactly. Well done, sir. Yes, I couldn't remember her name, sir. I'd better take this off. I couldn't quote the verse. Don't be do that. I can look it up. I know the story, it's an awesome story because I have daughters I can feel for him, how he must have been feeling when that happened. By the way, I just have to interject this because every time it seems like on this podcast, if someone comes on and starts talking about Christianity or for that matter, some other religion, and we talk about all of it here, this is a very non-denominational and safe space.

12:19 And somebody is going to say, oh, that Father Nigel, he just had a Christian agenda, blah, blah, blah. Okay, get over yourself. Whoever is thinking that, we're just talking about what happened to you and what happened to other people. And people on this show have seen Buddha and Muhammad and other things like that. And I can't give all the reasons why these experiences are so different, but they are. And that's okay. And it doesn't mean that they're not real. I vet everybody before they come on this show. Did we have a pre-interview the other day? We sure did. Okay, that's how it works.

13:00 I have kind of a crazy meter if I think somebody's off relying to me. You haven't heard them on the show because I don't put them on. Good, oh God. That's not a crazy meter. I want to say God vetting people because they shouldn't do that. And having said that, having said that, Eric, I want to say that I have nothing to prove. I have absolutely nothing to prove. I don't need to prove anything. Even this near-death experience, I didn't need to prove the Bible. I have nothing. I don't have an agenda. I just think this is a privilege to tell my story so people aren't afraid of death. I appreciate that. I have one question about this first experience of yours. Yeah.

13:40 I think that's how terrifying it must have been and the fact that we know now about how there can be a second drowning even when you're in the hospital and have been saved. People can die later that night and things like that. But you mentioned, I believe you called it sort of like a slideshow of seeing things that had happened during your life. And we refer to those as life reviews. I'd love to hear more about that. What was that like? What kinds of things did you see? I saw vivid slides of my past, my parents picnicking on Dartmoor, in Devon, all sorts of flashes of my life.

14:22 The weird thing, Eric, was that I wasn't sure if I was supposed to think that or it was actually happening. And for some reason, I knew that you were supposed to see that when you died. So I can't correlate the difference of thinking, well, I'm supposed to see this, I'm dying, I'm supposed to see flashes. But I knew what I saw. Did you see good things that happened and maybe things that you regretted both? No, all good. Everything was all positive. All good. Yeah, everything was all good. So you probably felt no guilt or anything then? No, none at all. It was lovely. I mean, the sad thing, the only drawback was this. I used to own a picture frame business and somehow I got onto this conversation with a woman who didn't tell me the reason why she wanted me to talk about this near-death experience.

15:10 And when I'd finished telling her the story, this was in Connecticut, she told her that her sister went for a swim and didn't stop swimming. She committed suicide. And the irony of this was that she was asking me what it was like to drown without telling me why and when she told me, I felt so gutted. It was way before I was a priest. I felt so broken. I felt betrayed. But what had happened to her, that it gave her great peace in knowing that actually breathing in water, and I'm not condoning suicide by any means, but she felt comforted by what had happened to me because that probably happened to her sister. So how did you feel?

15:52 Explain what you were feeling. It was two parts. As I mentioned, the first part was raw terror of trying to get the belt off, of being dragged under. And I ripped my mask off, by the way, when I reached the surface because I didn't want to rely on the breathing tube and I couldn't get it back as I was being pulled under. So totally helpless, fighting for my life, trying to stay afloat, trying to breathe, raw fear, panic. And then being dragged under, holding my breath for as long as I possibly could, and then knowing, okay, this is it. I don't know where the pictures came in. I think it probably came after I took the breath, but the breath, the water.

16:33 But I knew without a doubt my next breath was death. I knew that. So I held my breath to the ultimate point when I had to breathe in, and actually again what I'd breathe in was peace. Absolute peace. There was no fear, no worry, no anxiety, all that just drifted away, and it was okay. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, I'm smiling because my soul is smiling and remembering this. I don't get to tell this story very often. It's extremely personal, but it's very real. Now let me just qualify this because as a Royal Marine I spent a whole year of my life in combat. I wouldn't say where it was, but it was extremely unpleasant. I saw raw man's inhumanity to man.

17:14 I saw horrific deaths. I saw people shot at, blown up. Just dreadful experiences, apart from the fact that I was shot at three times and blown up five times, and also injured in the head, which bleeds very much, but that's another story. So, you know, having witnessed death for a year of my life, very traumatic death, and quite frankly spending that entire year constantly worrying when I was on patrol, either in a vehicle on foot or guarding the base camp, constantly thinking, where is it, where's it going to hurt? Where's the bullet going to hit me? Is it going to go in my eyes? Is it going to hit my shoulder? What's it going to feel like? The bombs, I was involved in five very, very powerful bombs, one in particular, the Nestle and its milk chocolate factory, but I won't go into details.

17:59 But anyway, it was so bad it blew me off my feet, and I ended up putting my hands in my ears and down with trousers, the major I saw, it still together because it felt like I'd been kicked. And I couldn't hear for several hours. It was death, totally death. But, you know, having spent a year of my life in raw fear, raw anxiety, constantly worrying what's it going to feel like, and then having this drowning experience took away all that fear. And the second thing we're going to talk about later, also that qualifying, quantifying, underpinning that fear, which has gone completely. Pain, that's another story which I'll talk about, but the fear of death has gone.

18:41 I have no fear of death. And I'm living my life to the fullest. Sadly, I mean, many people, you know, I talk to a lot of people every day. I've talked to thousands of people. Fear of death is up there. It really is in the human realm of nature. And you know, that has gone with me completely. Then having, as a priest, having held the hands of many people dying, wonderful deaths. I've had some wonderful stories of that, if you'd like me to share that. One particular story. Let's come back to those. I'm going to make a note here. How does it change someone's life when they have no fear of death? I can't tell anybody else, but only from my own experience, how did it change my life? Is to realize that this is not a dress rehearsal.

19:23 This is it. This is our one chance. For me, the second experience I had, the joy, the two things happened of the second experience. One was that I totally lost my sense of direction. If it wasn't for GPS, I think I'd be in Marrakesh. But it also gave me a brand new sense of humor. Let's go ahead and jump to that experience. So we're going to fast forward to 2009 now, correct? Go ahead and tell us what happened then. 2009, I was invited by the British government, the Royal Air Force, to speak at a conference on post-traumatic stress. One of my books is called, After the Trauma of the Battle Begins. I specialize in traumatic experiences, particularly in combat stress.

20:07 So I'd been invited to be a speaker for several hundred Royal Air Force members. When I was there in 2009, I picked up the swine flu, unbeknownst to me, I didn't know, I picked up the H1M1 virus. So I came back to the United States on the Friday, I think it was Saturday night. I couldn't stop coughing, violent coughing, just couldn't stop. And it's during the morning, I said to my wife, I think I need to go to the hospital. Men don't like to admit it, but I said there's something wrong. So I went to the hospital, saw the on-duty doctor, the ER, who gave me a puffer, said, you're having adult onset asthma and sent me home.

20:50 An hour or two later, I used the puffer and collapsed with respiratory arrest. My wife and my daughter were with me and I was dying in front of them. They were screaming, they were terrified, I couldn't breathe. Anyway, they called an ambulance, ambulance came, picked me up, rushed me back to the hospital. The same doctor who'd seen me before saw me and I shall never, ever forget his face of absolute horror thinking I shouldn't have sent him home. I remember that. In fact, I wrote him a letter, never responded. So for the next 10 days I was in the hospital, they thought I had Legionnaires' disease because I'd been in a place where the air condition was so filthy. That's another story. Anyway, they thought I had Legionnaires. So I was isolated and actually they put a fan on me because I had a temperature of 104.

21:34 So this fan was spreading the disease all around the room. They didn't realize it. I don't remember them being masked. But anyway, so for 10 days I was coughing so violently, so badly, they put me in an induced coma because I hadn't slept. And I remember saying goodbye to my wife and I knew I was, again, this time I was going to die the second time. So I remember seeing her leave and remembering people behind me and having been told that I was going to be in an induced coma and then lights out. I know my wife was asked to leave before they integrated me, thank goodness. And then lights out. And that was it. I mean, I was asleep. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now, chronologically, I can't give the timeline because I was in a coma for three weeks.

22:18 My wife was with me for 72 straight days. My body had an ice blanket on it and my blood was being dialysis chilled. My blood was actually being chilled through dialysis. It was that bad. When I was in this state, there was one point where the doctor said there's nothing more we can do. And there's when a friend of mine stepped up and said, okay, now it's God's turn, but I'll come back to that. So Eric, I'm in a coma. And the first extraordinary thing that I saw was a blade of grass. A color in all of my visions that God gave me. The color was, I can't even describe the color. The first was a blade of grass, a big, great blade of grass.

23:01 And I just observed that blade of grass for, seemed like ages. So I was just looking at this, the beauty of this blade of grass, one blade of grass, observing it, looking at it, enjoying it. And then pulling back and seeing many blades of grass. Then pulling back again and seeing three granite steps. The color of that granite, you know, granite is gray and white-ish. And the color was just extraordinary, these three steps. What did that represent? Perhaps the trinity, I don't know. I walked up the three steps. I walked on this beautiful grass path where I saw three white tulips. Perfect. Absolutely perfectly. All of them slightly different, but all perfect.

23:41 Then I walked on a bit more. Oh, let me go back a show. I missed that, a very important thing. I'm lying in bed. I realize I'm lying in bed and then I realize I'm leaving my body. This is very important and I forgot that bit. So I felt my whole spirit leave and go up through the roof and I'm thinking, you can't do that. You just can't physically go through the roof. There seemed to be a correlation of rising to the water level and going through the ceiling, which I did. And I went through the ceiling. I remember trying to turn my head to say goodbye to my wife, Lin. And I don't know whether it was because I was intubated, who knows. Anyway, I tried to say goodbye and I was panicking similar to the water.

24:22 Like, oh my God, I can't say goodbye. And then again, that peace came upon me. No pain, no despair, breathing. I mean, not even aware of breathing. What I saw was complete darkness. Then I saw stars and I saw so many stars, all this light in the darkness. Then I saw this bar about a mile long and about six miles high and it looked like a book. The lights then condensed onto the front of the book. And I know I was looking at the book of life. It's in the Bible. And now I was looking at souls in heaven. It was as if I looked at the first light at the top left hand corner and tried to look underneath it to read the bibliography of that person because I knew it was a soul.

25:05 I knew each white dot was a soul, thousands on each page. And it was like, you don't need to look under the dot, you just look at the light and you know who that person is. Then the bottom of the page turned up in darkness and the whole page turned and I felt the wind of the page of the book of life. I felt this beautiful calming wind cooling me down, which is obviously what I needed. And then the second page and then thousands and thousands and this kept going for, I have no idea, I lost all track of time. But I was being introduced to the book of life and looking at people who are on the book of life. Then I saw the steps and I saw the tulips. Then I saw my house in heaven.

25:46 It was made of glass. I love to tell ladies there was no kitchen in my house. You don't need it. How did you know it was your house? You just knew? I just knew. This is where I'm going to live. Yeah. I also, at some point, again, the time I didn't know, but I also saw the mansions. I saw these beautiful Victorian ladies as they call these mansions. Maybe because I thought I knew I should see that again. I don't know. But I didn't see anybody at this point. I didn't see people. Nobody was there welcoming me to heaven. I didn't see my grandparents. I didn't see anybody. So I saw all these beautiful houses. Then I went back to my house, which was glass. All the corners were made of angle iron.

26:29 Beautiful fire engine red. The red was extraordinary. I mean, you know, everything was glass. The furniture was glass. The bed was glass. The floors were glass, but it was diamond shaped. It wasn't built like a rectangle. It was diamond at the bottom here and then here. And it had various rooms off it. And the amazing thing was on each floor, there was what looked like a heating vent, but you flipped up the lid on it. And you had this gold or silver, and why sometimes it was gold, sometimes it was silver. You dropped this chalice into the water and you grabbed the water from the water, which was flowing through the bottom of the house, living water.

27:10 You could take the chalice, take that water. And if you wanted fish and chips, it tasted like fish and chips. The water did. Yes. If you wanted a gin and tonic, you'd take it. Well, no, I don't drink gin, but I don't drink any more, but I don't drink any less. If you wanted a Guinness. If you wanted a Guinness, it tasted like a Guinness too. Now, it was an extraordinary experience. And not that we need to eat in heaven, but it was just very satisfying. It was very comforting. The frightening bit, I did see sub-darkness. I did see things involving hooks and spikes and major fish hooks and people being stuck on that. But I didn't write about that in my book. I didn't want to focus on the horror.

27:51 But there was a time where I knew it was time and I was crawling down the valley of the shadow of death. And ironically, the walls on the valley were very similar to the rocks in the scuba diving accident. And I knew there was no way I could claw my way out of the valley. There was a correlation between the dry and the drowning. So the path was fairly wide and it was semi-cylindrical. And it was smooth. It was well-worn rock, well-worn smooth wall. And I knew I was paralyzed. I knew I couldn't walk. And I knew I was using my elbows like the leopard core we do in the war marines.

28:32 I was using my elbows to pull myself forward because my legs didn't work. And I knew that. It was not a comfortable experience. It was a revelation knowing that I was crawling to my death, knowing that I wasn't going to come out the other side. The comforting moments were when I looked up, I saw Jesus on the cross, his head down. He didn't say anything, but the only person I saw in heaven was him. And he was looking at me as I was crawling. And his eyes, I don't know if I can do this, his eyes were looking at me and moving from his left to right, looking at me and egging me on. Keep going Nigel, keep going. He didn't say it. He communicated just with his eyes from the cross.

29:16 Today it stounds me. Anyway, I came to this left turn. It was a bit like a railroad track where there's a turn out going straight, one going to the left. And I got to the left point crawling and I stopped and it was hell. Hell was a mockery of heaven. It was black. It was oozing evil. There were these pillars, there were these rocks, there were these walls of pure, pure evil. It was terrifying. And I paused on that journey right there and screamed, no. I remember screaming that in a coma. And it was as if I was invited to look and help.

29:58 And it was beyond terrifying. It was far worse than drowning because I knew it was real. And everything I saw was so real and so colorful, but this gray black mass. I cut him into words. Anyway, thank God, from then I jumped back to the valley and I was crawling along and I came around this corner to the right and there it was, heaven. It looked the same as hell, but it wasn't black, it wasn't dark, it was gold and it was light, it was beautiful. I didn't get to the gate. I can't wait to see Peter when it's my turn because I'm gonna have my hands on my hips and say, Peter, what the heck was that all about? And that vision stopped. So my book I go into far greater detail.

30:39 In writing the book, I got to the point where I had a trach and in writing the chapter on the trach, what had happened was in the dream I had, clearly they were doing the trach, I was, I didn't like male nurses. I didn't want male nurses to come anywhere near me. And these two male nurses grabbed my body off the gurney, threw me on what I thought was the killing table. One of the male nurses stuck his knee in my throat because I wasn't dead. It was 10 o'clock. I saw my coffin. I saw, I heard a clicking of glasses. I heard people, it was just about 10 o'clock and I wasn't dead. So this guy stuck his knee in my throat and I couldn't fight at no power.

31:24 And I couldn't write about that because I was so traumatized because I'd forgotten about it and he came back in writing the book. But realizing what was happening was I was being shown what happened. And I couldn't write for several days until they asked my wife. I said, you know, I told her, I said, you know, it was 10 o'clock, I saw the clock and she looked at me, she said, it was 10 o'clock when they did the trach. And that absolutely blew me away. So that point was, yeah, that was the clearing of being able to realize that actually what I felt was the pressure of my throat being cut. The appliance, or whatever you call it, the thing, the plastic thing they put in the throat and the terror of that.

32:05 And then I was able to write about that. But the irony of that was later after I was upright again, probably six months later, I had a friend of mine who was an FBI agent who jokingly went to grab my throat and I know he broke her arm. With someone who's had a trach, you don't mess with that. It's very frightening. And, you know, it was still there. My marine training was still there. And I always broke her arm. And she looked at me like, what did you do? I said, what the heck did you do? You don't grab someone's throat. Who's had a trach? So when I look back on it, it can be amusing. So anyway, while on this journey of death and the very vivid experience of what I saw, and again, I don't have to prove anything to anybody.

32:49 You can believe it or not, but I know what I saw. But I know it's all biblical. And to discuss that with two of the bishops, two of the three bishops, who actually give me last rites. So I had the last rites for three bishops, knowing that I was going to die. One nurse on Friday went home and said goodbye to me, because she knew I wouldn't be there Monday. When she came back for a Monday shift, she told my wife this, she was astonished to see me alive. She was still there because I shouldn't have been. I lost 68 pounds. I had a trach. I had both lungs punctured to let the water out of the lungs. I had sepsis, myrsa, 100% oxygen for three weeks.

33:33 My lungs are still damaged from that. I had total organ failure. My liver, kidneys and everything, all major organs have stopped working. I was out of here. And somehow, like Lazarus, I was brought back to life. So that's not the end of it. So when I came to, after three weeks, I came to, and I saw my wife. I thought, who's that? Who are you? My daughter walked into it. I recognized her, and I didn't recognize my wife. Looking back on it, I could have had such fun with it. Margie, they were having fun with me because they were going to decorate the room for Christmas, thinking I was going to be in there for a few days and I wake up and, oh, it's Christmas already. And then Christmas was almost there. So they decorated my room for my birthday, messing with me.

34:15 But when I came to, it wasn't decorated anymore because they realized, this is not funny. He's dying. So Eric, when I came to, I remember seeing her, and then I passed out for, I think, another two days. When I came to the second time, I saw two white coats and about eight or nine bodies around these white coats. And because I've been in heaven, I thought they were angels, you know? I'm thinking, okay, and then I realized that they were doctors. Then I realized that the people without white coats were students, and they were looking at me. And I could hear them talking, mumbling, and I wasn't making sense. And then I said, doctor, do you remember E.F. Hutton?

34:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when E.F. Hutton talks, everybody pays attention. So I said, doctor, they all pulled in. Yeah, and he listens. Yeah, they all listen. And they all pay attention. They're looking at me, but why are they talking? He's been in the coming three, and he's talking. What's he going to say? And I heard myself say, I didn't think it, Eric. I heard myself say, doctor, will I be able to play the piano again? And very seriously, he said, oh, yes, no problems. You'll be fine. And then I said, well, that was funny. I couldn't play it before I was sick. Good one. Yeah, they died. They died. They were crying real after. And then I passed out again.

35:37 The weird thing was, I heard myself say it. I didn't think it. You know, when we speak, well, maybe I'm not thinking now, but I'm more obviously, because I think I hope I'm making sense. But when I said that, I knew that I was okay, and they did too. It was a big relief. He's not nuts. He hasn't suffered any brain damage, but he's still got a sense of humor. Well, it was wrong. He was God gave me a new sense of humor to know that, you know, to have joy, to enjoy this life. The greatest medicine is laughter. Laughter is the greatest medicine. And, you know, since then, I have to be very careful, particularly when the bishop's around to tell my humor.

36:18 Well, I agree with you about joy and laughter. They go hand in hand. They're the greatest medicine. I have a truckload of questions. I didn't want to interrupt you as we were going. These are in no apparent order, but one that really jumps out to me. I've interviewed quite a few people who have seen Jesus during their NDE. None of them have seen him on the cross. Why do you think, and I know you have to speculate, but why do you think that's how you saw him? Nobody's asking that question. I think, well, years later, I was speaking in north or south Carolina in a very large church about 500 people.

37:01 And before the service, before my talk, well, it was a series of talks, before the program began, it was a weekend program. I got on my knees and I closed my eyes. And I again saw Jesus on the cross. And you know what? I've never connected these two together. Thank you. Never thought of that. So I closed my eyes and I see Jesus hanging on the cross. So I look at Jesus and he says, pick up that ladder and put it up against me. I want to talk to you. So I said, the guards, the Roman soldiers will stop me. They said, no, they want a tea break. I thought, tea break?

37:41 Tea wasn't invented. I mean, this is the sense of humor in it, you know, that's still after. And then he said, climb up the ladder, which I did. Leaning against the cross. There was blood, there were flies, there was extra mint. It was nasty. And I got up to him and he said, I want you to use your shoulder under my shoulder. I'm dry. I'm suffocating. I need to talk to you. So I put my shoulder under his, I lifted him up. His face is right here. And then he said, I want you to see what I see. And then the vision stopped. And I want to show you, I want to show you this picture. It was painted by a friend of mine who, when I told her the story, that's what it looked like.

38:25 And it was like the last breath of Christ on the cross. You could see the air coming out of it. And there was one bit of red, one bit of color on its forehead. And that's like what I saw in this vision before giving this talk. And that was it. So for those that are listening to the Audio Only podcast, which is the majority of our stories, explain the picture. It's a painting of Christ on the cross. His hair, you can see the crown of thorns. His hair is out. You can see his face downcast. His eyes are closed. You can see the air coming out of his mouth. His last breath. There's no color. It's almost like a silhouette. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a silhouette.

39:05 There's one bit of color above his forehead, one drop of blood. And this was painted for me by this woman who read this story. Yeah, I was going to say I've never seen that painting. It's beautiful. No, you wouldn't have seen it because this is the vision. Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible. And it really says a lot. Doesn't it? And that's the original, by the way. So, ha, I mean, she captured what I saw lifting up Christ. I want you to see what I see. So what I thought that meant was I want you to look at the view from the cross. Now, in all the paintings we see, see of Jesus on the cross, it's on the front, right? Have you ever seen a painting from the view of Christ from behind the cross?

39:47 No, we call that a POV. His point of view. Yes, exactly. Yes, his point of view. Exactly. So, his point of view was he was outside the city, as it says, the Green Hill far away. And I thought he meant he wanted me to see the topography, the geography. And a few people stand his mother and his brothers standing below him, you know. That's what I thought. And that was the end of the vision. So, I go downstairs, a little nervous as I always am before talking. And I go and they do happy clapping music, blah, blah, you know, all that lovely stuff. And then I'm introduced and then I get up and I wasn't planning on saying this, but I heard myself say, I just had a vision and I told him the vision, told him what I just told you.

40:31 And then I realized what he meant. I want you to see what I see. It wasn't the view of the cross. It's these 500 people who are attending. I want you to see the pain, the sorrow, the grief, the despair, the worry, the anxiety, the fear. And I looked at everybody individually, knowing that Christ wanted me to see their pain. So having seen Jesus on the cross in the near death, in my experience of the coma, but now I was seeing Him for real, but then I realized, you know what, I'd never put those two together until now, all these years later. It's extraordinary.

41:11 Thank you. You're very welcome. I have a ton of other questions. We're going to run out of time before we get to that. But so I'm going to go kind of quickly through a few of them. I think it's fascinating when people tell me about the colors that they saw there. How else would you describe the colors? You mentioned grass, granite, things like that. Did they feel, were they just brighter colors than you normally see here? How would you explain them? Far brighter, far more real. I mean, just the fact that I looked at one blade of grass for ages, you don't look at one blade of grass when you look at the field. You look at the entire field, collective.

41:52 It was as if God was showing me what I'd been missing in the natural. And for me, that blade of grass is also being translated to being a person, to pay attention to that person or that one blade of grass. But can I describe why? I have no idea. I don't know. I mean, one could say, was it all medically induced by the drugs they gave me to knock me out? I don't know. But everything I had was all biblical and all Christ-centered, everything on it. And that's where the bishops, in debriefing, they were amazed at what I had to say as I was. Yeah. I'm glad they accepted it okay. Yeah, oh yeah. Because I've talked to a lot of people that went to their clergy after their experience and were told negative things, like that's of the devil or something like that.

42:42 That's very unfortunate. Can I apologize on behalf of the clergy who don't know? I've been in the healing ministry, I've been praying for people for 34 years. And sadly, the Bible, Jesus said, preach the kingdom, heal the sick. And I often ask clergy, are you preaching the kingdom? Yes. Are you healing the sick? No. Why not? Sadly, this is not taught in seminary. Sadly, this POV is not taught, is not telling the line. But it is in the Bible when Paul says, I know a man who was caught up to the Third Heaven, whether in body or out of body, that's not taught in seminary because the view is freaky. So I want to take a moment to apologize on behalf of the church, on behalf of clergy who've rejected you for your very real experience.

43:29 I know we can only tell people we trust these stories. And here am I, you know, this is 2009. This is, I wasn't good at math, this is several years later as I'm telling the story and writing this book. But again, it's my story and I know what I saw. But the goal, no, solid goal, my personal point of view is the fact that I would love to see people have no fear of death anymore. Because we don't need to be overridden by that in our daily life. We don't need to think, oh God, I'm going to be in a car crash today. Oh God, am I going to make it to the end of the day? Is this sickness, is this disease going to kill me? Living in fear, that's not the goal of life. We are to love God, love our neighbors as ourselves and to enjoy life.

44:12 So I'm preaching. I apologize. Well, and the love and the joy that you're talking about is an opposite emotion to fear. Yeah, absolutely. So if we can get rid of that fear, we can better experience the joy. Thank you. Yeah, you should be ordained yourself. You got it. You got that sort of thought about it, to be kind. Hear me with another question. The description of your house was really cool. You also mentioned the term mansions. And in the Bible, if I remember right, Jesus talks about mansions and I go to prepare a place for you. Can you put that all together for me from what you learned there?

44:52 Absolutely. In my father's house, there are many mansions and I go before you to prepare a place. And I know that I was supposed to see these Victorian houses. No people. Funny enough, they were connected by trains. I didn't see cars. But they had these little trains. I used to have a toy train set, you know. So I love trains. So that's what I saw. So yeah, it was as if he really wanted me to see the reality that we do have places prepared for us. And as I was about to say, my house, the room I was in in the ICU for nearly three months was room number one. And when I started to come to, I was transferred from one to room eight. And then I forgot to mention that the eight on my house was tilted sideways.

45:36 I was ultralighted on that right. Like a infinity. Bingo. That's right. So the irony was I was taken from room number one, which was very public. But no lights, my wife wanted me to get back into the circadian rhythm and to have a light around me and move me into room number eight. So whenever I see the infinity sign, it's like, okay, yeah, that was the number of my house in heaven, infinity. Okay. This next question people are going to think isn't very important, but I'm curious. Okay. You said, you talked about drinking the water and it could taste like anything that you thought of. You also said that we don't need to eat in heaven, but can we eat in heaven if we choose to?

46:21 I can't say yes or no. From what I experienced, I assume yes. Does this say in the Bible anything about eating in heaven? I have no idea. I don't think it does. No, but Jesus came back and ate after his resurrection. He did. Yes. But he was back in, he was out of body and now he's in body again. But do we need to eat in heaven? I don't think so. I wouldn't think so either, but that's okay. We don't need to know the answer to some of those kinds of things. But we will know the answer at some point, but not to be afraid of that answer. Another question. You talked about the feeling of when your spirit left your body in the hospital and went up.

47:01 Do you have any memory of coming back into your body? No, none whatsoever. Again, chronologically, I know the leaving the body, the steps, the flowers, the house. I know that chronologically was in order. I never thought of that either. I've never thought about it and I have no recollection at all until I open my eyes and saw my wife and then realized who she was. But then that funnier thing with the doctors, they just, why on earth would that happen after three weeks? That's true. That's probably the last thing they expected to happen. Haha. Yeah.

47:42 All right. I promised that we would come back to this and I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about a beautiful death experience because you, in your role, your calling, you have the opportunity to deal with people when they're in their final hours. What would you like to tell us about that? I have two, but the shortest one was a man in my church. His father was dying. He had Alzheimer's. He had a pacemaker, but it was time. He hadn't spoken for three weeks. He had said no words for three weeks. They turned his pacemaker off because it would fight his natural death. When I went to see him with his son, I stood sideways leaning against the wall.

48:25 His son was to my left. This man's body was in the fetal position with a really scrunched up face fighting. And I prayed for him, I did last rites over him. Yeah, makes me emotional thinking about it. When I finished the prayer and blessed him, he opened his eyes and he turned and looked at me, not his son, looked directly at me and said, thank you. And went, bomb. And I said to his son, I think he just passed. And when the nurse came in and checked his pulse and he was dead. Beautiful death. Thank you. I was not speaking for three weeks. The other one is a bit longer. I'd love to tell you this story if we can squeeze it in.

49:07 Go ahead. So I was a lay chaplain for a brand new facility, a rehab facility. So I knew the staff. I've been there as they're building it. I was there for the opening. And the first week they had on the first Sunday that it had been opened, they had an imminent death of one of the people at the facility. So they called and left a message on Sunday. They called me because they couldn't find a real clergyman because I wasn't ordained at that point. But they knew that as a lay chaplain, they wanted me to come in. I came in. I went to the nurse's station, Eric. They said, where's, I don't remember his name, it'll come to me.

49:48 And they said he's in the room, down the room, whatever it was. And I went down. I barged into the room. It was full of people, probably 15 people at least. I went up to Harry, I went up to Harry, who was a bag of bones, who's 92 or 96. He was just a bag of bones. His skin was hanging. That was sad, you know. And when I walked in, I started praying in the name of Jesus. And when I finished praying, I thought the wife came up to me and said, you didn't ask what religion we are. And I thought, oh my God, you know, the guy's Jewish. And I really put my foot in it. You know, I was so embarrassed. And she said that two weeks before they were in hospital, and a clergy person, I don't know what denomination, walked past his bed to the next person, started praying for this guy, realized he was not of the same religion, slammed his prayer book or Bible together and stormed out on the rage.

50:39 And she said, thank you that you just came in and did what you did without even thinking. Whilst this was happening, everybody left. I was told him to his wife, lovely lady. I heard the death rattle. I knew it was time. And I said, we need to go and pray for Harry now. I stood on his right side. She stood on the left, put my hand on his forehead, held his hand, and I asked God to take him home. I said, it's time, Harry. It's time to go home. Now, his left hand, both hands, he was just literally, what, I watched his left hand go up in the air. You could see light through his radius and all that. He hadn't eaten for weeks. And his hand just kept going and kept going and kept going and kept going.

51:21 And I'm looking at his hand. His wife was looking at his hand. I'd asked God to take him home by the hand, literally. And there it was. It was happening. And he spat up and went, there was death. Beautiful death, beautiful death. I ministered to that family for two and a half hours afterwards. They were so broken. The guy was 92, 96. It's okay. It's okay to die. They were so broken. They were wailing. And when I left, his little wife, little lady, I wish I could remember her name. I know she came up to me and hung on to me like this, with her hands, looking up to me in all innocence. And she said, Nigel, I hope you're there when I die. And what a gift that was. I hope you're there when I die. And I said, I probably won't be, but I know who will be.

52:04 I watched this man go to heaven. And I have many other stories too. The combat ones are horrific. But this is very real. This is not a dress rehearsal. And I hope, as sharing my prayer, my story, again, I have nothing to prove, but I want to remind you that please don't you live your life in fear. Don't do that. It's a total waste of time. We're going to die at some point. But why should we live our lives in fear? Thank you, Father Nigel. I really appreciate your time. I hope we can do this again sometime. I'd love to. I'm here. And if it can help anybody and they want to talk to me, I'm here. Bless you. Thank you for what you do. I really appreciate this. I wish more people were doing this. And I bless you.

52:45 I pray for great success. I pray that thousands of people will be listening to your podcast. Listen, I want to close with two words. It's not our man. That's one word. I want to close with two words. Have fun. Okay. Enjoy your life. I'll end it there. Enjoy your life, all right? Thank you. And I want to thank you so very much for listening. Right now, while you're thinking of it, please hit that subscribe or follow button. And if you want to know when the new episodes go live, go over to roundtripdeath.com and sign up for our email newsletter. Until then, I wish you every good thing that you're looking for in this life and the next.