Discernment is a funny thing — almost impossible, it seems, in many circumstances. And that goes for everyday life, not just in the supernatural realm. There are always “in-betweens” (despite those who label everything one thing or another). Caution is necessary with near-death experiences — as with anything — but there may be some lessons, in certain such episodes, about the nature of prophecy and specifically why some predictions occur and others do not, or why there are delays.
As researchers at one near-death site wrote, “The goal of apocalyptic prophecy is to warn people to prevent it from happening. The reason prophecies are given to humanity is to change current trends and change enough people so that the prophecy will be diverted. Prophecies from very credible sources rarely give an exact date.”
That’s precisely because events can change. There is prayer. There is free will. “During my experience I was also shown events that are likely to happen in the near future, but was made to understand that nothing is absolutely fixed and that everything depends on how we choose to use our own free will, that even those events that are already predestined can be changed or modified by a change in our own way of relating to them,” said one such researcher, Margot Grey.
Unfortunately, too many near-death researchers veer off into the New Age, though that doesn’t mean the baby is always thrown out with the bathwater.
Take Karen Schaeffer, who during a near-death experience was shown her children’s future as it would exist if she decided to remain in the light (that is, on the other side: deceased). Because she decided to come back, however, the future she was shown, during her brush with Heaven, did not happen. “This suggests that the future is always changing from moment to moment based upon our current actions and decisions,” noted the aforementioned researchers. “This principle supports quantum mechanic principles.”
One person told Grey that catastrophic earth changes are a reflection of the social upheaval and violence that is happening all over the world at the moment. The earth groans!
Now as for the Church: might things have turned out differently had it listened to warnings from places such as LaSalette and Quito (where Mary predicted sinners would enter the seminaries)?
Look at all the noteworthy hurricanes of late. Are they a reflection of societal turmoil and unease?
Said Ned Dougherty, a Catholic former businessman who “died” and came back, and about whom we have previously reported:
“I was told that the world could be saved, not by its leaders, but by prayer groups throughout the world.
“I was told that the prayers of a group of twenty could save a nation from war. I was told that the fate of mankind rested on our ability, individually and collectively, to change the direction of mankind in accordance with God’s plan … Depending on mankind’s response to God, these events may be altered, postponed, or cancelled.”
Said Howard Storm, who was nearly taken to hell during his episode, and who attended at our Cincinnati retreat, “All it takes to make a change was one person — one person, trying, and then because of that, another person changing for the better. They [angels he encountered] said that the only way to change the world was to begin with one person.
“One will become two, which will become three, and so on.
“That’s the only way to effect a major change.”
[If we recall, Storm, once an art professor, now a minister, said he was told that, “the United States has been given the opportunity to be the teacher for the world, but much is expected of those to whom much has been given. The United States has been given more of everything than any country in the history of the world and it has failed to be generous with the gifts. If the United States continues to exploit the rest of the world by greedily consuming the world’s resources, the United States will have God’s blessing withdrawn. Your country will collapse economically which will result in civil chaos. Because of the greedy nature of the people, you will have people killing people for a cup of gasoline. The world will watch in horror as your country is obliterated by strife. The rest of the world will not intervene because they have been victims of your exploitation. They will welcome the annihilation of such selfish people. The United States must change immediately and become the teachers of goodness and generosity to the rest of the world. Today the United States is the primary merchant of war and the culture of violence that you export to the world. This will come to an end because you have the seeds of your own destruction within you. Either you will destroy yourselves or God will bring it to an end if there isn’t a change.”]
[resources: afterlife books]
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