Posted on 02/04/2004 1:17:00 PM PST by yonif
DARTMOUTH -- A native son and newspaper carrier for The Standard-Times in Falmouth, Howard Storm went on to earn a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and for 20 years was an arts professor at Northern Kentucky University. An avowed atheist, he believed that there was no such thing as life after death -- until the day in 1985 when he died and went to hell.
Speaking to about 125 people at Smith Mills Church last week, Mr. Storm became very emotional, often stopping to compose himself, as he described his near-death experience, which transformed his life.
In 1985, Mr. Storm, 38, and his wife, Beverly, were in Paris on the last day of an art tour. Buckled over by searing pain in the middle of his stomach, he was rushed to the hospital. Awaiting emergency surgery, he knew he was dying. He said good-bye to his wife and drifted into darkness.
Standing up, he realized he was between two hospital beds. He looked at Beverly, who was motionless, staring at the floor, sitting in the chair next to his bed. He spoke to her, but she didn't seem to hear.
As he bent over to look at the face of the body in the bed, he was horrified to see the resemblance that it had to his own face. But he knew that was impossible because he was standing over the person and looking at him.
Off in the distance, outside the room in the hall, he heard voices calling him. They were pleasant voices, male and female, young and old, calling to him in English.
"Come out here," they said. "Don't you want to get better?"
He stepped out into the hall, full of anxiety. The area seemed to be light but very hazy, and he couldn't make out any details.
He followed them shuffling along in his bare feet with the memory of pain in his belly, yet feeling very much alive. The fog thickened as they went on, and it became gradually darker.
Overwhelmed with hopelessness, he told them he would go no farther and that they were liars. He could feel their breath on him as they shouted and snarled insults.
Then they began to push and shove him about, and he began to fight back. A wild frenzy of taunting, screaming and hitting ensued. As he swung and kicked at them, they bit him.
Even though he couldn't see anything in the darkness, he was aware there were dozens or hundreds of them all around and over him and that his attempts to fight back only provoked greater merriment.
They began to tear off pieces of his flesh, and he realized that he was being taken apart and eaten alive, methodically, slowly, so that their entertainment would last as long as possible. In that wretched state he lay there in the darkness.
Suddenly remembering a prayer from childhood Sunday School class, he said, "Yea though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."
To his amazement, the cruel merciless beings were incited to rage by his prayer. They screamed at him, 'There is no God! Nobody can hear you!" But at the same time they were backing away. He realized that saying things about God was actually driving them away, and he became more forceful. They became more rabid, cursing and screaming against God, but in time, they retreated back into the distant gloom beyond his hearing.
Alone, destroyed, and yet painfully alive in this horrible place, he yelled out into the darkness, "Jesus, save me."
Far off in the darkness, he saw a pinpoint of light like the faintest star in the sky. The star became brighter and brighter. As it came closer, he realized that he was right in its path, and he might be consumed by its brilliance.
This was a living being approximately 8 feet tall and surrounded by an oval of radiance. The brilliant intensity of the light penetrated his body. Ecstasy swept away the agony. Tangible hands and arms gently embraced him and lifted him up. He slowly rose up into the presence of the light, and the torn pieces of his body miraculously healed before his eyes.
After his words of personal witness, Mr. Storm answered questions for an additional two hours.
"He told me that he has given this talk hundreds of times, but whenever he describes these creatures, he just comes apart," said the Rev. Michael Robinson, pastor of Smith Mills Church.
After Mr. Storm's near-death experience, he entered United Theological Seminary and was ordained as a minister of the United Church of Christ. Since 1991 he has been pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Cincinnati. He documented his near-death experience in the book "My Descent into Death and the Message of Love which Brought Me Back," published in 2000.
Earlier in the day, the Rev. Storm spoke to about 30 area faith leaders at Smiths Mills Church on the topic "Bringing Passion of the Gospel into City Ministry."
"Jesus weeps for New Bedford," he said. "He can heal addictions, broken relationships and poverty. I broke every one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus can fix what's wrong with us."
As though you were basing your faith on evidence. Please.
One, we don't know who wrote the gospels, more importantly, the actual writers of those books aren't the predominant profiteers off the stories. You want E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E that religion is primarily a shake down of scared, confused, and gullible people, ask yourself how many gold rings God intends for someone like the Pope to have at his followers expense. Ask yourself why religious leaders would sell indulgences for people to escape a fantasyland called purgatory. There are even modern versions running the same scam, familiar with Robert Tilton?
I'll concede that some religious leaders are venal. Will you concede that some scientists are as well? That a certain percentage of grant requests amount to little more than a "shake down", a welfare plan for scientists funded at taxpayer expense?
And that's not even getting into the shenanigans of scientific charlatans like the environmentalist crowd.
That 'force' part is why Churches were so embedded with European government for so long.
Will you concede that some scientists are as well? That a certain percentage of grant requests amount to little more than a "shake down", a welfare plan for scientists funded at taxpayer expense?
Certainly, I'm not interested in anyone being compelled against their will to fund scientist's whims.
Agreed. Fortunately, we don't live in medieval Europe.
Certainly, I'm not interested in anyone being compelled against their will to fund scientist's whims.
Great!
Well, go tell the NSA, the Army, and the CIA about all that. I'm sure they'll listen to your informed and considered opinion.
It was the drugs. Ask anyone who's ODed on heroin, and they'll tell you they knew they were about to die, but could care less. The brain's normal thinking response to death is a sense of "impending doom". Ask anyone who has had their heart stopped by adensoine (to then soon after correct an irregular rythm with an lectrical shock) and they will tell you that the brain knows when the heart stops, and it doesn't like it one bit.
Also, as it just so happened our sermon this Sunday (2/8) was Luke 16:19ff. One statement that our pastor made summed up the last two verses well: "If a person does not believe in the Word of God, they will not believe in the works of God." The works should always point to the Eternal Word, and our experiences based on God's Word as found in the Scriptures.
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." - 1 John 4:1
I fund it funny that you, a Freeper, are defending one of the most wasteful government programs ever.
The problem with Remote Viewing is that it's not very reliable. It's like a telescope that works sometimes - and other times not at all. But there's no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. If one can see Jupiter sometimes - and sometimes not at all - it doesn't mean that the telescope principle is BS - it means it's not at all well understood.
Also, I never defended the program nor attacked it. That was never the issue. What I am stating is that there is a phenomena beyond mere "oxygen deprivation" - or possibly invoked by oxygen deprivation - which involves ESP, sensing at a distance, or whatever one wants to call it - which is beyond what is currently understood by conventional physics. Below is a somewhat neutral article on the track record of the publicly known parts of the program - but one which at least acknowledges the phenomena.
Washington Post 30 December 1996 Military Psychic Unit's 'Hits' and Misses
by Jack Anderson and Jan Moller
An important U.S. Army general was kidnapped in Italy by the Red Brigades terrorists. The U.S. government pulled out all the stops, shook up every intelligence source and scanned every photo but had no luck locating the general. The government turned to the ghost-finders -- an ultra-secret psychic unit run by the Army under the code name "Project Grill Flame." Three psychics turned their "remote viewing" vision to find Brig. Gen. James Dozier, being held by the brutal terrorists, in late 1981.
One remote viewer, Joe McMoneagle, was particularly successful. He zeroed in on the room where Dozier was held, chained to a wall heater. He described it, but couldn't get the house number. Yet he did get the location, the Italian city of Padua.
More at http://www.mceagle.com/remote-viewing/pub/news/96dec30-wp.html
More successes detailed here at:
http://www.subversiveelement.com/Mind_Control_Star_Gate.html
And the truly phenomenal successes we will probably never hear about...if they're doing their jobs right.
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