In the early 1980s, a spiritually transformative experience healed my depression and changed my life. The reaction I received was very traumatic, however, and I lost my heart and spirit. Since then I’ve seen a remarkable career and honors but they are little in the face of this most significant event of my life, so I’ve determined now to write about it as a witness, an inspiration and a warning.

I was raised in a Protestant church. As a child I was intellectually precocious but terribly sensitive. Dealing with people could be confusing, painful, and not being able to identify even my own emotions made self-defense difficult. Today, you’d say that I was on “the spectrum”. As such, I was sometimes shamed and punished for behaviors I didn’t understand, leaving the impression that crushing was necessary. I found forceful oratories in church traumatic and became morbidly fearful of a God that was angry, all-consuming and very disappointed with me. I became avoidant and depressed in childhood, finding solace in academics. As a university student I assented to Christ and did my best to be of service. I felt like a hypocrite, however, and reading the Bible sent me into periods of great despair and condemnation. I hated myself.

I moved to a new city shortly after, exhausted in matters of faith. A friend suggested that I visit a woman he knew in my neighborhood, whom I will call Meg. This woman came from a rough background and worked as a librarian, proving to be a natural counselor who helped many troubled teens. She practiced daily prayer and religious reading but was not what you would call fundamentalist.

I visited Meg, intending only on just saying hi for my friend. While making small talk, I was in my normal emotional state, which I now see was being wound up, self-conscious and full of tension. Though I was acting jovial, after perhaps 15 minutes, Meg commented on my anxiety and gently said, “I can't stand you this way! Give me your hands. I'm going to pray for you.” This was unexpected and strange. I did not know what to think, but I warily gave her one hand. She held it and as we sat, she bowed her head silently. At this time, an image occurred to me of being in a completely dark cave, half-heartedly walking around and feeling the walls for an escape. The impression was that I had been this way for all my life, searching for something unknown, not knowing any better. Meg kept her head silently bowed for maybe 30 seconds, then looked up at me and said, “Do you want to let go or not?” Confused, I told her that I didn’t know what she meant. She asked me to give both hands, which I did.

Meg bowed her head again, and I thought again of being in the black cave. Immediately something beyond my imagination – beyond me – entered this thought and made it into an open vision: A microscopic crack appeared in the cave wall and a thin sheet of white light streamed through it. The light was so intense that I should have been blown to atoms by it, but I was neither hurt nor blinded. It was ineffable love and intelligence, and I sensed that out of loving consideration it showed me only what I could handle. It was the most transcendently wonderful and beautiful thing I’d ever experienced – WAY beyond anything before or after! This was not a hallucination. My normal senses remained intact and sober, but I was hyper-aware, seeing and communicating at the same time with the white light through some new sense. The power and the absolute LOVE it conveyed was beyond imagination. I felt like I was found and there was the sound of a single unearthly note that was a symphony in itself, reminding me of a forgotten true home. This vision, communication and recognition all took only a split second. In my spirit I immediately willed to walk toward the light in an act of assent. At this moment of decision, my body shuddered as a huge amount of what felt like heat flowed over my head and out my arms into Meg. With this flow of power went all my anxiety. It finished in a few seconds, and I started to laugh rapturously, feeling inconceivable joy. There was a sense that I had been reborn into something higher.

The light did not communicate as an instructor as much as it decided to show itself to me, and my response to it allowed me to know in an instant what it knew. The major concept planted in my mind was that people are conduits which carry love and power “out there” to here on earth. Our ONLY job is to become large, clean pipes by being sinless, and becoming so is our intended destiny, joy and perfection. My spirit cried, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and with terrible grief I saw what a small, rotten pipe I was, blocked and full of corrosion. As much as I wanted to be a carrier, I could not have passed any more than a dribble before being burst and destroyed like an old garden hose. Ego was very disruptive. “I” became completely unimportant and doing anything but submitting and serving this power made no sense. I was completely humbled, yet made complete in its will. “It” defies naming and was antithetical to the dark and angry God I’d known before. There was no discernible limit to its power, but there was only gentleness and indescribable love in its presence. I recognized this light from a long time ago. It was home, and everything inside me longed for it. I knew that I was given the task to work on what I had been shown and I was full of desire to do so.

After a minute of ecstatic shaking, I noticed that Meg had a suffering ashen look on her face. I asked what was wrong and she replied by asking me how long I'd had my affliction. I wasn’t really aware of it until now; I did not know that anything was especially wrong with me, other than a general sense of depression. I said that I’d had it as long as I can remember. She shook her head and said that she would have to carry a sense of what I had for a short time.

I was transformed. In the following couple months I felt impossible joy and sensed being surrounded by a gold light of grace. It was as if I was seeing in color for the first time and my heart was as open and new as a child’s. There were immediate physical effects as well. I’d always had what felt like a tight band across my chest, but now it was gone. My pale complexion became ruddy and my usually cold hands and ears became warm. In following months, my shoulders straightened, my posture corrected and I went up a suit size. I gained muscle and started growing hair on my chest (cliché but true!). Far more significant things were happening in my heart. I was filled by almost unbearable compassion for other peoples' suffering, and I cried out in grief because people were living and dying without knowing the “It” I had experienced. While Jesus and an idea of hell were not an explicit part of the experience, I was left with the deep understanding that just as sin brings grief, being aware of having lost the opportunity to serve the light brings a regret more intense that any humanly devised torture. I grieved that anybody would suffer that.

I was also left with an inner battle. I became aware of a great deal of rage inside me, which would occasionally boil over into fantasies of torturing some imaginary abuser. The depth and power of this anger and self-hatred was frightening. It strove to convince me of my worthlessness, my utter unacceptability to an angry God who was grieved so much and of his need to punish me. It tempted me to engage the anger again but I knew that this would drag me back down into the darkness that I had been delivered from. This was a horrifying thought – no way I was going back to that pit!  The spirit I’d received, however, made me aware in my heart that this was self-harmful, that no punishment I could devise would match what the wrongdoer would unfortunately suffer and that this was occasion for compassion. As long as I kept looking at the light, I had confidence that it would guide me on the treacherous path over the pit.

I was also aware of inheriting empathy and healing. As if with new, raw antennae, I was picking up peoples’ inner feelings, from joy to pain, as they passed by in public. There was a sense of gold healing energy streaming from my fingers which I sensed as a gift to be used. My old self was touch-phobic and uncomfortable with people, but now I wanted to love and heal them. I was often moved to reach out and touch someone who radiated pain but I did not want to be inappropriate. On one occasion, when so tempted, a quiet but distinct authoritative voice inside spoke, “Wait. You are not ready. A teacher will come.” I felt joyful anticipation, just as an infant knows that a parent will appear.

Reading the Bible became a completely different experience. It no longer condemned, and now passages would jump out to my inner eye and appear as flames. One example is the passage in Galatians, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” With every descriptive word my awakened spirit burned in affirmation. This mantle of joy, holy grief and the weight of the commission I’d accepted put my physical body under strain, but it didn’t feel like work. There was nothing else I wanted to learn to do. The verse, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” became perfectly clear in this context. My perception of whatever I’d encountered was so completely different from previous religious concepts that old words like “God” was like an old skin to remove. I kept asking the light, “Who ARE you?”

In spite of my new life and faith, I felt very isolated in the world and in the church. I knew I was part of something much larger than me and I badly needed guidance. These experiences were little known then and I didn’t understand what had happened to me. In spite of my positive changes, my folks feared that I was bewitched by Meg, and even she could only help so much. In the months after my vision, I went to different churches to tell of what I’d encountered. I knew that the Protestant church I attended did not accept experiences like mine and indeed a friend I confided to called it “the devil’s candy coating.” A locally well-known counselor and elder in another church said that my experience was real and good, but could say nothing more. No other churches and spiritual organizations I sought out had a satisfying answer, and my new spirit disliked undisciplined and divinatory new age practices.

After about six months, I was quite weary but letting go of my hope of an answer was not on. Still, my faith in the light was flagging because I could not understand why I was still alone in my experience. Around this time, a friend directed me to a charismatic group that gathered at a house. They seemed to be very serious about spiritual issues. My trust was gained when the wife of a visiting pastor looked at me, smiled, and called me a kind and loving spirit. With joy I recognized a common spirit in her eyes speaking through her. The home pastor was a fiery sort and big on rebuking spirits. These were, after all, the years now known as “Satanic Panic.”

At a later service, I confided my story to the group. In spite of positive aspects of my experience, the pastor was very concerned that Meg did not use the name of Jesus. He concluded that I had many devils and convened an impromptu exorcism. He explained that I was in great danger and that all these things happening to me were a delusion, the devil appearing as light. This was as unthinkable to me as denouncing my own child. Nevertheless, I was weary, isolated, my teacher had not come and I wondered if I could have been wrong about everything. The woman who had blessed me the week before was not there. People gathered around praying, citing verses and loudly calling out many spirits. The leader shouted that I was being stubborn and rebellious and that I had to renounce this spirit that I had received. I wondered if this was a test of faith. The old familiar fear, anger and doubt returned, and though I did not discern it at the time, self hatred. I was all wrong. Again. I acquiesced and said, “I renounce you,” addressing the light.

No dramatic deliverance followed. Instead, I felt something loving, vital and sane slip away instantly but subtly, in remarkable silence, like somebody leaving your house without wanting to wake you. I felt a sudden numb but terrible emptiness and I immediately knew that something really bad had happened. The people around me were cheering and praising but I was lost and in shock. Everything became confused, as if bad and good were inverted and I’ve carried that confusion ever since. Inside, I pleaded, “No! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that!” A voice inside answered that there was no more grace for me and that I deserved it. I tried to call out to the light but it was gone and my will was weak. I didn’t go back to church after that, not knowing who or what to trust.

In the decades since, the physical benefits from my encounter have remained. I’ve had health, wealth and a brilliant career, but my soul remains broken and empty. Without the loving presence, I’ve not treated people well, in spite of wishing for better and I’ve lost my life partner. It took many years to figure out that I had succumbed to the self-hatred I’d learned when young. I had to know at some level at the time of the exorcism, all the scripture being shouted at me notwithstanding, that what I did was horribly wrong, like a suicide. I beg forgiveness from the light.

Thanks to today’s awareness of NDEs and related mystical experiences, I now know that many others have had transcendental experiences like mine. I’ve been returning to prayer (if not church) trying to reconcile with the light, though so far, I feel no assurance. I’ve concluded that souls, both good and evil, have an innate ability to discern God’s love without having it judged by a human intermediary. Also, my own experience speaks to the disastrous consequences of attributing evil to love, as Jesus most severely warned the Pharisees. This is my testimony about the light which touched and restored me. It’s the one worthwhile witness of my life. May merciful God bless all of you.