Bible Study
Olan - "Bright and Beautiful"
09 06
When only 18 years old, Olan was involved in a terrible auto accident. He is now 49, and recounts for us here how that event changed him - not just what he went through physically - but the vision he had of Jesus. Actually, Olan had a near-death experience; but like many other experiencers he called his episode a "vision." This terminology is common. Who among us are educated enough to name things as science does? It is only after the passing of several months or years that experiencers change their initial term of "vision" into "experience," to denote a reality more intimate, more real, more vivid than life itself. Note that about twenty years after his initial transformation and the "calling" he received to become a minister, he walked away from his lifepath in search of a less constrained, broader, more inclusive way of living. This "second shift" corresponds exactly with Phase Four of the Four Phases of Integration, a chart you can find on this website, and spoken of at length in THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES. Near-death experiences, no matter how wonderful, are not easy to integrate into one's daily life and require many years to understand and accept. Phase Four catches most experiencers by surprise - as it is not expected - and in actuality is much deeper and far more life-changing than the initial transformation the individual went through.
--Dr. P.M.H.Atwater
