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1. About Dr. Richard Eby
Dr. Richard E. Eby, D.O., F.A.C.O.O.G., D.Ed., Ph.D. (1912-2002) was a nationally recognized osteopathic physician, gynecologist, professor and surgeon with a very successful practice. In 1972, Dr. Eby accidentally fell from his three-story apartment landing head-first resulting in a profound NDE. While experiencing the wonders of paradise, Dr. Eby met Jesus Christ in all his glory and had a long conversation with him. Jesus told Dr. Eby that he must enter a ministry of healing others; and that he would be alive when Jesus’ Second Coming occurs. However, Dr. Eby died in 2002 and apparently the Second Coming has not occurred. With Eby’s prophecy an apparent failure, skeptics and fundamentalists Christians alike labeled Dr. Eby a “false prophet” and questioned his entire NDE. This article presents my arguments why Eby is not a false prophet, nor is his prophecy a failure, and includes a detailed account of his amazing NDE testimony.
2. An Overview of Dr. Richard Eby’s NDE and ADC with Jesus
In 1972, Dr. Eby was leaning against a railing at a Chicago apartment building when the support gave way, plunging him three stories, landing headfirst. As his mortally injured body was loaded into an ambulance, Eby had a near-death experience of “the most exquisite place entirely without shadows.” Fascinated with his ethereal, white-robed body, he was able to give the most detailed description of the spirit body this webmaster, Kevin Williams, has ever read – including the observation of having no genitals which is an observation a professional gynecologist would be concerned about. His description of heaven as an luminescent realm with indescribable music, beauty and exotic fragrances is also one of the most detailed descriptions of heaven I have come across. While experiencing the grandeur of paradise, Eby met Jesus Christ in all his glory and had one of the longest conversations with him I am aware of. In this article, you can read the transcript of their conversation and his NDE excerpted from Dr. Eby’s book, Caught Up Into Paradise. Eby’s NDE ends with him hearing his wife calling out for him to return. Eby opened his eyes to excruciating pain and found himself laying in a hospital bed. From a glowing cloud floating above him, Jesus told Eby he must now enter a ministry of healing others.
Fully recovered, Dr. Eby toured Israel in 1977 and had the opportunity to visit Lazarus’s tomb. While in the depths of the illuminated tomb with a group of other people, the lights inside the tomb mysteriously failed. During the following chaos, Jesus appeared to Eby again, stating that, whereas Eby had seen heaven, Eby would now see hell. Jesus gave him the following commission: “You must be able to tell them. They can choose between heaven or hell, but tell them that I died to close hell and open heaven just for them.”
With that, Dr. Eby was suddenly transported to hell; and, for the next two minutes, he endured the horrors of hell with its cold, rot, and isolation. As a result of this startling visitation, Eby traveled the world with his wife Maybelle, proclaiming God’s grace and healing power. In 1978, Eby closed his medical practice in order to follow his full-time ministry calling. His after-death communication (ADC) with Jesus in Lazarus’ tomb is recounted in Eby’s follow up book, Jesus Told Me to Tell Them I Am Coming. Further miracles are recounted in this book which also details Eby’s national exposure from his appearances on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the attention generated by the miracles – both physical and spiritual – accompanying his encounters with the sick.
As mentioned previously, Eby’s NDE is also unique in one more important point. During his conversation with Jesus, Eby was told he would be alive when the Second Coming of Christ occurs. But on December, 26, 2002, Eby died from a protracted illness of which he tried to stay alive as long as he could. Apparently, neither the Rapture nor the Second Coming has occurred. With Eby’s prophecy an apparent failure, skeptics and fundamentalists Christians alike concluded Eby to be a false prophet; and therefore, put his entire NDE into question. But I, the webmaster of this site, do not agree with this assessment as you will find in this article. It is quite possible Jesus has already returned through reincarnation and is alive today. There is strong Biblical and extra-Biblical evidence of Jesus teaching reincarnation as the real interpretation of bodily rebirth known as the “Resurrection of the Dead.” Jesus often preached in parables to hide their higher spiritual meaning from the uninitiated. There is also evidence of the Bible having several levels of interpretation. With this in mind, we should evaluate Dr. Eby’s testimony with an open mind and understand the possibility that God works in mysterious ways.
3. Why Dr. Eby’s Testimony About the Second Coming of Christ May Be True
If we accept subjective NDE testimonies such as Eby’s at face value, we can conclude that the second coming of Jesus has already occurred. Otherwise, Eby’s testimony would be a false testimony showing Jesus speaking a falsehood in an NDE. However, I have a strong reasons to believe Eby’s testimony was not false and that Jesus has returned – not by appearing in the clouds as described in the highly symbolic Book of Revelation and gospels suggest – but by means of reincarnation. It seems obvious to me that Jesus would enter into this world the same way he did the last time, through human birth. This reaction to this idea among certain Christians is one of hostility. Because it suggests the reality of reincarnation rather than resurrection. It shouldn’t be thought strange that Christ would return this way, after all, reincarnation was a widely held belief in Jesus’ day, even among Christians and Jesus himself. I have no doubt that Jesus told Eby that he would return before his passing and I have no doubt that it happened just as Jesus said it would. Some Christians will just have to accept that Jesus is here already just as he told Eby. It shouldn’t be difficult for a Christian to believe “reincarnation” to be the correct interpretation of “resurrection.” There is strong Biblical proof that the early Christians and Jesus taught reincarnation. There also exists a history of reincarnation beliefs among the early Christians. The true meaning of “resurrection”, as believed by many early Christians, is not the same as the widely-held meaning as it exists today.
For these reasons, there should be no reason at all to believe Eby’s testimony about Jesus is false.
Eby’s NDE is unusual in another aspect in that he uses much of his own religious bias to describe his experience. Jody Long, an researcher with NDERF, points out the following fact: “One of the near-death experience truths is that each person integrates their near-death experience into their own pre-existing belief system.” This important truth must be kept in the back of one’s mind when reading these different accounts.
The following is his testimony concerning his encounter with Jesus from his book Caught Up To Paradise.
4. Dr. Eby’s NDE and His Long Conversation With Jesus
I gasped! Suddenly in a new body in a new place with new life, I was ecstatically joyful: no pain, no tears, no sorrow, no memory. Nothing but incomprehensible peace and infilling love. All was perfection. I stood awestruck in a new weightless body, translucent and floating. Total love enveloped and perfused me! What peace!
Then THE VOICE: unmistakably sovereign, majestic, divine! None other can ever compare. It seemed to originate within my head, speaking from me, yet to me. With the authority of God, it thundered across a great valley in which I had just landed: “Dick, you’re dead!”
The voice of my Creator was speaking! It explained how I had gotten to heaven in timeless speed; and above all it established an intimacy between us which is called divine love. I was his child, Dick! Never had I been more excited. Truly I was in heaven’s paradise, in Jesus, with his mind in me. We were as one!
I invite each reader to share with me the following descriptions of how Jesus spoke with me in paradise, in hell, on Earth, and through his book. He specifically commanded me to tell such things, saying:
“These are the last days before I return for my body of believers. I am coming for them soon!”
He explained that he would be giving some of his children (when “available”) many documenting evidences to validate his prophecies.
“I need eyewitnesses of my glory and truth now. You are but one. Go, tell them, tell them, tell them! There is but little while until I come for my body of believers.”
Everything was bathed in shadowless light, with a baptism of love. Then it hit me! I WAS AT HOME! MY REAL HOME! I BELONGED HERE where the presence of Jesus enfolded me.
I was momentarily speechless with the ecstasy of it all! Then I realized that Jesus’ voice had declared me “dead.” Yet I was totally alive. He really had meant that only the former body and its imperfect mind were dead. A glance down the gorgeous length of my valley ended my silence: I heard my self shout: “Jesus, where am I?”
Instantly, before I could complete my query, that same voice in a tone of gentle thunder echoed within my head: “Didn’t you read my book?”
He was speaking to me (in fact, in me) with a speed greater than lightning, and in a language of sweet purity unlike anything that an earthly tongue could utter. I gasped again. I had HIS MIND, impossible as it seemed! Every word clearly meant exactly what was being said. We seemed to have a joint mind: I would ask, and he would answer. The speed of this communication in such a MIND is hard to describe in human terms. Perchance I can now liken it to a printed page on which the questions being typed have the answers typed upon them, line upon line, at the same time, instantly.
Jesus began his answer: “If you had read my book you would have known all the answers. Before I ever told my disciples to preach my good news, I promised never to leave nor forsake them. As I sat outside the temple I disclosed my impending death and my return to glory as being necessary for their ministry. Then I would transfer my power to them by sending my Holy Spirit into them from Pentecost onward. He would take my place in and among them on Earth as another Comforter! I gave them a certain promise:
“I am going to prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there may ye be also.
“I had already explained to my followers that my Father had made them one in me, as I was one in the Father. That makes us inseparable, as ONE.”
Jesus paused as though the next thought on his mind pained him greatly.
“My son,” he resumed, “as it is written in my book, on the next day I was arrested, tried, and crucified for claiming identity with Jehovah. At my right hung a dying thief who stopped ridiculing me when he noted the sign over my head: ‘KING OF THE JEWS’ He believed it when he looked into my eyes, and called over to me: ‘Master, remember thou me when you come into your glory!’
“My book tells you that I immediately promised him: ‘This day shalt thou be with me in paradise!’
“The thief heard me before the centurions broke his legs so he would die immediately! My beloved disciple, John, also heard me as he stood near my bleeding feet. I then asked him to take my mother home with him because he could explain what I had said to her and the disciples.
“I gave up my spirit to my Father as soon as I announced to the crowd, ‘It is finished!’ Then I was free to prepare paradise for that repentant thief in heaven. This is my home here in the third heaven with my saints. You are in paradise this day!”
Jesus had answered my first question! I had instantly sensed that I was in heaven upon arrival there, but now I knew which part this was! I had so much more to ask about this new home.
To be talking with the Creator of the universe, mind to mind, in this paradise, was unspeakably exciting. Questions flooded through my new mind.
“But Jesus,” I blurted out, “Tell me your definition of paradise. It is obvious that I am in heaven with you because everything is so perfect. Tell me more!”
As he replied, his regal voice seemed to bubble over with excitement and joy and love. I sensed his pleasure at having a child of his come home this day: “My child, didn’t you read my book? I was so careful to explain that I would prepare for each of you in the heavenly places, an abode with me. I even arranged for my disciples to watch me ascend into the heavens, enfolded in my Shekinah glory cloud. I assigned two angels to meet them there outside of Bethany to reassure them that I would return in like manner. And I will do so!
“Later I allowed my chosen lad, Stephen, to see me seated at the right hand of my Father in heaven, just to prove to his executioners that I was there, alive! Saul had ordered the stoning. He was holding Stephen’s clothes. It shocked him to hear Stephen shout with ecstasy at seeing me. You see, I had plans for Saul that would require me to blind him with my light and later be stoned to death at Lystra so I could catch him up to this third heaven and show him the unspeakable glories of heaven. He would be instantly persuaded from then on that absolutely nothing could ever separate him from our love. After he saw paradise, I told him to write about it, and I changed his name to Paul.”
As Jesus talked, I became increasingly startled. The speed of his “heaven-language” was incredible yet totally clear within my head. At the same instant he was obviously replacing the needed memories which death of my original brain tissue had erased. Later, as we walked and talked that day I discovered that he also placed upon my new mind the very questions which I should ask! Only by asking him the proper question could he give the needed answer!
After he returned me to life on Earth I checked his book to find confirmation of this truth: sure enough, there it is: Jesus’ earthly brother, James, had written to us: “Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.” Also, St. Paul nailed down the fact by writing: “We know not what we should pray for as we ought … but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us.” What a lesson for us on Earth! For us the Spirit prays, and for us Jesus looks upon the heart to find our true need!
“Now, my Son, to answer your question: Paradise is a holding tank for the souls who have accepted me as their savior simply by faith in my having laid down my life to redeem them from the curse of sin. I prepared a new place for each of them, as I had promised. It is one of my gifts of mercy and grace, that their joy may be full! Here they become one with me, completing the talents which I gave each one so that each can function as a distinct member in my body.
“Paradise is also my heavenly school for perfecting the saints. You must be taught how to become priests and kings in my kingdom so as to teach others to worship My Father in spirit and in truth. I am your teacher renewing your mind to comprehend the greatness of our unsearchable riches of grace and mercy and love for all.”
He paused from his exciting explanation to let me gasp.
Another query burst from my mind to his: “Do you mean, Jesus, that each of your children in paradise has a separate place just for his particular enjoyment?”
Jesus replied: “Yes, my son! Didn’t you read in my book that I would go to prepare a PLACE – not a commune, nor a kibbutz; not a tenement nor a tract house? It would be a place fit for providing the abundant joys and fulfilled dreams and talents of each child, as a new creature, My joint heir! Each person is unlike any other, except that I am in each one, perfecting, teaching, sanctifying. Each of their abodes reflects the perfection of the purposes and promises for which I prepare my people and places!
“I know my sheep, just as they know my voice. I made them. Heaven is so large that I have unlimited space for each one’s paradise, a place of his own. This is just a tiny portion of heaven. I have limitless plans. I think of paradise as my sheepfold; I am its gate!
“This is your paradise. It is what you could not fashion for yourself, so I did it for you. That was my promise. It is your temporary abode for now!”
I was stunned with excitement. This huge valley of celestial beauty was mine? The perfection of its forests, flowers, meadows and mountains was awesome.
But even so, the presence of Jesus in and about me was more important right now. I must ask another question that sudden formed.
Surely this great valley (among whose meadows of flowers I found myself standing) looked to be permanent. Yet Jesus had stated that it was a temporary abode, a holding tank! Four-pedaled flowers with their golden throats extended up into my legs, apparently as oblivious of my presence, as I was insensitive to theirs. Nothing seemed at all temporary.
In amazement I asked: “Jesus, what is temporary about this place, my paradise? It seems timeless to me!”
Jesus replied: “Didn’t you read my book, son? My Father’s plans are even greater for you than this. I explained that he is preparing a body of new creatures, which I have called members. This is the place where the souls of you who die before that BODY is completed are being assembled. Each member has an assignment to perform once I join him to me, the Head. Each day more members are being added as my earthly children surrender themselves into my arms. One of these days my body of true believers will be completed to my Father’s satisfaction.”
He paused as though the joy of that thought had overwhelmed him for the moment.
“My Father assures me that the time is yet a little while, but very little. Soon he will call those already in paradise to surround me as we descend from this third heaven to the first heaven around the Earth. The souls of all my saints will be instantly clothed in their new resurrection bodies, as will the living saints on Earth who rise to us in the glory cloud! At the sounding trumpet they all receive new bodies and rise to meet us in the air. We return as my body to my throne room with the Father. Now do you understand why I called this place a temporary abiding place? Do you grasp what it will mean to be one with me and the Father in your incorruptible bodies? My book states that I assumed mankind’s sin so you ‘might be made the righteousness of God’ in me!”
I can clearly recall how Jesus’ voice paused at this moment. He was savoring an anticipation too intense and private to be revealed. Was he pre-living that moment at which he would enjoy the victory which his Father would give him as the eternal reward for his own long-suffering? His own sting of death would be swallowed up, and he would be the omniscient Head of a completed and compliant body for whom he had shed his blood on a terrible cross. He would reign as KING of the Jews after these days of grace. Then his thoughts returned to me.
“My son, when that time has come, my Father will call to me. The applause of the heavenly hosts will be deafening; they too have been awaiting that day, ever since they announced my birth to the shepherds at Bethlehem so long ago. Scoffers will gaze with fear and wonder as my angelic hosts watch me fulfill my promise to my earthly body of believers at my soon return to Earth.
“My book records the many signs which will precede my coming for my family. I tried to explain those events to my disciples, very carefully. I promised them that I was leaving my Holy Spirit as a comforter to instruct them as they studied my word, and to tell them of the things to come. I want my children to be informed about our plans in advance. I want them to be filled with my joy. After all, they are mine: I created them and bought them back from satanic slavery. I told them that I would come for them so that we could be together forever. My Father wants them all to believe Me.”
His lightening-fast discourse ceased. I surveyed my paradise and this new body that floated!
I glanced at my wrist to note the time, since there was no sun in the sky. My wrist had no watch on it, nor was there any telltale evidence of a watchband. In fact, the whole arm and body was of a beautiful, glowing, semi-transparent material without mar or scar. I gasped to realize that this was ME! (I would ask Jesus more about it later.) A strange sense of timelessness gripped me. It was simply awesome!
I exclaimed: “Jesus, what happened to time, it seems to have vanished!”
His disbelief at such a silly question in paradise was evident in his voice as he replied with loving restraint: “My child, the book tells you clearly that all things seen or unseen, felt or unfelt, are my creations. Without me nothing was made that was made. Originally there was nothing at all but the everlasting God in whom I am the Creator. That included what is known as ‘time’ in the universe of the firmament. Remember? I named myself the ‘Alpha and Omega,’ the beginning and completion of all things. Remember? I took my beloved John to heaven one day to foresee the fulfillments of my promises. He was so overwhelmed at seeing me that I had to introduce myself again as the ‘Amen, the Faithful, True Witness,’ and the beginning Creator of the creations of God! I had taken him ahead in ‘earthly time’ to the ‘day of the Lord’, the time of my victory over the works of Satan. We exist here in that timelessness, the eternity of God, the kind of life that does not perish! It is our gift of love, ‘eternal life!'”
The simplicity of his explanation left me shaken. All that I could think was, “Of course!” Jesus had quietly restated that only the most high God could create anything. Neither an idol nor a man could do so! For every reason conceivable, no one less than God could make a universe without raw materials or divine intelligence. History and common sense prove that especially ‘eternity’ itself!
Expanding love and praise exploded within me as I sensed the immensity of the person who was talking to me so gently.
“You are wonderful, Jesus. You do not think or act or promise in terms of ‘time’, do you? Therefore your thoughts are unlimited. You can see all things as having happened already, even before they occur. That is how you can plan all events and creations to work together for the good of Your BODY and the glory of you, our Head! Even this paradise you made for me was prepared before I would arrive, wasn’t it? You planned and planted all these fantastic trees, flowers, and grasses in my valley in advance of my coming here today, didn’t you?”
As if wreathed in smiles at my comprehension, he replied:
“Verily, my son! That is why I am the Truth, since no one but God could be. I am showing you now that what I said in my book about death and paradise, and even about my promise of you and me being together as one in eternity, is the truth. I and my word are one also. Again I emphasize that I have written only truth in my book. I have begged my people ‘to ask and seek and knock’ as evidence of their earnest search for my everlasting love. So few ever do. Even my disciples failed to ask. I had to chide them by stating, ‘Ye have not because ye ask not!’
“I even made it very simple for them by promising if any two would agree upon a request, I would answer. I already had prepared the right answer in advance; by faith they were to accept it. That is how my Father, our Spirit and I have arranged for all things to work together for those who love us. I told them to abide in me so that whatsoever they would seek would be our will to give.”
Then Jesus paused as though disappointed in something.
“Oh that my children on Earth would believe me! Oh that they would trust my word, and would talk with me! I gave them the model of how to pray; it is childlike because it is the expression of confidence. ‘Our Father,!’ He is the hallowed God, the only God who can help; the only God who loves them and listens. I told them to request that ‘his kingdom come and his will be done on Earth.'”
That means now. Their mouths speak it but their hearts doubt it. How can he answer if they do not worship in spirit and in truth?
“My gift is eternal life which has to start on Earth where they need its cleansing power, and where we need our good news of salvation accepted. Oh that my people would start their lives with me there so they could live abundantly and not perish! Why do they want to wait and wait until it is too late?”
His voice seemed to drift off into a fog of sadness. I sensed that he was reliving a Gethsemane of agony where he had foreseen a world of people rejecting his way to share their lives with him. It had made him bleed!
He had explained about timelessness, so it now seemed a good “time” to inspect this paradise of mine a bit more closely. Nothing so grand could be imagined as a “walk” with Jesus who could answer the swarms of questions forming in my new mind.
“What a view! What a place Jesus had prepared!”
I hung stock-still suspended in weightlessness a few feet above the flowered meadow. The ecstatic release from gravity in this new body was part of the permeating peace which surrounded me. Without time, I had no need to hurry.
Music surrounded me. It came from all directions. Its harmonic beauty unlike earthly vocal or instrumental sounds was totally undistorted. It flowed unobtrusively like a glassy river, quietly worshipful, excitingly edifying, and totally comforting. It provided a reassuring type of comfort much like a protective blanket that whispered peace and love. I had never sensed anything like it. Perhaps “angelic” would describe it.
This music was “sounding” within my head, not from an eardrum. Obviously it was not airborne. Most unusual to me was the absence of any “beat.” Then I realized that without “time” this heavenly music could have no beat which is a measure of time! I was hearing harmonic perfection, undistorted by any interposed medium between me and its source, as heard mind-to-mind. I could wait no longer to ask: “Jesus, tell me about this wondrous music all about me. Who is the composer? How is it made? From whence does it come? It is gorgeous!”
I was not disappointed when he began his answer by again asking me: “Didn’t you read my book? Repeatedly it exhorts my children to praise me with music from strings, trumpets, timbrels and voices. It is and was the prime communication of worship and praise and thanksgiving. Since I am the Creator, I am the composer of heaven’s music which you are hearing.”
Music became the resulting harmony from all of our creations, both of matter and energy. All resonated in unison with us. The elementary form was of and from and in ourselves. I might explain it as a triad of sub-electronic energy particles with and around which We constructed everything in our universe. The wave-forms we called light; whereas the material-forms we called dust of the Earth and water and air. Out of these, and into these, we created animals and birds and fishes and vegetable life to support them. Over these we created a mankind to supervise them as our appointed custodians made in our special image to act for us on Earth!
Jesus hesitated as I tried to capture the immensity of his explanations.
“You must understand, my son, that original creation mirrored the composition and perfection of Person-God. All creation vibrated in unison with us! There was total accord and harmony everywhere as the whole creation was resonating with and in God!
“Each separate thing or being thus carried out an appointed task in our scheme for the universe. A heaven-form of music resulted as even the stars sang in their appointed circuits. Here in paradise you are hearing these melodious vibrations directly upon your new mind, undistorted. On Earth you heard distorted sounds through the air waves. Throughout heaven the music flows from my throne, uninterrupted, undefiled, and peace-giving.”
Jesus paused again.
“My book tells of the time when Lucifer’s rebellion in heaven changed some things. He sought to usurp my Father’s throne, assume his position as the most high God, and to rule the universe. For that blasphemy Lucifer was cast from heaven to Earth; in fact, I saw him fall as a bolt of lightning! In a tantrum of hate and rage over being deposed so fast he and his fallen angels disfigured our perfect Earth. It became void and uninhabitable. For punishment befitting his enemy of God, Lucifer was given a new name, Satan, since he was the self-appointed ‘adversary’ of the Almighty. Anything that God had made, Satan would attempt to destroy from then on. As Lucifer he had been created the highest angel about the throne, one of his assignments and talents being the chief musician in charge of worship and music. In his rebellious anger he set about destroying harmony on and in the Earth from then on. That is why the Earth where he operates now is out of harmony with God’s other creations. In my book we call this disharmony ‘sin’, because it defies God’s will that even the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament show his handiwork.
“But be of good cheer, my son. The Father has permitted me to overcome Satan’s world system of sin, and to destroy the works of Satan, and to re-establish righteousness in the hearts of my friends. Eventually in his chosen time he will restore all creation as it once was, in him!”
It was clear enough that God’s “heaven-music” was ever-present as a permeating reminder of the purity and power in its Creator. As God’s methods of communication are headlined by music, even so is Satan’s method of distorting its language to deceive through his “rock”! Jesus had clearly implied already that one of his final missions would be to destroy the very “works of the devil” which include all music that fails to honor the Lord. Messiah promised to destroy any disharmonies which Satan uses to lure and deceive innocent children into the pits of hell!
The music around me suddenly seemed louder. I rushed to a nearby tree and grasped its trunk to my ear: it was “singing.” I lifted my right elbow to my head; it too emitted the same joyous, beatless melody. Excitedly I stopped to pick some flowers, and found them already in my hand. They too were “playing” the tune.
This bouquet in my hand made me gasp in wonderment for two reasons: it was so suddenly there in my hand without my having as yet picked it, and it was so exceedingly beautiful! I had merely thought about a bouquet, and there it was, ready for my inspection.
I was now gazing at stamens and pistils and calyces of transparent gold. Lengthwise through them I could see down into their stems. It was my first moment to see an example of heaven’s liquid transparent gold? Such a thrill to share its beauty!
Then I noted the stems which filled my palm! Soft as velvet, and devoid of moisture, yet so alive! The pure-white petals, four to each flower, were identical, flawless, and picture-perfect. They seemed to be internally energized since all were emitting light of appropriate color.
I blurted out (mind-to-mind): “Jesus, I do not understand. I just decided to pick some flowers. They are already in my hand. I can see transparent golden centers, and their stems are waterless. I also sense that I am speaking with You through a new mind, with which I receive immediate answers!”
Jesus replied: “My son,” came the reply, “you are discovering how my mind works. Here in paradise I have given you a portion of my MIND with which we communicate. You just discovered one of its properties: a thought in heaven instantly becomes an act or a fact. DIDN’T YOU READ MY BOOK? In it I told my children that ‘ye have the Mind of Christ’ when you are in me. On Earth they too seldom use it. Here in paradise it is the only mind. The earthly mind died with the carnal body; it was an enmity to me! Flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God; only a righteous mind is present in heaven.
“Here I speak mind-to-mind in my heaven-language. My word immediately performs my will. It is truth! To create, I think, and it is done. Of course, Satan has no power to interfere in this heaven.
“I hung the stars in space to tell of my protection and promises. When I wanted an earthly family to fellowship with me, I thought of God’s image, and it became a man who would live with life-flowing blood. I thought of animals, fish and birds: there they were, ready to eat the foods which I had carefully prepared for them that day. Even now, when I wish to bless my people, the power of my thought provides and transmits my blessings anywhere I send them.
“My book tells mankind that my thoughts are not as his are: his are vanity and evil and against Me. They come from the mind of unsaved man. There is no power in such thinking. To me it is an abomination.
“Because I am the righteousness of God, My thoughts are precious and unlimited. Just as this paradise is far above the Earth, so my thoughts are of peace and of goodwill toward men. My power sheds my love on them!
“When I created something new, I did not need evolution! I AM THE WORD. I am all that my Father needed to form, all that is seen from things not seen! Satan detests me and everything I created, so he used a theory intended to blaspheme my power: a lie and deception. He still does. There is no truth in him anyway. He knows better: he was among the first and highest creations, but he fell through his overwhelming pride to an eventual eternity in hell which was prepared for the punishment of him and his worshippers.
“My son, your mind in paradise works with the power of mind. I give that very special privilege to all the children of God!”
Jesus changed the subject: “You were amazed at the gold in the flowers. I enjoyed watching you discover that heavenly things are of a material unlike the dust of the Earth. Our gold is pure and transparent and eternal. My light shines through it. I created it that way as a gift to my Father! It bespeaks his perfection.”
Jesus hastened to explain more. “You were wondering about those ‘dry’ stems. My book would have told you that because of sin. Satan lied and did deceive Eve, and then Adam, into sinning against their Creator-God. In heaven, which includes paradise, there are no gases such as hydrogen and oxygen from which I made water on Earth. On Earth it is essential to maintain life. It is a substitute for what we have here, LIVING WATER! Earthly water has become polluted. Living water is always pure. It flows from my throne. One drop can last for eternity. Remember? I told the woman at the well that she should ask of me a drop of that living water. She was so excited that she sent a crowd of her friends running to meet me!
“Earth’s water has been so dirtied by man that I will someday have to destroy all of it, and remake the old Earth with a new one without even a sea!
“My son, you know that everything in all of heaven is sustained by MY LIVING WATER. Your flowers are one example which I let you discover so that you would ask me for an answer. Your flowers are watered from my throne through my Spirit. You noted the absence of any fallen leaves. My living water prevents leaves from dying; it does not evaporate! All forms of life here is maintained by my light and my living water. Both are pure and eternal. I told you in my book about these leaves: they are for the healing of the nations! And I told you that I would be the light of heaven, and no curse can exist in my light!
“At the time of creation, we ordered each life form to multiply ‘after its own kind,’ including new mankind. We made them male and female so that their union in procreation would mirror the bond of loving unity which exists between the Father in heaven and his family on Earth. That is my Father’s greatest love! He even had me shed my blood and die in order to re-establish that relationship as an eternal gift!
“My son, the time is coming when Satan will be bound in a bottomless pit for a thousand years awaiting his banishment into eternal punishment in a lake of fire! His reign of terror on the Earth will have ended. No longer will he be allowed to corrupt the minds and families of man. His worldwide rule over the nations will have been suddenly ended. I will rule instead! As I told you in my book, with Satan gone I will create a new heaven and Earth and a new city, Jerusalem. My peace and grace will abound (instead of every kind of sin and hate as have existed on Earth since Babylon because man chose to worship the devil). The whole universe will then be set free to worship the righteous God.”
Five years after this conversation with me, Jesus re-appeared to me in Lazarus’ tomb with an amazing command: “Go tell them what I explained to you in paradise when I let you die for a while!” [1]
[1] Note: This was a mystical experience Dr. Eby had while on tour in Israel while he was inside of Lazarus’ tomb.
I have been attempting to speak and write words ever since of that fantastic moment, but no human language is at all adequate. However, I pray that some words here have been meaningful to someone. Jesus promised that he would see to that! (This is his story too.)
5. A Detailed Description of Dr. Eby’s Spirit Body
Suddenly, as the risen Lord paused in his explanation of future glories in a righteous universe, I realized that the new body I had in this paradise had not once signaled its presence to my mind. I had been oblivious of its existence while Jesus was talking. And yet it was “me”, and vitally alive. This raised another question.
These events in paradise had occurred with such lightning-like speed that I had not inspected my totally comfortable new body. It was unbelievable, as was everything else up there!
I was recognizable as “me.” My shape, size, and appearance would indicate that I had been changed suddenly into an unmarred, unscarred, weightless “me.” This was Dick Eby in some new form! My amazement grew with each part that I inspected. Never had I seen anything like it. Was I “in” a new body, or was I “the” new body? I could not tell.”
To this day I do not know; neither did St. Paul who sagely described his similar experiences as “unutterable,” not knowing whether he was “in or out of the body.” He said that it was “celestial.”
Its material fascinated me. Obviously of a substance peculiar to heaven, it was modestly glowing, transparent to the direct gaze, yet semi-solid at times. Looking down at my feet, I was shocked to see myself not touching the solid ground, although I had felt a thud when I had suddenly arrived there. I hung gracefully above the lush grasses of this meadow. I noted stemmed flowers with glowing white petals standing quietly within my legs up to the kneecaps. I saw no muscles nor nerves, no vessels nor bones, just that homogeneous glass-like “spirit-matter”! Obviously these flowers ignored my presence, just as I did not feel theirs. Reflexly, I feared lest I had damaged these heavenly flowers by landing upon them; I would lift my right leg off them. Before finishing my thought, the leg was raised, and the flowers remained motionless and perfect. I gasped. My thought had lifted the leg as it was being simultaneously “processed.”
I heard myself think: “That’s exciting; I will lower my leg back over the flowers and see what happens.”
Nothing was felt; not a petal moved within my leg. It was amazing.
The ecstasy of being “free indeed” in a new place and a new body made me feel like a spirited calf loosed from a stall. I decided to run around my paradise and learn more about it and me. At the thought, I was running without touching the ground. Although my legs were in motion, my speed changed with my thoughts. I came to a tree and passed throughout it without feeling anything. I kicked my feet through the grasses, bushes, and bed of flowers; nothing was disturbed. They simply passed through my legs with no resistance. I was rapidly learning that a “spirit body” and this heavenly vegetation are not of any earthly substance.
I stopped running to inspect my own body more closely. It was homogeneous. As I gazed through it I was surprised to see no organs. It apparently functioned without members of differing secretions and excretions! It was immediately logical to me that in heaven there is no need for a body to ingest, digest, transform, reform, nor to “process” foods or waste! In heaven there is no polluted water nor air nor chemical to attack the spirit body. There is not even an unclean thought to be rejected!
This new spirit body had no restrictions imposed by an outer or inner environment of solids, gases, or waste. What excitement! I was enjoying dashing effortlessly around the huge valley floor of flowering meadows, and up the mountainsides to the stately, symmetrical “cedars of Lebanon” (as my mind was silently naming them).
I tried to cast my shadow across the underlying fields as I swooped along. Everything was so brightly lit. It seemed abnormal not to see shadows so I flailed my arms: nothing. The light of heaven was coming from no one source, but was emitted everywhere in appropriate colors. Each bit of vegetation seemed to contain a light source of its own. So did I.
Reflexly I raised my arms in thanks and adoration for my Lord’s love in showing me heaven’s wonders which were mysteries to me. As I bowed my head, I noted a glowing pure-white gown which somehow I had not seen when I looked through it in search of organs! I was awed by its total weightlessness and silky softness. My raised arms had parted its overlapping folds for the moment, revealing me as a neuter (i.e. no sex organs)! This came as a shock, although I had not felt surprise at the absence of defects or scars. This alteration was so unexpected!
“Lord Jesus, why am I now a neuter? I was a man.”
Jesus replied: “Yes, Dick, you were always a man, a child of God who returned our love by telling others of the good news about me. Remember? You read in my book the very first order I gave to Adam and Eve? ‘Be fruitful and multiply!’ I told them to replenish the Earth, not heaven. Again I told the Sadducees (who did not believe in a resurrection) that they ‘knew not the scriptures’ when they speculated about wives in heaven. I explained that after the resurrection all would be like angels who do not marry nor raise families. Everything in heaven is created or re-created into perfection! It is all in my book. None other is truth!
“In fact, everything that my children need to know about how God thinks and works and judges and rewards, either before or after the cross, is already in my book. That is why I commanded mankind to ‘engrave my words upon their hearts,’ and to pass them along from generation to generation. I wanted everyone to hear and know just who I AM, the Messiah, their one hope of salvation, their most high God.”
I checked my body again: truly celestial! Its senses were too keen to describe.
Weightless, painless, instantly responsive. Comfortable and totally peaceful. Unaware of any disharmony elsewhere. Thinking with the mind of Christ. Sensing that I was IN him somehow.
He had said so clearly: “I and the Father are one.”
He had prayed so fervently: “… that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they may be also one in us!,” the Father declared it done!”
6. A Detailed Description of the Heaven Dr. Eby Experienced
The very contemplation of experiencing this fulfillment of being in paradise with the risen Jesus was unutterable. To know that I, in this spirit body, was actually in some glorious sense in him for eternity staggered even the imagination of my new mind. It was so obvious that Dick Eby had not of himself merited any such glory.
Events in paradise were occurring unbelievable fast. Thoughts and actions there seemingly vie with each other to be completed instantly. The environment of heaven with its timelessness, weightlessness, and lack of all earthly confusion and stress results in a type of “joy” unattainable in this world system. I simply stood (floated) quietly, peacefully, entranced in an experience which only a living, loving God could have arranged for his followers!
Jesus all this time seemed to be a component of myself, of my spirit body and of my mind. He must have been amused at my near-delirious joy while inspecting the place he had prepared for my pleasure.
“My son, you seem to be enjoying the freedoms of heaven! You looked surprised especially over your spirit body which is so different from your former one. That is one reason that I had allowed it to die so that I could reveal to you another truth which my book contains. You now know that my book is true when I promise complete healing as part of salvaging my sheep from sin. I had to prepare an incorruptible body to replace the fleshly one that had been cursed ever since Adam disobeyed me in the garden.
“In order not to break my own verdict, I had to sentence Adam’s seed to ‘surely die’ because he followed Satan’s advice. I had to leave the seeds of death in his flesh. My book says that I can and will mend man’s body when it will result in glory to my Father; but I do not give ‘divine’ health to the carnal body: only to the spirit or resurrection form. Death of the dust-body (not the human spirit) is still a divine decree. Only through rebirth of the spirit in a new creation (which will transform man completely) can an incorruptible body be attained, fit for eternal existence in and with me! I made that fact so clear by dying and arising in my new body! I was the example. I told my disciples that they would follow me in that newness of life. A few understood finally, after seeing me ascend to heaven!
“My Father empowered me to act as ‘a quickening Spirit’ in order to raise the dead, in body and spirit. Remember? I told that secret to Mary and Martha: ‘I am the resurrection and the life!’ Then I demonstrated how my Father had given power to me (for his purpose) when needed. They watched, and they believed! YOU are here now because I passed you from death unto life!”
Already this paradise of marvels had supplied enough wonders! Any earthly dreams about “heavenly mansions” had been corrected and surpassed. No memories of Earth remained with me except the ones which Jesus was obviously implanting in my new mind in order to understand what he had to tell me. His mind-to-mind conversation from within me was unbelievable precise as to meaning, and as fast as lightning. What a teacher!
I just stood still, surveying the peace-filled valley, quiet except for the background music that flowed through and around everything. The brilliant light of heaven filled the “sky” without hurting the eyes of my “spirit body.” No sense of fatigue or need for sleep existed in this body. There was no “time”, no “daylight” savings! No hurry, hurry.
Then I noticed something amazingly delightful: I was bathed in a delicate perfume, totally “heavenly!” I had been smelling it all along, but was too excited to stop and sniff its absolute loveliness. It seemed to permeate the landscape and me. I imagined that whatever it was, it was certainly fit only for a king!
“Jesus,” I exclaimed, “What is this perfume? Do angels use it? Where does it come from?”
Silence. I repeated the query. Still no answer. Perhaps the Lord would answer later? (He did! But not in heaven).
Hearing no answer, I turned my gaze toward the far end of my valley. Again I gasped at its grandeur. Tall rolling hills stretched into the distant sky, skirted at their feet with green meadows trimmed in white and gold flowers. My mind was reminding me of Jesus’ comment about “lilies of the field” whose adornment surpassed the elegance of Solomon.
I was peacefully examining a cluster of intriguingly lovely lilies (kind unknown to me) when an unexpected strangeness suddenly seemed to crush me.
(I had been enjoying my paradise all this time; the reality of being “at home” had become a normal situation which can best be described as an immersion into total peace, unending and perfect!)
It was as though a subtle “change in plans” had now occurred: my perfect peace seemed to “crack.” An unexplained restlessness crept into me, and a memory formed in my mind for the first time: Where is Maybelle, my loving, lovely wife on Earth? We were so close that she must have died too. She must be up here in her very own paradise. I must find her and take her a bouquet of these lovely flowers. She would so enjoy them. Where do I find her? I feel so lonesome.
7. Dr. Eby Returns to His Physical Body
I looked away from the flowers at my feet, just as a narrow path suddenly parted the lush grass, as if a rushing blade had mowed a strip from my feet to the far end of the valley. Just as suddenly we both were running along (but just above) this pathway. I shouted to Jesus: “What is happening? Where am I headed? Why do I suddenly remember my Maybelle? I must find her!”
Jesus replied: “My son, fear not! You remembered about her because I put it upon your mind that she was part of you. I wanted you to understand why my Father and I made marriage something very special. I wrote in my book a warning: ‘Let no man put asunder what God has united!’ We were planning the earthly family to be as close-knit as is our heavenly family, like a mirror-image!”
Just then I noted that our speed along the path was rapidly accelerating, and that a curve to the right was visible far ahead where the path disappeared into a pass.
“You are feeling ‘incomplete’ all at once because your other half is ‘missing’. We made the two of you one! I want you to experience something right now in paradise with me which you could not sense elsewhere! I am letting you feel ‘intense hurt’, the hurt of lonesomeness, such as I have felt from being separated from my earthly people for so long! Remember? I told Adam that it is not good to be alone as a man! Since he was made in our image, the same applies to God.
“We chose a family once: We espoused Israel and Judah as the wife of Jehovah. She and we would walk and work together to bring down the idol worship of Satan’s nations who rejected their Creator.
“But our wife Israel chased after other gods, and played the whore and ‘slept’ with Satan. Jehovah (who includes me) had to obey his own laws, so we gave her a bill of divorcement. We had to chasten her until she would repent: otherwise we would be breaking our own rules! Since then she has not yet repented, and is still wandering like lost sheep.
“I am lonesome for my people to come home to me. I even came to Earth to win them back, but they said ‘Away with him! Crucify him!’ I left them a promise that I still love them. After all I even died for them. I promised that I would restore my divorcee and would wash her filthy rags of whoredom white as snow. I would make her my new bride adorned in a pure white wedding gown with jewels. As a wedding present I would reestablish her nation on Earth to be a blessing once again (instead of the stumbling stone). I must be her king on David’s throne! And soon!
“The Father and I have felt so neglected all these centuries without the love we sought to enjoy with our family. Can you now imagine how we hurt as I await my body and my Father waits to remarry a penitent wife as our new bride? I am letting you feel that sense of separation!”
Only the rush of our speed could have turned my attention away from Jesus’ profound statements. The bend in the path was approaching in the distance, so Jesus hastened to finish his lesson in marriage:
“My son, the most important earthly gift meant to reflect the inseparable bond of love which unites us with our sheep in our fold! We become ONE with them, just as we intend marriage to make one out of two on Earth! That is what happens when a man and his mate let us put them together. I said so in my book which is my love-letter to our family on Earth.
“Oh that my people would turn back now to God! My Father is unwilling that any should perish, but very few listen to us. Their eyes and ears are sealed over by sins which they enjoy. It simply makes our search for the lost ones all the more intense! I have prepared and promised them unsearchable riches in our presence; in fact everything that I have received from the Father I have willed over to them, jointly! I want my body of believers completed very soon, so that the bride can be united in us at the marriage table! I am their lamb. If only my people would call on me, I could answer them now! Do you sense my loneliness? I am ready; why must they tarry?”
I was about to respond when the pathway above which was speeding took a sharp right turn into a narrow valley. As I swooped between its foothills I gasped at a familiar voice that echoed from somewhere far ahead:
“Dick, were are you? Follow my voice. I need you!”
Like a bolt of lightning-speed I was suddenly being shot forward. Her voice became louder and louder. I was being sucked forward as if by a huge vacuum and then, into total blackness and blankness! No voice, no nothing. I had been sent out of paradise. Why?
I would learn later. Plans had been changed! Maybelle had been frantically praying for a miracle: and Jesus had answered!
In God’s planning, my time in paradise had fulfilled what he wanted to accomplish for me there. He had left Maybelle on Earth to accomplish for her another purpose!
It would take many months for us to be shown how the horror of her day of widowhood (with its blood, sirens, and questionings, and waiting, and shocking hopeless reports) could possibly be “to the glory of God!” The numbing sudden loss of her loved one had initially erased from her mind the details which require immediate answers at such a time of accident. So she prayed:
“Help me, Jesus! I don’t know what to do!”
And then it happened.
[Dr. Richard Eby’s NDE ends here.]
