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Last week we began a story about a near-death experience – a phenomenon of which thousands of dying people have spoken. The similarities are surreal. Our soul lives forever. When the soul leaves the body – even briefly – then returns, we receive guidance as to what lay ahead.

Here’s Part 1 of the story AND debate over near-death events and past lives from: 

“God says we live forever, Psychiatry agrees!”

Chapter 1

 April 10, 2021, 6:09 p.m., Downtown Manhattan, New York City

It is such a simple accident. We’re standing on the corner of Broadway and West 46th,

Megan and me, watching one of those sketch artists do a caricature. Those people are clever. 

Their sketches really do resemble their subjects, but with that touch of playfulness we all love. 

Who doesn’t like to be entertained, right? Meg and I do. Going to see “Moulin Rouge” tonight at

the Hirschfield Theatre. It’ll be our fourth Broadway play this week. 

We just met. Well, not like this morning, but only nine months ago. Our marriage

certificate just arrived. Meg is my first lover. That’s saying something given I’m one-hundred-

twenty-one years old. Don’t cringe. I look twenty-five. 

Meg had a high school boyfriend – smart as a STEM major but just as dumb about

relationships. He got her pregnant at sixteen. Meg’s parents forced her into a nasty abortion,

causing a seven-year rift in the Riles family. Neither of us have kids. How else could we take in

four shows? Anyhow, we hit it off, Megan and me.

The sketch artist finishes and holds up his drawing to show his ten-minute subject – a 

darling little blonde girl. Blondie has glee on her face like you would expect of a five-year-old.

The pink pastels match the shade of her dress. She doesn’t mean to do it, but she lunges toward

the artist to snatch the sketch, then falls hard into my already-injured left knee. I lose my balance

and cascade into the street. That’s the last I recall. Now, I’m up high watching scores of people,

several with the look of horror on their faces. Blondie is smiling, holding her caricature tight to

her chest, oblivious to the man pinned under a city street sweeper. 

Talk about a view! I can see the entirety of downtown Manhattan and yet the most minute

details of my accident below. Blood is freely streaming out from underneath the vehicle. My left

leg is broken in seven places, my face seized in pain. Still alive, but not for long. Man vs

Sweeper? Don’t take those odds to Vegas. Oh, my, what’s this?

There’s a light. It’s pulling me toward it. I’m losing sight of my body under the street

sweeper. Now I’m drifting. It’s really peaceful, quieter than sun rays. There’s a gatekeeper. He is

asking me to wait. I don’t mind. Beats the pain I was feeling. Maybe it’s my time. “What, Sir?”

He’s sending me back to watch again. I mean the light is sending me back. Hope the pain goes

away. Sir’s words: “You have more to do.”

May 10, 2021, 9:30 p.m., Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, Long Island, New York

            It’s a bird-chirping, bud-blossoming Spring morning in West Brentwood, Long Island,

New York. Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, once the largest hospital of any kind in the world, having

treated over a million patients since 1929, greets an old one.

        “Tell me Jon, about the light.” Dr. Bernard Espy, MD, Psychiatry and Neurology, is

addressing me, Jonathon Donald, as I lay on a comfy treatment couch. Thirty days ago, I was

being crushed under a moving street sweeper. 

          Jonathon: “The light drew me to it like a lazy river ride at Disney. The pain I was feeling

seconds earlier was gone. A voice came from the light, a welcoming, loving voice, but it told me 

to wait. The Masters would be with me soon.”

        “Then, what happened?” 

         Jon: “The light told me to go back, that I had more to do.”

        “Did you go back?” Jon: “Not yet. I was still watching from above. Megan was crying

uncontrollably. The parents of the little girl scooped her up and ran. They must have thought they

were responsible. Four policemen were there in an instant. They flagged down a big dump truck

to see if they could leverage the sweeper off of my body so that the police could pull me out.”

        “Is that how you got free?” Jon: “Yes, they applied chains around the upper part of the

sweeper and touched the dump truck accelerator a millimeter at a time, slowly, until the sweeper

lifted a few inches – enough to pull me out.” 

        “How could you know what they did? You were pinned underneath that vehicle. You

 couldn’t have seen beyond the sweeper’s undercarriage. “Because I am immortal.”

Befuddled by my strange reply, Dr. Espy ended my couch session soon after and sent me 

back to physical therapy. That I’m alive at all seems a miracle, even to a nonplussed medical

researcher like Espy. My seven fractures have knitted. I took my first unassisted steps yesterday.

That I was in a near-fatal automobile accident in Dallas just months before this street sweeper

incident makes my recovery one for the medical books. Doctors all over the world are intrigued. 

And the near-death experience I described? Dr. Espy has heard similar near-death stories 

from a number of patients over his twenty-seven-year practice as an MD of Psychiatry. While it 

mystifies him that I can accurately describe scenes surrounding my near demise, Espy believes

that Carl Jung was right. Humans have a “collective conscience” in which we live the 

experiences of our species over and over again. To Espy, “the light” I saw is part of that

collective conscience.

May 17, 2021, 8:30 p.m., FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

   Over at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, another follower of Bernard Espy’s research is eager to

hear his views. FBI Director, Christopher Wray has invited Espy and two colleagues, Leo Wan,

MD, twice a winner of the Troland Award in psychiatry and Anita Andres, MD, renowned expert

in the field of regression and progression therapy, to FBI Headquarters to discuss the 

phenomenon of immortality. 

        Wray looks like a cute movie star, dimple and all, and his sense of humor in law enforcement

ranks is legendary, but make no mistake, his curious mind is on alert 24/7/365. Today, the

possibility of immortality is what’s on his mind.

            Next week we’ll move our story full steam into FBI offices in Washington, D.C. to fully understand the reality of past and future lives and the keen interest governments around the world have in the possibility of human immortality. In the meantime, as promised, below is our expanding Recommended Reading including my own novels on these astonishing discoveries:

MUMPA’s Recommended Reading

“Many Lives, Many Masters” Brian L. Weiss, MD

“Coming Back: A Psychiatrist Explores Past Life Journeys” Raymond Moody, MD

“Same Soul, Many Bodies” Brian L. Weiss, MD

“Quantum Mind” James Paul Pandarakalam, MD 

MUMPA Lawrence Durbin’s Novella and Two Novels on IMMORTALITY:

June 01, 2021: “God says we live forever…” a Kindle VELLA Mystery

Nov 25, 2021: “1000 YEARS of Talks with God, Science and Methuselah Speak!” Feb 25, 2022: “God says we live forever, Psychiatry agrees!”