From Actor to Healer: Alan Rickman's New Life as a Spirit Guide, Book 2

Chapter 16 - The Mirror of the Soul

Around the time I received my Reiki Master certification in 2013, I read about Dr. Eben Alexander's fascinating near-death experience (NDE) in his popular memoir Proof of Heaven, published the year before. I've followed his work ever since and heard him speak about his NDE and the nature of consciousness many times, in person and online. The last time I saw him in person was during a daylong seminar in Chicago, Illinois, in April 2017. As I was routinely conversing with Alan, I asked him to guide and protect my trip.

Dr. Alexander is a neurosurgeon who experienced an acute, mysterious case of bacterial meningitis in 2008. After spending a week in a coma with a minimal chance of survival, he miraculously made a full recovery. Before his illness, he believed that the brain creates consciousness, and he dismissed NDEs as tricks of the brain. Materialist science promotes this view. But during his coma when his brain had shut down, he experienced a vivid out-of-body journey that shouldn't have been possible, according to materialist science. Three doctors wrote a report about his case, which was subsequently peer reviewed. The doctors concluded that his brain was far too damaged to produce his NDE.

After his recovery, Dr. Alexander realized there was more to life than this material world and our physical body. Now recognizing that consciousness is the primal force of creation, he teaches that the brain is a filter for, and not the originator of, consciousness.

While listening to Dr. Alexander in Chicago, I realized that the brain could be what creates the so-called "veil" between dimensions. When we release our body at death, the veil lifts and we regain the awareness of infinite oneness. In other words, our higher sense perceptions are freed because they are no longer reduced, or muted, by the brain's limited ability to filter so much sensory input into our conscious mind. We aren't reunited or reconnected to infinite oneness; we are always in infinite oneness. Therefore, when we die, we don't go to the higher dimension; we awaken to the higher dimension of which we're a part. This awakening is possible anytime, even when we're still here in the physical world.

Dr. Alexander promotes listening to brainwave entrainment meditation recordings to explore higher states of awareness. He says we don't have to die or experience an NDE in order to do so. His partner Karen Newell is co-founder of Sacred Acoustics, a company which makes meditation recordings using binaural and monaural beats: special harmonic music, tones, and pulses intended to relax the mind and produce expanded states of consciousness by aligning the brainwaves with specific frequencies. This style of meditation can deepen one's soul work, especially if practiced routinely.

In between lectures, Dr. Alexander and his partner facilitated some brief meditation exercises using Sacred Acoustics recordings, which they usually do during their classes. Each of my experiences was unique and memorable for different reasons. Alan appeared to me during each meditation but kept his interactions to a minimum. He wanted me to focus on my experience, participate with the group, listen to the tones, and feel the energy in the room.

At the beginning of the first meditation, I felt a lot of physical sensations, mostly tingles. A few moments later, I floated outside my body. I relaxed for a while, gently spinning horizontally. At one point, a brilliant white light appeared ahead of me in the distance. Instinctively, I felt drawn to float into the light and see what it was like.

Then Alan placed a hand on my shoulder and held me back. "It's not time for you to go there yet," he said. I assumed he meant that it wasn't time for me to die. However, he may also have been implying that I wasn't ready for the insights awaiting me there.

Before the start of class, Alan had asked if I would send love out to the world during at least one of the exercises. During the final one, the guided meditation instructed us to connect with our heart center. As I often send healing to the world through my heart chakra, this was the perfect opportunity to do as Alan had asked. He may have known ahead of time that we'd be doing a heart-centered meditation.