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by Luke Eastwood
I discovered Eben Alexander’s autobiographical ‘Proof of Heaven’ by accident. I forget now who lent it to me (I gave it back btw). At the time I had been doing some workshops over time on past-life regression, which were quite powerful and reinforced what I already believed – that death is not the end of life. Eben Alexander’s book in part also inspired my own book, my first novel “The Hereafter”, published in late September 2026.
Dr Alexander’s book is truly startling, not just because of his NDE, but because of his meningitis induced brain-death, that he miraculously recovered from. By all accounts he should have died and even if he survived he should have been an absolute ‘vegetable’ with no higher brain function to speak of. This of course, was not the case and his book goes into some considerable detail about both his NDE, his experiences of the afterlife and of his recovery.
I found this to be a very insightful and inspiring read, but it also reminded me of my own spiritual experiences and those of a very dear friend who had his own NDE. Through my own spiritual practice, I learned how to leave my body, something that is often described by people who have died and come back to life. I am by no means unique in this ability – it is in fact quite common among students of Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as other spiritual or magical paths.
In my own particular experience (that is relevant here), I left my body and floated upwards through the sky, as pure spirit or soul if you will – my body remained motionless on a bed in Dharamshala, in Northern India, although I was not asleep. In fact a few weeks earlier I had been gravely ill in a hospital in Rishikesh, having almost died from dysentery. Fortunately I survived a traumatic and feverish week of intensive treatment thanks to the wonderful Indian doctors and nurses and perhaps also thanks to the prayers of a Sadhu who my then partner had brought to pray for my recovery.
This was not actually my first brush with death – at the age of 7 I was on a Cub-Scout holiday/trip to Hayling Island (south coast of England) when I ran into a quicksand, completely alone. I was fortunate in that I managed to grab hold of a branch and pull myself out, with great effort. However, I was completely alone and I was convinced that I might drown, although my frantic efforts to get out did eventually succeed.
Since then I have had many ‘almost deaths’ – electric shocks, a rollercoaster incident, falling off a roof, falling off a ladder, falling down a well etc – all of which could have easily killed me. Somehow I am still here and I have a strange acceptance of death, I don’t worry about it. Some day I will leave this world, I am ok with dying, as I believe it is only one stage in my soul’s journey through existence.
Perhaps my brush with death in north India had somehow brought me to a liminal space where I was able to have a particularly dramatic out-of-body experience? During this ‘out of body’ or ‘travelling’ experience, as my journey continued, I left the Earth and eventually the solar system. I passed stars and moved beyond the limits of anything that I could detect, over an unknown time period. Eventually I became aware that I was so far from home that I could barely detect it. It was here that I became aware of a distant orb of golden light, that attracted me to it.
This orb radiated divine love and as I got closer, this sensation became stronger until I was quite close to it. I felt transcendent, truly blessed and at one with everything that I had ever been aware of. It was at this point that I began to understand that this was manifestation of The Source, the Godhead or whatever The Creator could or should be called. Whatever I was in the presence of communicated with me, seemingly telepathically and I felt a sense of connection and communion with everything, a sense of knowing and self-realisation that I had never experienced so intensely either before or after. One could suppose that I experienced enlightenment, but it appears only temporarily.
After considerable time I was asked to return, which due to my state of utter bliss I was most reluctant to do. I was then made to understand that I had to return to my body, that my life had to continue. It took considerable time for me to return to my motionless body, from across the vastness of space, and try as I might, I was completely unable to move until my consciousness returned to my physical body.
After I returned, the experience had a very profound impact on me, which remains with me today, maybe not as intensely as in the direct aftermath of this event, but still it colours my thoughts and my interactions and attitudes towards life, death and the purpose of my existence as a human being.
My own experience appears to overlap with some of the experiences of Dr. Alexander, when he was in ‘heaven’ and it also overlaps with the experiences that my good friend Michael Wafer described to me many years after I left India. These experiences have in part been integrated into my book – the story of an atheist, celebrity author who has an intense NDE of his own.
While it was fascinating to read Dr. Alexander’s book (a former rationalist and atheist), it was even more astounding to sit and listen to Michael recount his experience after a near fatal motorcycle crash in New Zealand. I met Michael here in Ireland in 1991, and although we are so different, we really hit it off and remained friends ever since.
I never knew the old Michael, but I am told he was completely different after he recovered from his coma. Michael, like Eben Alexander, should have died. Brain surgery and repairs to his skull, still left him in a dire state, with a perhaps 1-2% chance of survival.
To the shock of everyone, including his doctors, Michael awoke, but he was unable to speak or to walk – it was almost as if his brain had been reset.
Eventually, after over a year of physiotherapy, speech therapy, basic education (he had to relearn to read and write), he made a recovery that no-one would have predicted. Although his short-term memory is permanently damaged, he is deaf in one ear and cannot see in colour – he was able to rebuild his life.
What Michael confided in me was about his death, he had technically been dead at more than one point in his treatment, after the accident. Michael went to ‘heaven’, the afterlife, where he met some of his relatives, including his younger brother Stephen, who had drowned in a swimming pool accident at the age of 7.
Michael described the conversations he had with his brother, who told him that he would have to go back to Earth, to his body. He told him that his Father would die within a few years and that it would be left to him to look after his Mother for some time. It would be difficult but he was meant to return and survive.
Michael did just that and he is one of the kindest and bravest people I’ve ever met, a man who has literally been a child twice over and crawled up a mountain (metaphorically) to rebuild his life. It was his story that inspired me as much as Eben Alexander’s and although I have not had an NDE myself, I know that God (for want of a better term) exists, God is real and is able to precipitate such life changing moments as happened to these two men. This is mostly why I wrote a fictionalised message of belief, in a world that is becoming rudderless, amoral and in many places dystopian. There is something more, there is a reason to live, to strive, to care and to love, and I believe that God wants us to know that we are not alone in this life.
MEET THE AUTHOR
LUKE EASTWOOD is the author of 12 books, mostly on spirituality or folklore. He is also a graduate, horticulturist and spiritual practitioner. Luke has also been involved in environmental activism since the early 1990s, including Greenpeace, Shell To Sea and XR. He lives in Ireland. You can see Luke’s writing, photography, art and music on his website and watch him talk about The Hereafter at:
youtube.com/watch?v=vQI-P6xnvY4
ON THE WEB
lukeeastwood.com
BOOKSHELF
THE HEREAFTER: GOD AND OTHER FAIRY TALES BY LUKE EASTWOOD,
published by Electric Publications, Paperback (298 pages)
This exciting thriller with spiritual overtones is set in England, Scotland and Ireland. It crosses genres but pays homage to classic 20th century Sci-Fi, while also drawing on some of the spiritual ideas found in the Nag Hammadi gospels, and the works of many writers that acknowledge an existence beyond ‘everyday’ reality. The core of the story is about an unexpected epiphany, freedom of choice, religious intolerance, spiritual awakening, and what it is that makes life worth living or dying for. This is fiction but also a stark warning, of a possible dystopian future.
