Call It The Trick Of Film, But Often There Seems To Be An Overlap From Heaven

We must always be careful not to put more stock in the mind of man than in the touch of God. Intellectuals, who are rampant in our time, tend to be skeptical in the way of closing out the supernatural. But the fact is that there are instances when we don't understand baffling events because it is Heaven -- another dimension -- overlapping the physical.

Because we don't understand doesn't mean we should disregard it -- as is too often the case, by those who then call it "sensationalism."

This is not to say that all or even most such reports are true but that inexplicable phenomena occur far more frequently than science would have us believe and should not be ignored in the way that the "mainstream" ignores it. Often when there are inexplicable phenomena it is because Heaven is reaching out -- reminding us, hinting to us, with a glimpse of the eternal.

On occasion, in other words, the eternal or "hereafter" intertwines with the "right now." There is an overlap. Those on earth see unusual lights or gem-like reflections as are also described by those who have had near-death episodes.

Visitors to purported sites of apparition say they can stare at the sun without pain, damage, or even discomfort to their eyes, which seems to contravene the dictates of ophthalmology.

In other instances, when photos are taken, especially at holy places, strange lights appear -- some in a way that is difficult to discern from light leakage onto film, from normal photographic defects, and from the artifacts of reflection, but others that beg for a fuller explanation.

Is it just leakage, or the overlap of dimensions? Note how the photo at the left of someone "resting in the Spirit" (after the laying on of hands) resembles a soft and cotton-like light that was also seen around the famous mystic Maria Esperanza (right) as she prayed.

When the Venezuelan seer died, globules of unusual light (yes, a photographer would find a way to explain them too) were seen as in heavenly visions around her grave.

Compare that to what a researcher logged from children who had clinically died and returned:

"Many of these youngsters actually saw prayers being said for them while they were out of body. They describe how the power of those prayers turned into beams of radiant, golden, or rainbow light that arced over from the one saying the prayer, no matter how many miles away, to where they themselves were 'hovering.'"

Recently, says Maria's son-in-lawn, Carlos Marrero Bornn, children gathered at a Church-approved site of apparition called Betania in preparation for their First Communion were told about a unique blue butterfly that often had come out of a Lourdes grotto at the moment of Maria's apparitions.

"Sure enough, while they were in front of the grotto and singing the Salve Regina, suddenly a blue butterfly came out and then returned right to the grotto," this Caracas businessman informs us with excitement.

Those who die and come back likewise report the presence of gorgeous butterflies: in recalling the heavenly landscape, it is one of the animals they most frequently note.

Bees are seen humming and there are the gorgeously arrayed butterflies, report two professors who logged near-death encounters.

Meanwhile, it is claimed that Heaven also has indescribable music -- and one wonders if that music occasionally "leaked" through to our great classical composers.

It is a music like none those who encounter it have ever heard, with chords that do not exist here (though in Heaven, they say, there is no beat, perhaps because there is no time). 

There is also said to be a tremendous aroma that resembles what Catholic mystics have longed experienced as the "odor of sanctity."

Usually it's described as rose-like or a combination of a rose and lilacs or lilies and once more it's like these aromas of Heaven are granting us little hints as they overlap into our realm. "Various individuals report that it is impossible to describe the fragrant aromas of the flowers, trees, and grasses of the next world, where their delicate perfumes fill the air," note researchers Dr. Craig R. Lundahl and Dr. Harold A. Widdison in a book called The Eternal Journey.

We have to take at least some of these accounts seriously. They are powerfully informative and have been reported by capable medical researchers. Said a woman named Joy Snell: "I was not prepared for the sweetest revelation of all: the all-pervading aroma of Heaven -- the heady perfume! I bent and smelled the flowers -- yes, it was there. The grasses also. The air was just the same -- a perfume so exotic, so refreshing, so superior!" This sounds precisely like the "aroma of holiness."

In Heaven dozens of flowers of different kinds grow on one stalk, it has been described, and the flowers most frequently mentioned include dahlias, tulips, roses, orchids, daisies, violets, lilacs, hyacinths -- or plants that resemble them, at any rate.

"I have seen the flowers of the far North and the exquisite flowers of the far South, but nothing can compare with the colors of flowers that bloom in that eternal Land," noted the woman.

In Heaven, say thousands of those who have had such experiences, everything seems to be alive, luminous (the light coming from within), and swaying in a Praise to God. Best of all? No cockroaches, flies, or mosquitoes.

7/7/06