Embraced by the Light [Hardcover]

 

 

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My father asked me to read this book right after my mother passed away. This book brought her great hope, and she passed it along to many people. To be directly honest with the reader, I write this review as a Catholic convert son of a Seventh Day Adventist mother. To be frank, I have a very mixed review of this book.

Before I launch into its content, it should be stated that this book is written in a very readable and fluid style. It took me no more than two hours to read. That being said, I now begin with my thoughts about Ms. Eadie. If the book is true to herself, I find Ms. Eadie to be a very loving and kind person. I need not doubt that there are such things as near death experiences, and, for that matter, I do not doubt that Ms. Eadie experienced something wonderful.

Her depiction of Christ as a loving redeemer is right on. Christ is all these things and more than we can imagine. That being said, however, there are matters in this book that directly contradict that which we know from the public revelation of God to his people. The first test of private revelation, such as experienced by Ms. Eadie, is whether that private revelation seeks to add to or contradict the revelation Our Lord has given us. Unfortunately, much of this book does just that.

The preface provides that "Betty does not return from clinical death with grandiose claims of establishing a new church or of producing miracle cures for diseases, but rather with a simple message of love." I believe this to be true, she does not establish a new church, but Ms. Eadie does style her own religion based upon her experience.

More specifically, on page 45 it Ms. Eadie states, "I wanted to know why there were so many churches in the world. Why didn't God give us only one church, one pure religion? ... All religions upon the earth are necessary because there are people who need what they teach." Ms. Eadie's question is a common one, and it is highly relevant. Nonetheless, God has provided the answer. In Matthew 16, Our Lord states "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church." St. Paul later would state that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. Christ said he has a Church and it is His. That Church is the pillar of truth. Furthermore, this is very consistent with the revelation to the Jews. God's people, with all their faults, were given the truth of God. The religions of the people that they would displace were not on equal par. Through Christ, God wants us to know the truth. In short, it is not God's desire that there be multiple religions. It is his desire to let all people know Him. He accomplishes this through his Church. I'll illustrate with a rather extreme example. The Aztec people appeased their gods by sacrificing prisoners of war and children. Ms. Eadie's statement, if taken to its logical conclusion would mean that the Aztec people needed this religion and that it was good. Not true.

If we draw out Ms. Eadie's analogy, there would be no need for anyone to become a Christian. Why? He is fine just where he is at. Christ said he is the truth and the life. We need to spread that message. Ms. Eadie does this in an indirect way, but this doctrine of hers cuts against this truth.

Ms. Eadie also provides that we pre-existed the creation of the world and participated in its creation (page 47). She provides that we elect to accept our way of life, trials, and illnesses before we are born on earth (page 67). She explains that Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden because "she wanted to become a mother desperately that she was willing to risk death to obtain it" (page 109) I find no support for these statements in the Bible or the Apostolic tradition. If, as Ms. Eadie suggests, even our sins are intended for the benefit of ourselves or others, there is no condemnation for sin. If a person has chosen before his existence to be aborted as a fetus, the mother who aborts that child has no condemnation because she is merely fulfilling the will of the fetus and the tacit approval of God. This is a very dangerous doctrine in that there is no sin. To that end, Ms. Eadie also denies the existence of hell. On page 84 she suggests that our those who "die as atheists, or those who have bonded to the world through greed, bodily appetites, or other earthly commitments find it difficult to move on ... these spirits stay on the earth until they learn to accept the greater power around them and to let go of the world." Thus, there is no hell. There is only heaven, although some are delayed. In the final, analysis all go.

This book was an interesting read. Ms. Eadie isn't establishing a new church, but she is establishing a new religion that denies so many things revealed to us by Christ. To that end, I recommend this book only to those that can recognize the difference between these two matters. Those who can't see the implications of Ms. Eadie's revelation are subject to being deceived. It is very true that Christ is love. It is also truth that Christ taught us what to believe in his love. We should not accept one over the other. Christ desires both for us.

This book Embraced by the Light by Betty Eadie is one of the books to be on any NDE experiencer's bookshelf, even if it is simply for the early historical basis and the "warm fuzzy" feeling that her eloquent writing invokes in the reader. The Light of love and the Light of God felt and seen at the NDEs is something I myself experienced eight years ago. This book, Dannion Brinkley's book Saved by the Light, and Tiffany Snow's book Psychic Gifts Tools to Connect and any of Raymond Moody's books, are a welcome and necessary part of any curious visitor to the near-death experience, and I would also suggest reading all the information complied by IANDS.

Rationalists and empiricists--those people who live and believe only according to what is within the narrow tunnel of their physical senses--are challenged by "Embraced By The Light" by Betty J. Eadie. A remarkable story of perhaps the most vivid and credible near-death account yet published that did not have corporate idea undertones. Written in 1992 among a surge in angel-related topics, Ms. Eadie details her battle with cancer that doctors say took her life for twenty minutes. During that twenty minutes, the reader is drawn into a heavenly lore that seems too good to be true--it seemed only like a dream--but somehow pangs the reader with subtle hints of reality. To an unbeliever, naturally the book comes off as fiction or something that couldn't be taken seriously. So the questions we must then ask are, "Does heaven really exist" and, more importantly, did the author really visit heaven and return to give us her version of it? This is left up to the reader to decide. It doesn't really matter what the reader believes about "Embraced by the Light." Whether or not the reader is a Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jew, he or she will find the story provocative and inspiring, as Eadie gives an account of various places of heavenly interest so detailed that it would seem impossible to be a mere concoction of the imagination: Heaven, where teachers are everywhere, councils endlessly watch over us as we go about our "missions" on earth, where each of us has a duty to fulfill such a mission--whether or not it is acknowledged. When our author mentions that she had died, gone to heaven and was talking with Jesus, she said there was "no way she would ever return" to earth, "to put on that old suit"--for her to go back into her body. Page after page, we are chronologically led through Eadie's near-death experience, which described how our host had no sense of time during her visit and subsequent return. After a brief 147 pages, the reader is moved to think beyond the rational and the empirical. From her entrance to the "tunnel of light" shortly after she left the operating table, through heavenly Gardens and reminders given through life recaps, the story holds itself together. Ms. Eadie is really saying that many people are headed for the same heavenly destination, provided we live by the "rules of love." But what our author is really saying is not mentioned directly. She's telling us to be prepared to meet our final judgment and destiny BEFORE we arrive, and not to be afraid of dying. Until this book was published, such a detailed account of total conscious experience had not been written before. Therefore, nobody can tell Ms. Eadie that she did not experience what she did, although one author tried with his book, "Deceived by the Light" (which I found somewhat angry and overly-critical). Undoubtedly, unbelievers may find anything to do with the next life hard to accept at face value, simply because it doesn't seem possible. Regardless of your beliefs, however, "Embraced by the Light" is compelling--the only requirement that a literary work must accomplish to be successful. But nowhere in the bibliography of this book is the word "fiction" even mentioned. The verso says "1. Near death experiences." Since Betty Eadie wrote of her experience, how can it be unreality?

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4.0 out of 5 stars Embraced by the light
Very good read for those who believe in life hereafter. The author explains her experiences very clearly especially for such a complex issue.

Published 4 months ago by ZH

5.0 out of 5 stars Answers to our most intimate questions of existence
Answers to our most intimate questions of existence are clearly laid out for those of us....who have asked. Read more

Published 4 months ago by lgmab

5.0 out of 5 stars Love is my purpose of life
This book is the one I 'd take with me into a hopital.
I bought it 5 times for family and friends.
I feel warmth and strength by reading it. Read more

Published on Jan 20 2010 by Oswald Abersbach

1.0 out of 5 stars read it part way and thru it in the garbage
juvenile writing and sickeningly syrupy sweet. not very believable....did she conjure this story? don't waste your time, there are so many great books to help when you have lost... Read more

Published on May 23 2008 by Vicki

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to learn more about near death and angels?
This book started a quest to learn more about angels, and near death, Betty Eady writes as though you are a friend chatting with her, and her experience is absolutely fascinating... Read more

Published on April 3 2006

5.0 out of 5 stars Transforming Experience
This book highlights the transformation that occurs at true NDEs, and the psychic phenomena that often accompanies experiencers is shown clearly here. Read more

Published on Dec 14 2004 by Sam Dover

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!
This is a wonderfully detailed account of Betty's life after death experience. Everybody should read this book!

Published on Jun 22 2004 by Laura Osborne

2.0 out of 5 stars Cashing in on Grief?
Many people who read this book have it handed to them after the death of a loved one. For me it was the passing of my wife's father. Read more

Published on Jun 7 2004 by Garry L. Morey

5.0 out of 5 stars I love the Love inside this book
This book reminds me of Tiffany Snow's book - the love expressed here, and how we don't have to have a NDE to wake up the real reason for living -LOVE- is wonderfully simple. Read more

Published on April 12 2004 by delvastewart

5.0 out of 5 stars Love this book
I bought this book after my dad died 10 years ago. I was very sad and lost feeling and was drawn to this book in the book store. Read more

Published on Mar 2 2004 by pigzie

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