Customer Reviews

Children of the New Millennium: Children's Near-Death Experiences and the Evolution of Humankind

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great book showing a positive future. One of the few books that does not forcast doom. I loved the book. I would also recommend the book An Encounter with a Prophet.

P.M.H. Atwater is a well-respected long time researcher on the subject of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). Her fascination for the subject originated with her own multiple NDEs. Children of the New Millenium is the most complete work, to date, dealing with the NDEs of children. Dr. Atwater feels that transformation of consciousness, regardless of the cause (including NDEs) is a "structural, chemical, and functional change that occurs in the brain." She states: "This sudden change, sometimes akin to a quantum leap, flings the experiencer from one mode of existence to another - as if on cue....I call the phenomenon a brain shift/spirit shift." She feels that the "brain shift", in particular, is affected to a greater degree in children than in adults, "propelling them into abstractions and learning enhancements". She presents an excellent and thorough discussion of all aspects of the characteristics and many possible after-effects of the NDE in children. She then compares and contrasts these with the changes commonly seen after adult NDEs. As well, there is an excellent presentation of four phases in the process of integration which she sees the child experiencers undergoing after the event. She has documented an average of 15 years for children, as opposed to an average of 7 years for adults, to integrate the NDE into their lives. Dr. Atwater obviously loves children. She is fascinated with, and respects, what those child NDErs can teach us all. She shares more directly quoted childhood NDEs than can be found in any other source including my own book which is Blessing in Disguise: Another Side of the Near-Death Experience (Llewellyn 2000). She also includes many of the sketches that the children drew of their events. Her statement that: "The child you get back after a near-death episode is a remodeled, rewired, reconfigured, refined version of the origional" certainly piqued my interest! This book also addresses a multiplicity of other fascinating subjects such as pre-birth memories, reincarnation, future memory, a review of the author's classification of four types of NDEs, and even alien abduction to name a few. There is something for every reader of every background. Whether or not you are open to the concept of alien existence and/or abduction, and whether or not you accept the author's theory of brain shift/spirit shift, the fact remains that the absolute merit of this book is the wealth of information it contains, especially about childhood NDEs, their after-effects, and their impact on us all. Most of us have come to agree that we most certainly are all interconnected to each other and to that Energy Source which created us. Therefore, what happens to one of us (including the child NDEr) will ultimately impact us all. Whether or not the author's theories resonate with your own, I believe that you will find them as intriguing as I have. This is a fascinating mind-stretching work!

P.M.H. Atwater's interview style, relating detailed accounts of the children who have had Near Death Experiences, is compelling testimony, as well as the foundation of her concept of what the Millemium holds for those who wish to look. Momentous and hopeful, this book is for those who like to think "outside the box" and who enjoy that kind of challenge in their thinking and reading.

For anyone wishing to understand how brain and spirit shifts happen and the results of same, this is one more work by PMH Atwater which will enlighten. Atwater herself is an excellent example of how one accesses other realms of understanding when one's brain and/or spirit shifts into greater consciousness. Children of today are pressing us to save our earth, become more responsible, they demand attention and challenge every perception we have. For anyone wishing to understand more about their own possible NDEs and find hope that they, too, have experienced brain and/or spirit shifts, this book will be of great assistance. PMH Atwater is to be applauded for her dedication to thorough, ethical research and her commitment to educate us as to consciousness shifts.

The early sections of this book, which deal with the author's research into children's near-death experiences, are moderately interesting, though Atwater's criteria for an NDE are rather loose, and she includes many cases that seem more like vivid dreams - and even cases when no NDE was remembered at all! But it's the later chapters that drag this book down into 2-star territory, as Atwater blends UFOs, alien abductions, genetic modification, folklore, channeling, and wacky predictions in a fruity melange of New Age craziness. Here's a typical quote:

"A contemporary voice on the subject of the new race aborning in our time is Gordon-Michael Scallion. He is known as an intuitive futurist and modern-day prophet ... It was he who several years ago affirmed that the fifth root race [i.e., the alleged next phase of human evolution] is the blue race and linked it with the then soon-to-appear blue star, which he later identified as the comet Hale-Bopp. He associated the manifestation of both of these developments with Christian beliefs about the Second Coming of Christ, and also with the Native American prophesy of the White Buffalo and the portentous 1994 birth, in Jamesville, Wisconsin, of an all-white female buffalo calf ..." (pp. 211-212)

Scallion goes on to establish his prophetic bona fides by predicting that "between 1998 and 2001, everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear will experience a spiritual event that parallels the event that occurred two thousand years ago" (i.e., the birth of Christ). Well, it's 2005, and if it happened, I missed it. But maybe I lacked eyes to see and ears to hear.

Don't get me wrong. I think near-death experiences, when properly researched, provide compelling evidence of life after death. But Atwater's silly book cheapens the field and undercuts the serious work done by others. Read it for amusement only.

This book "spoke" to me about Brain Shift/ Spirit Shift and the resulting effects of a transformation of consciousness, having myself experienced (without a NDE) those effects almost a decade ago. Atwater's reports of childrens' NDE and the aftermath of NDE serve as a wake-up call to our reality: (1) that we are spiritual beings having human experiences, (2) that we are continually evolving higher and higher through our incarnations, and (3) that love, forgiveness and service to our fellow beings is our greatest goal on this earth plane. In the future, readers of this book will say, "P.M.H. knew, she really knew!"

this book is a very solid and complete study of NDEs in kids. There are many stories of people who experienced NDE, usually with peaceful outcomes. I ordered this book, looking for a different subject, and still enjoyed it very much. For me it was a little hard to read due to the many references, it made it feel like I was reading a textbook.

P. M. H. Atwater presents a very rich feast of materials on NDEs of children and how these transformed their lives.

She defines four types of experiences, finding that the distribution of each of these reported by children differs from the distribution reported by adults. :

1. An "initial" or "nonexperience," of "loving nothingness;"

2. Unpleasant or hell-like experience;

3. Pleasant, or heaven-like experience; and

4. Transcendent experience.

Significant numbers of Atwater's reporters had multiple NDEs, each adding its transformative influence to their lives.

This is a book that is worth a slow and thoughtful read, presenting a wealth of observations and thought-provoking explanations of the worlds beyond physical existence.

Atwater is hanging by his/her fingernails from the last leaf at the end of the branch!! If you sent some Deadheads to a UFO convention for a week and then had them drop acid and write a book in 12 hours, - this is the book they would write!!

Don't get me wrong, - I enjoy reading about near-death experiences, but the flimsy "theory" put forth in this book is so wacky and unsupported that I found myself laughing at it.

Essentially, the author contends that in order to bring on the next stage in human evolution, aliens are abducting children who have had near-death experiences and altering their DNA in order to create a human super-race. The wholebook is filled with similar wacky, unsupported assertions - many lifted from others works. For example:

Taking an idea from another book, she asserts that globally, children born after 1982 are the most educated, smartest ever. And to support this she offers the following quote from a "Mexican Pediatrician": "The new crop of infants are coming in more aware...eyes focused and alert, necks strong, lying in bassinets no bigger than chickens and with a knowingness I can not describe. They are very special babies this new crop." (If an anonymous Mexican pediatrician comparing children to both crops and chickens in the same breath is your idea of "proof" then this book is for you)

Later she describes this "crop" of children as the "Blue Race", because they represent the 5th of 7 (why did I know there were going to be 7?) stages in human evolution (Don't worry she provides a handy chart so you know what all 7 stages are, - 1.Red/Physical 2. Orange/Astral, etc.). To lend support here she quotes another author as follows: "All children born after '98 shall be telepathic at birth. The physical body shall change to reflect the vibrational changes of Earth under the influence of the Blue Star...All races of people shall have a bluish tint to the skin as a result." She goes on to say these children will have mastered multiple languages by age 2 and will live 200 years. - Well, I have a beautiful child born in '99, but the Blue star must have missed us because she's almost two now and barely learning English. She doesn't seem telepathic and she doesn't have blue skin. (But don't worry, the author gives an example of a girl in India that looked sorta blue when she was born).

If this review seems jumbled,it must be because that's how the book is. She jumps through topics like the Hale-Bopp comet, alien-abductions and Christianity with only a cursory attempt to tie them all together into a theory. The only good thing about this book, was that the sheer absurdity of it provided a few chuckles...Ultimately this is just a terrible, terrible, jumbled discombobulated emalgamation of loony metaphysical yammerings - masquerading as research. The only thing "near-death" in this book is the author's reasoning ability!

Children of the New Millennium has helped me understand my life better. I was practically born dead, and have many of the experiences mentioned in the book. I wish I had read it years ago.