God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Book of Job and several Psalms in the Hebrew Bible echo the dark and dreary Mesopotamian/Canaanite view of death. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s beloved friend Enkidu receives a premonition of his death in a dream. He describes his immanent fate to Gilgamesh. This passage can be found in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET), 1950, p. 87, but a more lay-friendly version is found in The Epic of Gilgamesh by N. K. Sandars, Penguin, 1983. “As Enkidu slept alone in his sickness, in bitterness of spirit he poured out his heart to his friend. ‘It was I who cut down the cedar, who leveled the forest, I who slew Humbaba and now see what has become of me. Listen, my friend, this is the dream I dreamed last night. The heavens roared, and earth rumbled back an answer; between them stood I before an awful being, the somber-faced man-bird; he had directed on me his purpose. His was a vampire face, his foot was a lion’s foot, his hand ...

Today I received a comment, which I will not be publishing, about Dr. John Lerma, author of ' Into the Light ' and ' Learning From the Light .' I have two blog posts about his books in which I express a little skepticism, not about the quality of the stories he shares, but about the quantity of angelic visitations and revelations. I had to ask, did he elaborate just a bit in the telling. Today's comment averred that he does not exist, that he is a fictional character made up to sell books, and that the medical institutions that he claims to have worked for either don't exist or have no record of him. So, I checked the back of his book and called the AMA to see is he is listed there. He was not. I called The Medical Center of Houston. It certainly does exist, and I talked to Sonja in the Hospice department. She said that Dr. Lerma hasn't worked there for about 5 years, but that he did work there in the past. He went by the names of John and Juan. I asked ...

It has been a while since I’ve continued my recent blog series on negative NDE’s. Ted and I have been traveling, camping, and visiting friends since June 23. We have visited several National Parks, including Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Cedar Breaks National Monument. Our ultimate goal was to visit Ft. Collins, Colorado, where we were met by Lori Juszak of Ft. Collins Tours. She led us into the Armadillo Garage, where for a few years pieces of UAL Flight 610 were stored after the crash on Crystal Mountain, close to Rocky Mountain National Park. Lori tells me that it was an 81 year old man, a first responder at the crash site in ‘51, who attended a tour and provided that snippet of information. Why was it important? Please refer to my blog post, “Did the KGB Sabotage a UAL Flight During the Korean War?” Lori’s tours are first and foremost to preserve the rich history of Ft. Collins. It turned out in the co...