Thomas Gates Interview

Summary:

Thomas Gates is a musician whose spiritual journey began after a profound near-death experience (NDE) that transformed his understanding of life and healing. In this interview, Thomas shares his story of spiritual awakening and healing abilities.

Highlights:

• Thomas experienced a transformative near-death experience after severe illness, which led to a spiritual awakening.
• During his NDE, he felt profound peace and encountered beings who communicated love and reassurance.
• He describes the process of leaving his body and moving through a tunnel of light, experiencing unconditional love and oneness.
• Thomas emphasizes the importance of letting go of fear and embracing the present moment during such experiences.
• His journey led him to discover healing abilities, which he now uses to help others find peace and clarity in their lives.

The interview explores Thomas Gates’ unique path to self-awareness and his evolution in guiding others through their spiritual journeys.

Full Transcript:

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Thomas Gates. I am taping this in his home, a few blocks away from my home in Fairfield, Iowa. And Thomas has a very interesting story which I actually only heard from a conversation we had in the supermarket one day. And maybe I read something in the paper or something about your having had a near-death experience which resulted in a spiritual awakening and the dawning of healing abilities. And so, we have plenty of time in this interview and I would like to hear the whole story in as much detail as you can dredge up.

Thomas: Yeah, sure.

Rick: And let’s go at it. So, is that where we would want to start, with your near-death experience?

Thomas: Yeah, well, actually I can tell you a little background on me. Basically, I never was anyone who thought about that stuff. I didn’t even know what a near-death experience was when I had it. I only found that out maybe five years later when I first told someone about my experience. I didn’t say anything about it to anyone, because I didn’t think there was any reason to talk about it. And then one day, it came up, something came up. Actually, when it came up, I was on this course and someone…

Rick: Meditation course?

Thomas: Yeah, it was a meditation course. It was one of the early courses that they had over at Maharishi University. And I happened to go into the wrong building and there was a lecture going on. And I thought, “What is this?” And they were talking about quantum physics, which at that point was the first I’d ever heard of that. And I thought, “What in the world are they talking about?” And so, I was thinking, “Oh, I better go,” but then I didn’t want to make a scene. And so, I just sat there and I listened. And the more I listened, the more I started getting this kind of liveliness. And then all of a sudden, this professor described some little particle that they were theorizing was one of the first elemental particles of creation. One of the first that would occur. That would either occur or it would be the first or the last, depending on which direction they were going. And when he described this thing, I got really excited and I jumped up out of my chair and I said, “That’s right!” And of course, everybody turns their head and they’re looking at me. And I go, “Oops.” And I sat back down in my chair. But one of my friends was there and went, “Oh.” So later, I let myself out of the back room. I got out because I didn’t want to talk about it or say anything. And so, she said, “What was that about?” And I said, “Well, do you really want to know?” And she said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, okay, sit down. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anybody.” And it ended up taking about two hours to really go through all the detail of the whole journey. And it was a wonderful experience for me, by the way. It was the first time I’d ever really shared it with anyone. Not even my father, who was there when it happened. And it had an effect on her. It was amazing because she had some kind of healing experience just from hearing the story. You know, these tears started coming and all kinds of things. And I asked her what was going on. And then after that, she felt like this great burden had been lifted off. And she said it was like she just had some fear for a while, in general, about things. And those fears just melted away. And I’ve had other people who would tell me that after I told the story. And then I realized, well, there’s some kind of healing value in telling the story. Now, back then, of course, I didn’t know anything about healing or any of that. So that’s how I first came to talk about it.

Rick: So how was it that you almost died? Did you get in a car accident or something?

Thomas: Well, I had been very, very sick. I was a musician playing in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. You know that song, “Crossroads”?

Rick: By Eric Clapton?

Thomas: Well, he obviously played it. A lot of people played it. Robert Johnson, I think. But there are two streets in there, Rosedale and Riverside. Riverside and Rosedale. That intersection right there, that’s what it’s about. It’s a real famous place, but it’s known for being a very rough part of town. So, I was working as a musician in that area, living in that area. It was back in ’70, probably 1970, somewhere around there.

Rick: Playing the drums.

Thomas: Playing drums in a nightclub there, seven nights a week. And there was a lot of drug violence. Violence in general, and a lot of racial strife. So, this was all going on at that time, and I witnessed a lot of things. I actually saw people getting beaten up. It ended up that somebody got shot, a policeman got shot and died. I just got so overwhelmed by all that and stressed out. I was a nice little country kid living in the city. I couldn’t handle it. So, I started just getting sick. My health started going downhill. I was disillusioned, got depressed, the whole thing. I walked around for two years like that. Finally, I just got so sick that I ended up in the hospital. They thought it was just a case of appendicitis, but it turns out that, once they got in there, they discovered some other complications that had been going on. Quite a lot of inflammation. So, they had to do exploratory surgery. So, I got major infection from that. Things just kept going downhill pretty fast. In fact, the doctors walked into the room at one point and spoke to my father who was sitting over there. They say this, and I’m wondering why they’re saying it to him. Why don’t they say it to me? Then I realized later, well, I’m unconscious.

Rick: But you heard it.

Thomas: I heard every word. Everything that was going on. They said, “Well, we’re sorry. We’ve done everything we can. We’re not sure he’s going to make it.” Of course, I heard that, and I’m thinking, “Oh, excuse me? I think you’re in the wrong room. I’m not dying.” I was only, what, 22 years old, I had just turned 22. I thought, “There’s no way I’m dying. This is ridiculous.” Then they walked out of the room, and sure enough, in a matter of moments, something started happening. It was that process.

Rick: What started happening? What process?

Thomas: The death process.

Rick: Oh, okay. They were picking up on it. The machine started beeping.

Thomas: It was a little country hospital, really, back then. They had stuff there and all that. I don’t remember what all they had, the machinery and everything. It was not like today.

Rick: These days, they would helicopter you into the big place.

Thomas: Oh, man, they had everything. Now they do. But a pretty simple thing. But what happened was they said that. Of course, I dismissed that as a possibility. But then something happened. I had been in a lot of pain, real severe pain, like I’d never experienced before or since, off the mat. Even with them driving me up, I was still there. Very intense. So just a matter of moments after they had said that and walked out of the room, to leave my dad with that thought, I guess, to digest that. They had done everything, a lot of things they were trying to do. My fever kept going up, and that was a problem. It was getting really high. They iced me and everything. They do it differently now, but then they actually used ice. So, this started happening. But what occurred was that all of a sudden, all that pain came to a screeching halt. It was like somebody slamming on the brakes. And then that got my attention. But I didn’t know what was really happening. I started feeling some sensation down in my toes, a little vibration or something. And it kept moving up into my foot and into my ankle and up my legs, past the calf and into the knee, and just slowly, very slowly, gradually. And the interesting thing about that is that as it occurred, I could see through the sheet, wherever that sensation was, I could see through the sheet. I could see myself, my body.

Rick: From a vantage point above your body?

Thomas: No, visually, right there. I’m still in the body.

Rick: But you’re lying there with your eyes closed, and yet you’re seeing this happening.

Thomas: And what I saw was this empty shell, like a cicada that’s molted its shell. It’s the form of the body, but it’s empty. But even at that point, I didn’t know what was going on. It was just really captivating my attention. So, I kept going, and I was just glad I wasn’t having pain anymore. And then it got here, to my chest area. Then I knew, “Oh, I guess I am dying.” And at that moment, I had a choice. What do I think of that? What do I want to do? Some people, when that happens, they get very fearful. They’re afraid. For me, I never went to fear, ever, in this entire experience. But I think the reason I didn’t get afraid, my choice was either I can freak out and try to do something about it and hang on, or I can just let go and go with this process, because it was pretty smooth and easy. I think the reason I chose the latter was because the alternative of going back to the pain I’d been experiencing, I was done. I just couldn’t go there. So, I just let go. So, then it just kept moving up and moving up. And finally, up into my head, and there’s a little point right back here. There’s a little pinpoint spot. I just went to there, and then I popped out. And everybody has that spot, by the way. I touched somebody there one time.

Rick: Is that like the seventh chakra or something?

Thomas: It’s on the crown, right back here, right at the little crown.

Rick: A little bald spot on me.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah, right at the little bald spot for us guys.

Rick: What bald spot? Where the Jews wear the yarmulkes.

Thomas: Yeah, I guess so. There on that spot. Yeah, maybe that’s why. I don’t know. Anyway, then I just popped out. And then I was looking down at my body lying in the bed. And I didn’t know what that was. I thought, “What is that?”

Rick: Your body.

Thomas: Yeah, I didn’t know what my body was. And I’m just right above it looking down. And then I realized, “Oh, well, that’s me.” But wait a minute. How can that be me? I’m up here looking down at that thing. And boy, I was expanding already. My awareness was expanding. And that tiny little thing, too. It started to get to look like a little matchbox. And I’m supposed to crawl back into that little matchbox. There’s no way. I can’t do that.

Rick: We used to have a cat that tried to do that. She’d try to get into a little box like this in every situation.

Thomas: Yeah, ours do that, too. They think they’re hiding, but you can see them. Yeah, so anyway, that was an interesting experience there for that moment. And if that’s as far as I had gotten, and then had I ended up back in the body– because for some people, that’s what happens. They get a glimpse for a moment, and then they’re back in the body. That alone would have been worth the price of admission for me. Because I realized in that moment that, “Oh, wait a minute. I think maybe nobody really dies.” Because I knew it just happened. It was true. I was dying. I had recognized that, and then I popped out.

Rick: So that thought occurred to you even at that moment, “Nobody really dies.”

Thomas: Yeah.

Rick: And you’d never sort of pondered that before?

Thomas: Right, yeah. When you’re young like that, you don’t think about it.

Rick: Yeah, you play on the drums, having fun.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah, you live forever. So anyway, there I was, looking down at that. I didn’t feel like, “Oh, my God. I’ve got to get back.” It never occurred. So, I just kind of kept moving, and then I kept moving up further and further. As I did, it looked like looking down at a little dollhouse that has the top off, and you see people and the furniture. You can see my dad sitting over in the chair. I could see other rooms, too, with other people. And I just kept floating up above that. And finally, that started falling into the background. It became less present, and then more was opening up in a bigger way. So, I lost interest in it. But I still had awareness and perception. Perception, by the way, in the physical body, our perception is running through the hardware of this body. And so, it gets processed a certain way, and we’re used to that. We’re used to looking at things and seeing things and identifying things the way we do with this machine. It’s like a machine, in a way, like a computer. But as you leave the body, you still have the residue of that type of processing for a little while. As you keep moving further and further away, there becomes a new type of perception, a new mechanism for perception, and the old one begins to fall away. So, when we’re talking about these experiences, people are trying to process it by listening to it right now with the physiology they’re used to processing things through. And yet you’re trying to describe things that are not perceived that way after a while. So, for many years, it sort of was a challenge to be able to share this with people. How do you describe this in a way that can be helpful? And that’s why I do it, by the way. I was happy not to even talk about it. I was fine. I was just enjoying whatever. But then I saw the value in that. To me, the whole reason for talking about near-death experience is not about the flashy stuff. There’s plenty of that. But it’s really about, well, what can we take from that and use in our life here? Because this is where we do it. This is where everything happens. This is where we evolve. Because we don’t need this kind of perception once we leave this. We have a different thing happening. And there’s not a lot going on. It doesn’t have to be. It’s pretty quiet.

Rick: Once we leave.

Thomas: Yeah, it can be. Now, it depends on what you want to choose. For me, I was used to that quiet, silent thing because I grew up out in the woods in the country and lived practically like a little nature boy. And I loved the silence of that. So, it was very natural for me to just embrace that quality of silence. But anyway, so I digressed there. But where were we?

Rick: So, you were expanding up out of your body and the hospital was looking like a little dollhouse with the people in it. But then that kind of perception began to fade as you moved further out. But then you didn’t really elaborate on what took its place or what was happening then.

Thomas: Well, so then I just kept moving. And then at one point I stopped and there was just, there was really nothing. In fact, everything was just black.

Rick: It’s not like you were seeing the planet down there or something. It was just a blackness.

Thomas: No, I wasn’t seeing anything behind me anymore, only what was before me. But it was just this black–

Rick: “Behind you” meaning where the body was.

Thomas: Where the body was.

Rick: But you were seeing things before you. So, you were seeing something?

Thomas: Well, something in front, yeah, whatever was in my view. And what was in my view at first was just nothing but black, like a black backdrop on a stage. You go to a dance performance and before anything happens it’s dark. And then all of a sudden, the light comes on and there’s something. It really stands out. That’s the way it was. But it wasn’t dark in a way that was fearful. I love black. I wear it sometimes just to annoy people. “Spiritual” people. So anyway, and then I just stopped. And there wasn’t really anything going on. I still had a thought in the way you think. And so, my thought was, “What now?” Because as far as I knew, I’d never done this, I didn’t know what to expect or if I was supposed to do something. Never heard of this before. And as soon as I had that thought, something happened. And what happened was some beings appeared. There were five beings. And if you can imagine like a little choir setting where they have this stand, where people stand on the little steps. So, there are three in the back and then there are two a little bit shorter. Can’t get rid of the fourth guy. A little bit shorter like that.

Rick: In front of those.

Thomas: And they were very luminescent, kind of a glowing type. A lot of white to them. No wings. Little children say, “Oh, those are angels.” So far, I’ve seen angels. They’re real, but I haven’t ever seen any wings. There’s an explanation about why people may perceive that as wings.

Rick: We’ll talk about that.

Thomas: Anyway, so they were there and they didn’t actually speak, but they were communicating to me. And what they were saying, I always remember these words, it was so soothing, like, “Don’t worry, everything’s all right. We’re here to help you. We love you. We’re here to help you and we love you.” And they just kept that, looping for me. So, it was very soothing and I really felt loved, even though I didn’t know who they were. It wasn’t like family or anything. So that went on for a little bit. And then I felt the presence of another being. And so, my awareness, I didn’t have any “body” that I could perceive, even a subtle body or anything. It was just awareness. And my awareness turned the opposite direction. And here was a person, like right here, just face right here. Not a picture, but a face, gazing at me. And I recognized this one. And the reason I recognized this one was because only ten days earlier, I had learned how to meditate and I had learned TM. And so, they were doing–back when I learned it, there was an initiation and a little altar thing and they’re doing all this. And there was this picture. And this picture was of Guru Dev, who basically introduced TM, you know, and Maharishi–

Rick: Maharishi’s master.

Thomas: Yeah, Maharishi’s master. And by the way, I’m used to talking to people sometimes who don’t have the tradition of either TM or sometimes even meditation at all. But everybody can have that experience, and that’s why I do it today, to help them in that way. So anyway, he’s there, and I recognize, yeah, he’s the guy that was in that picture when I learned. And I really liked that technique. It was great. I had wonderful experiences within those few days. But I didn’t know anything about the tradition really, other than he was Maharishi’s guy and I didn’t know much about any of it. But I felt so relaxed. I was already pretty relaxed, you know. But I felt like I really could surrender, I could let go. If there was going to be any fear, at that point, it was impossible. And he didn’t say anything, but he just gazed at me. And I went through all these different experiences of feeling, of emotion. Sometimes it was like a father type thing. And sometimes it was like real strength, like a real strong being. And then it was love. But it was like peace, deep, deep peace. And I just, at that point, surrendered. But what happened when I say surrender, it means literally what happened at that moment was that my past disappeared. I couldn’t look back at anything because it wasn’t there and there was no awareness that it had ever been there. So, then I began to move. It seemed a sensation of movement. I went through this whole tunnel thing that people talk about. I saw other souls. It was a beautiful thing.

Rick: Going through the tunnel themselves?

Thomas: Yeah, some going the way I was going, some moving the other way. Beautiful, crystal-like, beautiful, blue, glowing quartz-like formations. I didn’t know what they were at first, and then I realized, “Oh, that’s what I probably look like.” So, there was still some thought process that was occurring. But what happened after Guru Dev, then as I began to move forward from that point on through the whole journey, I only had the experience of the present. So, even though I can talk about it today, as I moved through the experience, when I had an experience, I got to experience it in its full glory, whatever it was. And then, as soon as it was done, it was gone. And in place of that was some new experience now that was occurring. So, I couldn’t compare or judge or look back at anything and say, “Oh man, that was so nice. I wish I could have that again.” I couldn’t do it because it didn’t exist. No file. So, in that way, I think it kept moving me forward and forward, deeper into the experience. And I think that Guru Dev, the reason why he actually appeared, was so that I could let go, so that I could keep moving that way and not get caught somewhere. Because you can. If you desire something that is really important for you, has always been there for you, you can have that. You can create it. For me, I wasn’t tied up on the thing about heaven or hell or any of that. So, I didn’t bother. But it wasn’t even a thought. I just never experienced anything like that. Some people do.

Rick: Yes, it’s interesting. Some people say that the last thought at the time of death, the deepest thought, determines your next life.

Thomas: That’s very important.

Rick: And in your case, it seems like, at this stage anyway, you’re not latching on to anything, you’re keeping your options open.

Thomas: Yes, but unconsciously. Or not consciously.

Rick: Spontaneously experiencing this thing as it unfolded.

Thomas: Because when you’re only in the present, then of course there’s no past. But also, there’s no future either. So, you’re not projecting and saying, “I’d like to have that.” And you can do that and you can have that. But for me, it just kept unfolding very innocently and naturally. Deep silence was within it. And there were a lot of different things along the way. I did see that light and I went into it. There was no hesitation about it. I do tell people, and they say, “Well, what should you do when you know you’re dying or you’re going to?” I say, “I think the most important thing is, first of all, just let go. And if you can, just forget about everything you ever thought you knew. Don’t be attached to anything. Just let go. And when you see that light, just go to it. Don’t even think about it.” Because some people sometimes, they get all caught up and they might see something else and want to go there. The kind of “don’t go there” sign. Don’t go there. Just go to the light. And you will anyway. It’s very natural. So, I was just drawn to that. At first it was white, but as I got closer, it was more gold. And then right before I went into that gold, it was very exhilarating. I felt this exhilaration. It was like at the top of the roller coaster. You’re about to go over that big hill. Yeah! The hair is blowing back. So, I just went right into that. And the moment that I was in that, it wasn’t like looking at gold. It wasn’t like looking at something anymore. It was becoming that. That’s all there is. There’s nothing to compare. It’s just pure gold. Everything is pure gold. You are that too. And that’s all you know. It was a fantastic, very soothing kind of thing. And then the next thing I know, I’m not that anymore. And now I’m moving somehow again. But now that it’s happened, I can’t look back and go, “Whoa, dude! That’s nice. Can I get back there?” I didn’t even know it had happened. The reason I can say it now is because after the entire journey, after I’d made it through all this, and then when I ended up back in the body, I had the full memory of everything that had happened.

Rick: But as you were going through it, you were just experiencing each moment.

Thomas: Yeah. Good.

Rick: So, then what? You went through the gold, and then what happened?

Thomas: Well, then there was just a new quality of silence. Very deep. Oh, here’s our visitor. Very deep silence that’s just so expansive. It was almost like something that had an infinite quality, almost unbounded. And when I say “almost unbounded,” I always kind of had a faint awareness that somewhere along the way there was this veil of boundaries somewhere. So, the world we’re in right now is like that, and here’s a little tiny speck of sand, and that might be one of us, or something less than a speck of sand. And we’re functioning as that. And then when we expand into this greater picture, this little thing, now this world becomes like less than a speck of sand in all possible creation. And that is almost infinite, but there is a fine line, and I’ll get to that in a minute. So, this silence was just like being wrapped in a mother’s blanket. Everything was perfect. Sometimes I would just be moving along in this deep cocoon of silence. And then now and then there would be some little thing that would begin to get my attention and draw me out, a little sparkly thing like that. And I would begin to perceive that, then I’d fall back into this little cocoon of silence. So, I was moving along like that, and then at some point, coming out of that very deep, deep silence, suddenly there was the dance stage. The light comes on, and there’s an object. It just spins out. It’s right there, huge. And what it was, was a particle. I’d never seen this before, and this is the particle those guys were talking about, how they theorized it, because I thought, “How can you see that? That’s not viewable through our general perception.” So, it was a mathematical calculation somehow. Anyway, so for me, there it was. And what it was, was these pyramids. There’s one, two, three, four. Four pyramids. Here’s one. Here’s one. Here’s one. Here’s one. And they’re all pointed up, these four. They’re clear like glass.

Rick: Are they intersecting so as to make a yantra?

Thomas: Not yet.

Rick: Just separate?

Thomas: As I describe it, you’ll see. So, there were these four, perfectly spaced, not touching, base to base. And then there was a mirror image of those that came. The base was here, pointing this way, not touching but perfectly symmetrical. And this thing was slowly turning, rotating, and moving, end over end, very slowly. Beautiful. And as it did, all these lines were intersecting, creating formations that were very orderly. It was very enriching to view. So then, by this point, I’m not in the same kind of perception where I’m analyzing. And I have no question. I haven’t for a long time in that space, that journey. After the light, pretty much everything was just what is. And so, no emotion, just perceiving. After that, then there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean, it’s like that faint bell I was talking about. I somehow must have crossed over that threshold. And at that point now, nothing has been created. But I couldn’t tell you that. I couldn’t tell you that while that was there, because there was no experience when there’s nothing. There’s no mechanism with which to perceive. But later I realized, because of the contrast, what happened was at some point, that I just emerged across that threshold into the first beginning moments of some conscious awareness. I call it the birth of consciousness, breath of God, whatever. There are a lot of names you could give that moment. The most incredible moment ever, in my life.

Rick: So, in other words, you were kind of cognizing the fundamental sprouting of creation, or the point of manifestation from which creation arises.

Thomas: Right. So, in other words, in that moment, that’s when, it’s like looking over your shoulder and realizing, you know where you’ve been. You didn’t know it while you were there, but now you do. And boy, the information that is there at that moment is all we need. And what it was, in that instant moment there, I realized the who, what, when, where, why and how of being. Why I’m here, and probably why most of us are here. I realized that nothing is the essence of myself, and also of everything that I may perceive. And the reason that that would happen is so that we can give expression to that which in and of itself has no express value. Something has to happen that will allow that to be known. And the only way we can know it is through that birth of consciousness. And at that moment, then we start creating. So, I looked at particles, I saw particles beginning to form and shape and things, and creation. And I realized in that moment, simultaneously, not empirically, this was all just like that, was that, those particles are that too. I’m that, and they’re that, and so therefore, it was known too, that everything is just that. And so, there’s no separation in creation at all. That permeates everything, it supports it, gives rise to it, supports it, sustains it.

Rick: And by “that” you mean that being, or that silence?

Thomas: That unmanifest, what some people call nothing. It’s actually something but it can’t be known until something else happens. And that something else is just the birth of consciousness. From that moment on, that’s where we actually begin as a conscious being. Long before the human body, I had no idea, by the way, that now at this point, that there was a human body or anything like that.

Rick: Well, I mean some hospital, yeah.

Thomas: And boy, I was just like experiencing it. But at this point, now I understood everything that I was seeing and perceiving. And I knew that I was creating some reality as well. But not like we think of things, a different way. And so, there were moments when I could, my experience was right here somewhere. It could have been light years away, who knows. I also could be experiencing something here as well. But it wasn’t long, far away. I mean everything was intertwined and connected. It’s like a cloth. And you may pull on a thread right here and then the cloth wiggles over there because that thread permeates everything. No matter what thread you pull on, they all connect. And so, it’s like a fabric and I sometimes see that fabric value.

Rick: Physicists talk that way actually. They talk of, you know, there’s that saying, “You tickle it over here and it laughs over there.” They talk of particles being able to have something happening here and a corresponding thing happening there as a result, while they may be light years apart. So, there’s no way that there can be any sort of intermediation going on through conventional levels of transmission of some radio wave or something. But it’s just that because both are grounded in that which is everywhere, there can be this infinite correlation between them, this simultaneous kind of correlation.

Thomas: I love quantum physics. It just makes total sense to me, not all the other stuff. But that, it really does. I mean because the interconnectedness of everything, that’s what I got from that experience, I was realizing that people talk about the illusion of separation. And it’s not so much an illusion, it’s that we create our reality. What I realized in that experience was that I was creating my reality. I had to because I was like an agent of creation. The moment that there’s that birth of consciousness, that’s when we start creating. Because we want to give, we want to know that essence. And unless we create something, we can’t give it any value so that we can then know it. So that’s what we’re doing all the time. And boy, we create, man. Look at it, it looks like a candy store out here for a kid. It’s everything.

Rick: So, there’s all kinds of questions I could ask you as you go along, but I don’t want to derail the narrative so we can come back to things.

Thomas: Sure.

Rick: Because I feel like it would be valuable for you to bring this whole story out in one chunk and then we can kind of go back and look for the things.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah. So, I’m just experiencing things. There’s some subtle sense of movement, but not a lot. And everything is perfect. And then there began to be a little movement and it began to pick up a little speed. And this kept doing that. And there began to be a little more density of things to view, particles and things. And then at one point it started really speeding up. And then it ended up like being in a tunnel again, except this tunnel was very narrow and winding. And I was flying through it really, really fast and the particles began to look like shards of glass or something, flying by in various colors of green. There were little pieces of black and white. And just flying by. And it was so intense at one point that, had I any concept of fear, I probably would have been afraid. Because it was super intense, kind of fast. And in fact, some people maybe will remember this movie called Contact.

Rick: Oh yeah.

Thomas: What was her name?

Rick: Jodie Foster.

Thomas: Jodie Foster. Yeah. Well, I saw that movie long after my near-death experience and had already known that I had had one. And when I saw that I thought, “Wow, that was exactly like when I was flying back, even though I didn’t know I was flying back to anything.” And the next thing I know, finally, at the peak of that intensity, I probably couldn’t have stood much more. It was like suddenly, bang, I was thrown back into this body. Literally, my head flew back and my eyes popped open. It probably scared my father because he was thinking, “My poor son is dying.” Nothing to do. And so, my head flew back and I see something. It looks like these little glowing worms in a way, like kind of a reddish color, kind of an orangey color. Then they settled down and then I could see this pattern. I had no idea what it was. It turns out what it was, was a ceiling tile. In the hospital. The funny thing about that is, even to this day, you will still see plenty of those tiles that have that exact same sculpted little thing. It’s funny, every time I see one, I go, “Oh, wow, this is good.”

Rick: You should get some for your house.

Thomas: Yeah, really. But I didn’t know what it was. Then my eyes wandered a little and I saw something over here. I saw this wall and then I saw a door and I saw some equipment and little shiny things. I saw over here that somebody was sitting in a chair. I didn’t know who it was, but I didn’t know what any of this was. As far as I knew, I’d never seen any of this. I’d never been here. I didn’t know anything. Except now I had the full memory of everything I had just experienced. I knew what I was. I was okay with that. I wasn’t freaked out by the fact that I didn’t have any memory of this. It was like I had no memory of ever having been here before.

Rick: So, in other words, you knew what you were in an absolute sense. You were that unmanifest silence or whatever. But you didn’t know what a table was or what a monitor was. It was like these objects that were indefinable.

Thomas: I was okay with it because I knew that this must be okay because I know that I’m all this anyway. For some reason, I must have chosen this. I knew because there was some thinking process beginning. I knew that this would be okay. I don’t have anything to worry about. If there’s more for me to know about it, then I’m sure I will. It was okay. My dad looked very relieved, but he also looked concerned. In fact, the funny thing was, at one point, before I realized that I was this, I saw my hand move. I went, “Oh, what’s that?” Then I realized, “I’m in this. What is this?” You know, it was a human body. I had no idea. It was very interesting. I didn’t say anything other than at one point, I heard myself speak. That was really interesting. I hear these words come out of my mouth, and I had the thought, “How did I do that?” The words I said were, “What happened?” I knew what that meant. Then my father said, “Oh, son, don’t you remember? You were really sick. We thought we were going to lose you there for a while.” I didn’t know what he was talking about. That didn’t mean anything to me. But when he said the word “son,” somehow I knew, “Oh, that’s my father.” But I still don’t know him. I just was quiet. I was pretty quiet for a while. I think he was a little concerned. Some people were thinking, “God, maybe he had some brain damage or something.” But they did some tests, and it turns out that it was okay that way. There wasn’t any problem there. I’m normal, above average intelligence. I had some tests done. But I was rewired. There was no question about that. Because now I’m processing stuff in a different way.

Rick: So, that’s the complete story that we can springboard off of.

Thomas: That’s the journey back to the body.

Rick: You went out and came back.

Thomas: Yeah. By the way, my world, as far as I knew, was everything that was in that room. Sometimes people would say something, and then a memory would be there. I had no idea where that came from.

Rick: But if someone had said, “What’s your name? What state are we in? Who’s the President of the United States?” You probably wouldn’t have been able to answer those questions at that point.

Thomas: No, I wouldn’t have known what they were. So, gradually, they just kept talking to me. Sometimes someone would say something, and I’d have the memory. But it was like someone else’s memory, almost.

Rick: Like you knew how to talk. You probably knew how to ride a bicycle, play the drums, whatever.

Thomas: Yeah, if you put one in front of me, I would probably be able to do it. So, that was my world, though, that little room. I didn’t know there was anything else beyond that. So, finally, I was in the hospital for a month. Then I said, “I want to leave.” I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I wanted to leave because I knew I had to leave to get well. So, I made them let me leave. They didn’t want me to go because they said, “Something could happen here. You’re still too … (weak?)” So, anyway, they put me in a wheelchair, and they’re rolling me down the hall. People walk by and smile. Then they open these doors. There were two doors that open out like that. My dad rolled me out in the wheelchair, and it was like, “Wow! Whoa! Look at all this!” It was incredible. It was like, there was the sunlight, and it was a spring day. There was this wall of a building over here, and there were some birds flying by, and the sounds of the birds chirping, and some smells, and fragrances of things, and cars, and just everything that’s out here. But for me, it was like I’d never seen this. It was almost overwhelming. Then I saw people, and I got really excited because I thought, “Ah! More of us!”

Rick: There’s more of these.

Thomas: “Look! This is great!” I was really happy to be there. Then they took me home, and they took care of me at home for a while. Memories really started coming back a lot then. So, I was okay.

Rick: Wow. Well, we might as well continue the timeline, because I can throw us into some philosophical questions.

Thomas: Anything you want, ask me.

Rick: It’s kind of interesting to consider. How long was your recuperation period, and how did you segue back into a so-called normal life?

Thomas: Well, I was pretty weak. My body was thin, I went in the hospital only weighing about 140 pounds. After a month, I came back out weighing barely 100. I could not walk very well at all. I had to regain my strength and also get used to things. I was kind of secluded in a way. It was nice. My parents lived at a lake, so they had a lake house there. I was able to get my feet wet a little bit, literally and figuratively. It took about a year for me to fully recover to where I could work again.

Rick: As a musician?

Thomas: Well, as anything. In fact, my first job after that was working in a Gibson’s discount store. I’d never done anything like that, but I got this job. My first day at work, you had to be on your feet and walk. So, my legs froze up. If you’re walking like that, my legs froze at an angle like that. I couldn’t straighten them out. So, I called and my wife at that time came and picked me up and took me home. It took me another three months to recover from that. So, it was a full year. I didn’t at first know that I was a musician. Someone told me, “You play drums.”

Rick: Really? Okay.

Thomas: So, I started doing that again. The neat thing about that is that everything changed. When I would play drums or practice something, and even now, I can get it real fast. Like complex patterns that you have to coordinate your body with. It’s a neurological thing. The more I did it, the faster I got at being able to process it and assimilate it and be able to execute it.

Rick: So, you became a better drummer than you had been.

Thomas: Yeah, I guess so. I would have great experiences playing drums. Sometimes I would be literally up above my body, and there we all are on the stage. I’m seeing how we’re all connected, almost like these translucent tubes. We’re all connected. I’m feeling their emotions. They’re flowing through me. I’m feeling mine, and we’re all just this one big unified expression of creativity that’s happening.

Rick: Cool. Did you, at this point, ascribe any sort of spiritual connotation to what had happened to you?

Thomas: No.

Rick: You just thought, “Well, this far-out thing happened, and I’m kind of learning how to function again.” But you didn’t think, “Oh, maybe this is what the great saints were talking about,” or pick up An Autobiography of a Yogi or something.

Thomas: I didn’t really know much about any of that.

Rick: Because you had learned to meditate. You must have had some sort of spiritual bent in order to …

Thomas: What happened was, I learned to meditate, and of course, then I was kind of off on my own. I was recovering from this thing. It was quite a while before, well, my sister Barbara reminded me that I had learned to meditate.

Rick: So, you started meditating again.

Thomas: She got my thing checked, or whatever, and I kind of got reoriented to it. Boy, I loved it. I had fabulous experiences meditating. I loved it. So, I really liked it a lot, and I felt like, “This is good for me.” Then I started to seek out others who were meditators, too. But my friends and my wife at the time, they weren’t into that at all. They were into whatever they were into, partying and doing whatever.

Rick: So, you had already been married before this crisis took place.

Thomas: Yes. I had even forgotten that I was married. I was like, “This is your wife.” Then we gradually started all the memory stuff. But I wasn’t the same anymore. There’s no way. I’m almost like being a different person. One life ended and another one started. That was hard for them. It’s that way for many people who have near-death experiences. They come back. They’re never going to be the same. They may look the same. They may have the personality and humor and all these things, but they can’t be like you want them to be anymore. So, what happens is sometimes people get uncomfortable. It’s like having a life-threatening disease. Sometimes people just don’t know. They avoid you because they don’t know what to say. But for this, it made them uncomfortable because I didn’t really fit in. But I loved them all, and it didn’t matter. But I gradually started moving away, and I started going to meditation courses and things like that.

Rick: You weren’t telling these people what you had gone through. You were just behaving differently.

Thomas: Right. Then, as I said, it was five years before I ever told anybody my experience. Because I didn’t know that I really had any experience. There wasn’t any reason to tell it at first.

Rick: But you remembered this whole thing.

Thomas: Oh, I’ve never forgotten. I might forget other things. My wife says it, nowadays. But that’s always with me.

Rick: So, when you were in that state out there, wherever you were, and you had this experience of realizing that we all created our own reality, that is not to say that when you say we created our own reality, are you saying a collective we, and sort of the collective consciousness itself creates its own reality, and you and I and your wife and the cat and all these things are expressions of that reality? Or are you saying we as individual expressions create our own reality?

Thomas: Well, that’s a wonderful question. Because if you flip back to that moment, what I call the birth of consciousness, at that moment there was no we or anything in terms of others’ individualized consciousness. But I knew that everything that was, that I’m not separate from it, that we are that. Because this underlying value here, this unexpressed, until we start expressing, is what everything is, the foundation of everything, and permeates it. So, only after I ended up back in the body, did I realize there are others, that’s why I got excited when I saw other human beings. Wow, more of this. So, then I realized, oh, yes, we individually, when I say we, individually we are creating our own reality. Your reality is mine. We may look at this object, whatever it may be, that basket, and the reality of that basket, my reality of it is one way, and yours may be another way. You may see things that I don’t even know exist that I don’t see. So, we’re all creating that. But then there is that unique thing, and we’ve learned this over the years of meditating, the quality of collective consciousness. I’ve seen how powerful that is. I do groups, and I train people how to do some healing work that came from this, and we can get into that. And I see the dynamic of collective consciousness instantaneously. It’s a very real thing. So, yeah, we’re individually creating, and then what we individually create altogether comes together in a collective way. And sometimes we all agree that certain things are, certain things exist in this particular way, even though we have the individual aspect, and we may see the subtlety, the differences, but, overall, we say, “Okay, yeah, this is…” So, we kind of agree on that, and so that exists until we decide to change it collectively. And that happens a lot.

Rick: But sometimes people subjectify things to the extent that they seem to imply that everyone completely creates reality anew, independent of one another. But it seems to me that there is a sort of a universality to creation too. Like we could march everyone who lives in this town through this living room, and if they had their perceptual faculties intact, they would all say, “Yeah, there’s a basket.” And some might be color-blind and not see it in quite the same tones, and some might not speak English, and they might have a Spanish word for it, but people are all seeing that object there. So, there’s sort of an independent existence to the basket, which goes beyond our individual coloration of the perception of it.

Thomas: Right, right. Was there a question?

Rick: It’s sort of a question-observation combined. I’m just sort of kind of trying to counterbalance the emphasis that people sometimes put on people creating reality. It’s like consciousness creates, we could say, the universe, but it’s not human consciousness that creates the universe. Consciousness precedes human, just as it precedes basket and it precedes cat. It’s more fundamental than any of these things. And so, it seems like there’s sort of a universal creative force, which appears to create the world and all the objects in it. And we as individual perceiving entities or sense organs of the infinite have our own individual peepholes, but there’s kind of an objective reality that is independent of… It’s like the blind man and the elephant. The elephant is what it is, even though one man feels a rope and one man feels like it’s like a wall, and some says it’s like a snake.

Thomas: Yeah, or one sees a string …

Rick: Yeah, it’s like a tree trunk if they feel the leg. There’s sort of an objective structure to things, and we each have our own perspective on that as channels or as perceptual mechanisms.

Thomas: It’s an interesting thing, because I see one dynamic of the way that we’re created individually. And then there are things we see that we don’t think of in terms of, “I created that.” Normally we don’t walk around doing that. They might put us away. But, yeah, so I don’t know. In a way, it’s a really good question. What is and what do we have a hand in creating? Does it exist if we don’t have awareness on it?

Rick: Yeah, if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: Or as a saying goes, if a man speaks in the forest and there’s no woman present, is he still wrong?

Thomas: Still wrong. I believe my wife says, “Of course.” You know, it’s funny, too, because I don’t really know the answer to that, really. But in a way, I think of it like, say, you get a computer software program, and it has some graphics and some basic things there. But you get to go in there and move those things around and create new things with it. But it comes as sort of a template, in a way. Maybe somehow it happened that way. I really don’t know.

Rick: Yeah, it might seem like a little philosophical sideline to even bring this up, But, somehow, it’s been on my mind recently because I’ve been having some discussions with people about it. And maybe what it boils down to is: what you identify as being what you are. If you think of yourself as just this individual entity and that’s it, or do you know yourself to be something more universal as you experience during that whole thing? When you were out there experiencing yourself as that, you weren’t Thomas Gates. You were that universal reality, kind of cognizing the mechanics of creation.

Thomas: But what I realized is that what we can experience in that way… It’s kind of like people say, “Oh, I just really want to know what it’s like on the other side, because if I just knew that, I could probably manage this better, this world here that we live in, and my life and the whole thing.” Of course, my answer to that is like when people say, “What’s it like on the other side?” I go, “I don’t know, because as far as I can tell, there’s only one side, but they’re different flavors.” Like a coin. There are two sides of a coin. If you turn it sideways, there’s something in the middle, and that unites both of them. They’re just expressed in a different way.

Rick: Same coin. So, Thomas, you were talking about how you had come out of the hospital and you were readjusting to life in the world, kind of learning things all over again that you already knew, and sort of feeling out your relationships with various people, your wife whom you forgot that you had, and your various relationships and your activities.

Thomas: I don’t recommend you forget who your wife is.

Rick: No.

Thomas: She doesn’t like that. It’s problematic.

Rick: And trying to work again, but that didn’t work out so well the first day. So, let’s talk a little bit more about your transition back into so-called normalcy.

Thomas: Yeah, right. Well, as I got stronger, I did start playing drums professionally again, and did that for a while. And more and more, the friends started dropping off, kind of one by one. And as I say, I was going to meditation courses and all, and really immersing myself in that.

Rick: And new friends were coming up.

Thomas: And new friends. So, there was this transition that was taking place on that level, new friends coming in, more in line with the direction my life seemed to be unfolding in. And I really enjoyed that whole process, because I didn’t know anything about meditation really before that. I just learned to do it. And so, I found, not that I needed validation of my experience, but I found that along the way there was the information, the knowledge that was there. I’d go, “Oh, yeah, I really get it.” Like when they talk about, well, obviously quantum physics makes total sense to me, but also, some of the Vedic things, I would hear it, and instead of it being just words that I need to digest, it would be like, “Yeah.”

Rick: Confirmation of what you had already experienced. Yeah, because the whole thing kind of pertains to being able to inculcate the kind of experience that you had through a means that you would probably not recommend for most people.

Thomas: Yeah, I don’t really–

Rick: Sort of a more do-it-yourself kind of thing.

Thomas: Yeah, I’ve had people tell me, “Gosh, I wish I could have a near-death experience.” I say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, be careful what you wish for,” because it was not pleasant getting to the point of the experience. That was very, very difficult, and I don’t recommend that.

Rick: Well, as you know, there are many ways of invoking a mystical experience, and some of them may nearly kill you or be potentially dangerous, and others are more systematic and wholesome and perhaps gradual and don’t take you faster than you can go, and so on. So that’s the kind that most people would be–

Thomas: And I think people do get in a hurry.

Rick: Yeah.

Thomas: I remember people talking about going to courses and all that. “I’ve got to be on that course. If I can’t go to that course, I’m going to be left behind,” or all this kind of stuff. So let your life move forward without that kind of pressure.

Rick: I saw a cartoon yesterday, this guy sitting in Lotus, and his wife has come into the room and she says, “Can you please be in the moment later?”

Thomas: Mr. Natural. That’s cool. We’re like, “Be in my moment, not yours.”

Rick: So, you’re integrating more, you’re playing the drums, you are kind of getting back into shifting your circle of friends. At what point did the healing abilities begin to come in?

Thomas: Well, as I say, I never was really into all that. I’m not a New Age kind of person. In fact, the New Age thing, it was amazing that I even learned to meditate. My sister convinced me to do it. What would happen along the way in life after that experience was that there have always been moments where I would have some experience that was very connected to that and related to that. It’s like that experience has never gone away. There’s always some connection to that experience in my life. So, I would have some experience where maybe my perception would suddenly change and I would begin to perceive things on a subtler level than normal. Say, for instance, if you’re looking at a tree. Normally as we look at that tree out there, we see the bark and the branches and the leaves and things like that. But sometimes it would happen that I would look at it and then I would see a little more detail, a little bit underneath. And sometimes it would be on almost like a cellular level. You’d see the underlying structure.

Rick: So, in other words, you’d see something microscopic that could actually be seen if you were to put a microscope up to it? Or you’re talking more about subtle stuff, like you’d see the aura of the tree or some such thing?

Thomas: No, not aura, I mean the structure.

Rick: Like, actually microscopic things. So, you’re sitting 50 feet away from a tree, looking at it, and all of a sudden you start seeing the cellular structure that really could only be seen under a microscope. Like your awareness kind of zooms in.

Thomas: Right, and when that happened, there would be this huge silence. There might be noise outside, this and that going on, but then all of a sudden there would be almost like a vacuum. Everything goes “whoosh” and there’s this dead silence, just like in my experience. So, if that would happen, I would know what we’re doing here. And I would just let go.

Rick: And this would just happen spontaneously, out of the blue all of a sudden.

Thomas: And I’d be having the experience, and then maybe it would fall back into the usual thing. But whenever it would happen, it would always shift. There would be a shift. And sometimes I would have the experience of the light, that gold light, to varying degrees. The first time I had it, right after my mother died, we had all left. We’d been at the hospital all this time, and then she passed on. So, we were all tired, my father and my sister and myself. We went back to his house, and we all went into different rooms. We were just lying down, resting, because people were coming over later in the day. So, we were resting, and I was kind of half asleep, and all of a sudden, I get that silent thing. And then I felt this warmth, and this gold starts appearing. And it’s like being wrapped up in that, like the mother’s blanket. And I mean, literally, everything is this pure, beautiful gold. And I felt so loved in that space time. And I realized, this is Mother.

Rick: Came to say hi.

Thomas: Yeah. And to let me know that everything’s good, and “I still love you, and I’m here for you.” And so, I got up, and I thought, “Oh, I’ve got to go tell Barbara and Daddy.” So, I was walking down the hallway, and they had both came out of their rooms at the same time. And we all met in the middle of the hall, and I started to tell them this experience. And they both had the same experience at the same time. We were all having the experience of my mother in that golden way. It was really amazing. And things would shift again, like I say. And so finally what happened, one day I was sitting out in the country on a friend’s porch. And I was just sitting there looking at everything. It was a beautiful part of the country. And all of a sudden, I got this emotion start happening in my chest. And I felt this sorrow, a big welling up of sorrow. And I thought it was unusual, because I wasn’t sorrowful at that point, and I wasn’t sad. Then it just overwhelmed me, and I started crying. And it was like witnessing this process. Like, okay, now my body’s doing all this stuff, and I’m over here watching a show. It’s going on. I know that that’s emotion, I realize that. And I’m really crying and all that, the tears. And in that moment, I knew, you know, I could lie down on the ground, and I could just go.

Rick: Like die?

Thomas: Yeah, I could die. Of course, then I realized, well, they’d find me lying there and wonder what happened. You know, it would be a big trouble. And I was thinking, but I have no reason to desire that. So that went on for a few moments. And then all of a sudden that stopped. And as I’m gazing out, it was right before evening. There was still a little bit of light going on out there. All of a sudden, I see this gold up in the sky. It’s like the sky just started turning gold. And it got stronger and stronger, and it kept moving down, it kept filtering down. And finally, it got into the treetops. And as it touched the trees, the trees became gold also. But they still maintained their form and the detail of their form, like the leaves and this and that. But they became luminescent, filled with that gold. And so that was permeating and filling up everything that it touched. And it just kept coming down and coming down. And finally, it came down into my chest. And my body became like that too. And so, I remember distinctly being able to do this. And this is, you know, no drugs. I don’t do drugs. It wasn’t anything like that at all. So, I move my hand, flex, and I see that I look kind of hollow like back when I had left my body, back when I had the near-death experience. And my hands, I could see them.

Rick: You could see the inner workings of your body?

Thomas: Well, not so much as it…

Rick: Tendons and things?

Thomas: No, it was just like there was this form, this shell in the formation of my body. But as I moved, I could see that it was filled with this gold-like mist, like air. And so that went on for a little bit. And then it backed off. And I just jumped up and thought, “I better go home.” And I got in my car and I started driving. But what was happening was that time had shifted back again like it was in the near-death, in that journey. It was only the present. So, as I would drive, I might look back in the rearview mirror and not know what, where, what did I do there? So, in fact, I was driving across town. I had to drive through downtown Fairfield, Iowa.

Rick: Oh, you were in Iowa. Okay.

Thomas: I had to drive through downtown. And I crossed this intersection where there is the four-way stop. And as I drove through, I happened to look in the rearview mirror, and I had no idea what had just happened. Did I stop? And I thought to myself, “I should get home.” I didn’t want to hurt anybody. I wasn’t sure what was going on, except I knew this kind of experience. So, I just drove, and then I got home and I got in bed. And I stayed in bed for about five days. I never went to sleep that I was aware of. I stayed awake.

Rick: Just lay there wide awake?

Thomas: Sometimes, yeah.

Rick: Eating? Getting up to eat? Go to the bathroom?

Thomas: No, I don’t think, I don’t recall. I probably ate a little something, but not much. And so, this went on, but every night when the evening would come, even though I’m still awake, there would be this being. I became aware of a being that was sitting like where you’re sitting, like that, exactly in front of me, kind of luminescent like in that journey. Never said anything. I never heard any words or anything like that, and I couldn’t see its face. Even if I looked where the face would be, I couldn’t see it. Kind of white, luminescent. But I had a sense that there was something that was being said or given somehow. I had no idea what it was, so I didn’t try to figure it out or anything. I just went with it. And that would happen, you know, every day there would be some of that. And then in the end, it kind of wound down. I had a friend I was meeting. I walked into this restaurant because I had to go somewhere in another town, and I had a rehearsal somewhere for a show, and I was meeting somebody to be interviewed for something about my story. And so, I was still kind of floating on this nice little cloud, and the person said, “Oh, Thomas,” and took my hand.

Rick: This being?

Thomas: This person. No, this is after–

Rick: Oh, the real person.

Thomas: Yeah, after the five days, then I had to leave and go do something. I had to be somewhere. So, this person takes my hand. “Oh, I want to introduce you to someone.” And when they took my hand, it was like, everything got grounded. And it was good because I needed that. I had to go somewhere. So that happened. But then after that, I had to go on a little mini tour and go out and play some concerts. So, I was gone for a few days, and then I came back.

Rick: So, the guy took your hand, you were grounded, you went on this little mini tour. But are you going to tell us what all that gold was about? Is that part of the story?

Thomas: Oh, yeah, right. Okay. So then, by the way, that gold I was experiencing, any time I experienced the gold, it’s the same gold as I had gone into in my near-death experience.

Rick: Right.

Thomas: There’s no difference.

Rick: And what is it? Do you have any idea? Can you tell us what it is?

Thomas: Yeah, as we further into the conversation, when we talk about some of this healing, what I call healing spectrums, that is part of the essence of that as well.

Rick: Okay.

Thomas: So, it’s just a part of creation that does exist, that we can draw from, and for helping us in our evolutionary process, both spiritually and physically.

Rick: Maharishi used to talk about celestial perception. He said it was like having golden glasses on. Do you think that’s what he was alluding to?

Thomas: Probably.

Rick: In other words, celestial meaning subtle. He said you can have this sort of self-realization, it’s like having clear glasses on, no distortion, no fog, but then that becomes further enhanced, and you begin to perceive the sort of subtle levels of … the senses become refined, and it’s like having golden glasses on. He spoke of everything as having a golden glow, and so it sounds like what you’re talking about.

Thomas: Yeah, it’s almost as if you were looking at a foggy day, except everything was crystal clear, but that fog, kind of mist …

Rick: Golden fog.

Thomas: … is all gold, and yet what you perceive becomes very precise and very clear, the detail of things.

Rick: So anyway, you had this experience, you stayed in bed for five days, then you had to come out, because you had to go on a little tour, some guy took your hand, it grounded you, and so take it from there.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah. So, then I went out and did the tour, and I came back, but something happened along the way. I was driving, and I started feeling this real intense heat in my hands, like the steering wheel was hot, you know, and so, I would kind of move, like, “Hmm.” I figured it had something to do with this, because when you get a blast of gold like that, something always comes from it, some new thing. So that was going on, and I came back, and my wife now … when I came back to see her, we weren’t married at the time, but I came back to see her, and she was limping very badly, and she couldn’t even walk on one, I can’t remember which one it was, she had injured her ankle, and had been to the doctor, and they said it was a tendon injury. So she was sitting on the couch, and I sat next to her, and I just … I had her plop her foot up here, and we were just talking, and next thing I know, for some reason, I decided to put my hand over her ankle, but I didn’t make a big deal about it, you know. So, we’re, she’s sitting over here, and my hand’s like, “Hey, we’re just … we’re talking,” and all of a sudden, I start having these experiences of things, and I felt some heat coming out, like a little furnace blowing up heat, and if I moved my hand a little bit away from that spot on her ankle, it would cool off. I’d move it back, warm, back, back and forth like that, so I knew, well, there’s a spot right there where, that’s probably where her injury is. But I still wasn’t trying to do anything, you know, just observing, and then, next thing I know, I start seeing some color begin to appear, some violet color, and then there was this little particle. It looked like, really, if you want to know what it looked like, it looked like an old rusty, crusty spring, about that long, that if you had buried it in the ground for ten years, and then you dug it up, it would look like, pretty corroded, and it still had a couple of sharp ends on it, and I knew, well, that’s not really part of her physiology. I don’t know what it is, but I didn’t think to do anything with it. I was just observing, and …

Rick: You were seeing this kind of in your mind’s eye, or actually there, where the ankle was?

Thomas: No, it was like having a dual screen, because I’m talking to her, too. And so, having that conversation, and this going on in the background. And so, then, that thing, when the violet got stronger, and then all of a sudden, that little particle just started crumbling, falling apart, and then rinsing away like water on sand, you know, the sand rinsing away. And then it was gone, and then there was this soft, cool blue, kind of like a soft, white, ice, cool blue. And there was no more heat, either. And all the redness that had been around there, that was a red color earlier, it had gone away. And so, that all happened during the course of the conversation, and then it was gone, and I figured, well, okay, whatever. I guess that’s it. So, then I moved my hand, and she had to go to the bathroom. So, she got up, and she actually walked, and put pressure on her, and walked, and there was absolutely no more pain. It was done. It was gone. That was the end of that story. Didn’t have to go back to the doctor, anything. Never had trouble with it again. So, that was my first experience with any kind of “healing” type thing. And I still didn’t know what had really happened there. But then, you know, somebody had a shoulder thing, and I said, well, you know, this might help. And I would just observe. I never tried to change anything, fix anything at all. I was just observing. Which is what I did as a child, you know, in the woods. I just observed a lot. So, I think it’s why it unfolded that way. So, that was my very first experience with it. And like I say, gradually we’d do some more things with different people. It was just kind of coming, and I was paying attention, never knowing that anything was really going to come out of that. I never intended to go out and do anything with that. It just was there. But more and more, I started understanding what these colors would do. You see them enough, in certain situations you realize, oh, well, that one tends to do this, this color. More colors started to come. Gradually, there became a blue color, like an electric cobalt blue. Beautiful.

Rick: When you say these colors, you mean, if you looked at somebody, you would see a color here, or there.

Thomas: Yeah, somewhere within the physical body. But when I see it, it’s not like, okay, I see the gross body, and then here’s this color. It’s like, sometimes it’s literally like being inside and viewing like that movie. What was that movie? Raquel Walsh was in it.

Rick: Incredible Voyage.

Thomas: Yeah, incredible.

Rick: Where they went into the body.

Thomas: Literally. I sometimes see aspects of organs.

Rick: From that.

Thomas: Heart chambers, and the brain, and things like that.

Rick: Are you sitting there with your eyes closed, having this experience of the person, or are you actually looking at them?

Thomas: No, when I’m doing a session, I specifically decide, okay, I’m going to sit with this person and do that. Because I think it would be a little disoriented to be walking around in regular daylight. You’ve got things to do.

Rick: Like you did a little session with me before this. I laid down for about 15 minutes, and I had my eyes closed, so I wasn’t watching you. But I guess you had your eyes closed too, correct?

Thomas: Correct.

Rick: You mentioned afterwards that you had seen something here in my neck. That would be my major complaint at this point, because my neck gets really sore from sitting at the computer. I need to switch my mouse to the other side and get used to using it with my left hand, and probably this side will hurt. So, what was your actual experience that enabled you to see that?

Thomas: Well, we hadn’t talked about it. I didn’t know anything about that.

Rick: No, I hadn’t mentioned it.

Thomas: But you were lying down, and I just started treating. I’d gotten used to it. The way it came was my hand was usually kind of up like that, and this one was this way, and I closed my eyes. But now I can treat people. I don’t really have to use the hand that way. What happened was we began to settle, both of us, began to settle into a very quiet state very quickly, very rapidly. In fact, what’s happening is there are changes going on in the brainwave function. You begin to drop into more of what they call a waking delta state. I didn’t know this for a long time, but I’ve recently been doing some study on research that’s being done, and I see the direct correlation that that’s obviously what’s happening. That’s when your body becomes very efficient at accessing its natural healing processes. When that happens, then these, what I call artifacts, they’re remnants of trauma that reside in subtle layers of physiology. Sometimes they begin to appear, and as they appear, it’s because they’re being released. I’m not trying to look for anything to change, like I say, but when they appear, they’re dissipating, they’re leaving. But you’ll see colors with it, too, for certain things. There’ll be some color there, and it just does what it does. It’s creating a very powerful space of coherence is what’s happening.

Rick: In the case of my neck, you saw some color or something?

Thomas: Yeah, there was some of this blue, but also, I saw that it was around in the spine. This artifact was kind of angled in, like if this is your spine in the neck, and this little artifact, it was like a little stick, sticking here, and then it was totally encased by that blue. It’s a deep, rich blue that usually has to do with the more dense aspects of physiology. Violet will be the softer aspects of physiology, as well as the emotions. The gold, that very gold light, which did actually appear in your chest area there, which is really nice.

Rick: What does that signify?

Thomas: A couple of things. Gold is sort of like the mother of all the spectrums, from what I can tell, because it’s that same gold that was in the near-death experience. It’s very powerful in terms of creating a lot of coherence. When the coherence is there, then the body begins to adjust itself in ways where it can release some of the stresses that have become more concrete, and they become a part of your body’s natural structural function. But they’re just stresses, basically, emotions, the remnants of emotion, the remnants of trauma, and they become embedded, and they begin to influence the way things are. Sometimes you’ll come up with disease and things like that, and various things. So, the gold is also a sort of a reflection. I don’t always see it in everyone I treat, especially maybe the first time. But I do happen to notice it in people that have been meditating a long time. It seems to be present much quicker. So, it’s an indication of a quality of coherence that has been cultivated already. And this just helps kind of ramp that up.

Rick: You mentioned that you see angels sometimes, even now you do? Kind of commonly, walking down the street? There’s an angel?

Thomas: Not so much that way, but I have seen them here in Fairfield, downtown. I’ll tell you a funny one. One time I was driving across town. I think I was driving, I was walking or driving, and I happened to look up, and there’s a building over there that has a big spire on it, kind of blue thing.

Rick: On the square? Yeah, I think I know which one.

Thomas: Yeah, and it has a little bit of gold on the top of it. And I was just going along, and I happened to notice, and it’s not like if I look at something, it’s not like I can concentrate and see. It’s just that I caught a glimpse of it, and there was this really big angel, just hanging out up there at the top, looking around town. And I just laughed, because I have seen them around here. But usually when I see these, I can tell they’re angels, because of a couple of reasons. There are some that I call healing angels. Sometimes when I’m treating someone, I become aware of their presence.

Rick: They sort of get in on the healing to help out or something?

Thomas: Yeah, they’re doing things. I don’t know what they do. Most of the time, they’re standing very close to the person. Sometimes I have seen their hands like that with the person. And I just don’t have any idea what they’re doing. I know it’s positive. It’s very good. I just observe. But one thing about them is that, again, I can never see their faces.

Rick: Oh, really?

Thomas: Some of them are, well they’re all tall. Some of them are really, really tall.

Rick: Like 50 feet or something?

Thomas: There are those, yeah. But the ones that come during healing sessions when they do appear are probably, they might be like 8 to 10 feet, something like that. But it’s different than–they don’t have wings. And there’s a more identifying factor. There is a form, but there is something like a fabric. It’s as if you took a piece of burlap and you see those weaves in there. We were talking about that earlier. There is a form of that.

Rick: They’re made of a fabric, you mean? Or their skin is a fabric? What are you saying?

Thomas: They are part of that fabric, I guess. And it appears I can see some of that fabric.

Rick: So why do you suppose you can’t see faces?

Thomas: Well, I don’t know, other than I guess I’m just not meant to.

Rick: You see arms and legs and torsos?

Thomas: Sometimes that form is there. But, yeah, sometimes it’s very, very clear. And sometimes there is one that is a lot taller than those, basically. And it just watches. It kind of stands around, but it’s not right next to the person.

Rick: During healing?

Thomas: Yeah, and it might also be around in a talk sometimes.

Rick: And that one comes frequently?

Thomas: Yeah, when I’m doing workshops, they’re around a lot. Everybody has them.

Rick: Are there some here now?

Thomas: There probably are, because when I’m talking about it, well, I’m not focused in that way. It happens, but sometimes there’s one that stands over kind of in the corner, just observing. And then sometimes I might come to a person in the workshop that they may say something, and we’re engaged there in a conversation. And what happens is sometimes they’re releasing some stress, some emotional thing that’s coming up. Yeah, maybe there’s something that I can see that’s happening. And they may say a couple of words or something, and then this angel here can instantaneously be right there. So, it’s not like walking over or being right behind the person, but it’s just like that.

Rick: To help that person.

Thomas: Yeah. There are a lot of them. I don’t think of them so much. It’s very pleasant when I do become aware that they are present. And they’re probably there when I’m not even aware of them.

Rick: I had one experience of that nature, maybe more, but the one that I can really remember, I was at a Catholic university in New York State someplace, giving a TM lecture one time. It was a lecture I was giving for people who were already meditating, and there was a snowstorm or something, and only two people showed up. And there was one person sitting on this side over here, and one person sitting on that side over there. And I was going back and forth, talking to the two people. And all of a sudden, as I was talking to this person, I felt like somebody else had come into the room. There was this really powerful presence of somebody having come into the room. And I looked to the center, and there was this glowing ball there. And I couldn’t distinguish any sort of anthropomorphic features. It was just like this glowing ball, but it was very conscious. And it was as if, I saw it, it saw me, and there was this meeting of the minds kind of thing, like, “Hi.” And I just went on with my lecture, but it was cool.

Thomas: That’s interesting. Because it’s nice that you had some level of sense of communication in some way, because when I’m doing this work, when the angels are present there, it is, as far as I can tell, that they are there for the person that I’m treating. They’re fine. I’m fine. There’s no communication. It’s almost as if I’m not even there. It’s as if they’re very intent. That is all they do. That’s their whole purpose. They don’t have to think or anything. They are present for that, and you just let them be. I don’t have any desire. Even though I can’t see their faces, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t care.

Rick: Do you feel as if this healing function of yours, this healing activity, has really become your primary focus?

Thomas: Yeah. At some point, I kept getting asked to give talks and do things, do these group healing sessions. It just got more and more and more. I used to do concerts during a particular season. Every year we had a concert season.

Rick: With this banjo playing.

Thomas: It got more and more difficult to try to balance those things. I finally realized at one point, well, I can either do this or not. It seems it’s drawing me there to do it, so I’ll just do that. So, I quit doing the concerts. I just would go out and do this. Every time I’d go, it would open up more and more. People really seemed to benefit from it and want it more and more. So, I just went along with it that way. Now I do it. This is all I do. I do play now and then, just for fun.

Rick: Kind of like Bono trying to be in U2 and do all of his humanitarian work at the same time. It really stretches him thin, but I think being in U2 helps him do that.

Thomas: Yeah, it certainly does. That doesn’t hurt. He has the notoriety that makes it easy for him to do great things.

Rick: So, do people come to you? Do you go to them? Do you do it over the phone? All of the above?

Thomas: Yeah. All of the above.

Rick: Do you need to be there in a person’s physical presence in order to do it?

Thomas: No, when I first started doing it, it was that way. Just because I didn’t really know what was happening. Then one day my sister was in North Carolina and she called me and she said, “Well, can you do this long distance?” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, you’re there. Is there a way that you can do this?” I said, “I don’t know. I never thought of it. But then, now that you mention it, since I know that there’s no separation in creation, it probably would work.” So she was on her little phone, little speaker phones there, and I started treating her. So, we actually stayed on the phone during the time. I was noticed. I saw everything just like I would if she were in front of me. I would ask her questions about certain things and she’d verify that, yeah, indeed. But then, after a while, once I started doing that, now I treat people all over the world, actually. I have somebody in Russia who I’m treating right now, too. But, yeah, we don’t have to be on the phone during the sessions. So, we might talk just for a couple of minutes before, and then we get off the phone. The person goes and lies down. And then I treat them. And then, at the end, we’ll talk again a little bit about experiences of what I noticed and also, what their experience was. And one of the things that always happens in these sessions, which are about an hour long, is that people will settle down very, very quickly into that space of where they get to experience that more unbounded quality of being that transcends the physical boundaries of the body. So that starts melting away and they’re just present in this deep, rich silence. Sometimes, to the average person who might walk by, it looks as if, “Oh, that person’s asleep,” because their breathing pattern changes and they go into that delta state. And so, that’s when the body’s really doing the work itself. But the only difference is, at the end, I say, “Well, it looks like maybe you had a little sleep there. How was that?” “Oh, no, I didn’t sleep. No, I was awake.” And they might have even been snoring. And yet, they are aware. They don’t lose the awareness.

Rick: Awareness is maintained, yeah.

Thomas: They’re floating along that fine line where if you just transcended that, then there’s no experience. But right here. And this is where the information becomes available. So, one of the things that research has indicated is that there is a delta brainwave function and there’s something called waking delta. And children, up until about the age of five, predominantly have waking delta. And that’s why they know things that adults don’t seem to know or perceive. So, the research has indicated that what that does, there is information available that is not otherwise available to the conscious thinking mind and through the other brainwave functions. So, this allows that information that’s important for the body to utilize. And sometimes that’s why I can be treating someone and maybe I’ll see these things that normally you wouldn’t be able to see. And also, there are sometimes, instead of some artifact in the body that I may notice, these remnants of trauma, sometimes I actually see an event, an image, like either a picture or a little movie of some event that has obviously occurred in that person’s life, which has to do with a particular stress that they’re complaining about now, today. So, it turns out that some of these emotions that occur in trauma remain embedded in subtle aspects of physiology and maybe many years later they begin to manifest in a more outward way. We’re hoping, conscious is saying, “Please do something about this.”

Rick: Have you ever had any really dramatic healing things, like somebody on death’s door from terminal cancer or a broken bone or anything really radical like that, and you’ve actually been able to heal it?

Thomas: Well, that very first thing was the tendon, whatever it was. Limb. Yeah. I mean that healed completely, instantaneously.

Rick: Yeah, that was a fairly physical trauma.

Thomas: And then there have been a number of cases. Let’s see, there was one, a lady with emphysema who had had it for 42 years at that point. I didn’t know that.

Rick: Had she been a smoker or something?

Thomas: Her husband had.

Rick: Yeah, secondhand smoke.

Thomas: Anyway, she came to a group session that every now and then I would do, and people would invite people over and they’d come. I didn’t know anything about her. She was just sitting in the chair. So, I’m going through the group and treating each person a little bit, and I notice as I’m going, that there was this rigid, kind of very compressed, dense view of her chest and side, and then I even saw some of the ribcage very constricted, and I saw some dark stuff, and just unusual. So, I asked her, after that round of doing that in the group, I said, “Do you have some kind of problem in this area here?” Because I noticed this, and she laughed. She said, “Oh, yeah, I’ve had emphysema for 42 years.” Well, it turns out that she had to use a nebulizer every day. She always had to have that with her to help her breathe, just in case. So, this is a physical, structural thing. The bronchioles are supported by the alveolar walls. When the alveolar walls are destroyed through that disease, then there’s nothing to support the bronchioles, and they collapse sometimes, and you have to get air in there or you die. So that was her situation. So, the interesting thing about her was, I thought, “Well, good.” A couple of days later, I got a call from the friend who brought her, and she said, “Well, you know, after she left, she didn’t have to use her nebulizer that evening.” So that was a good, positive thing. And then a couple of days later, again, another phone call. Well, she went to her choir practice, and this time, normally they can’t hear her, but she likes to participate. So, then she was able to sing, and they actually heard her sing in the group. And the coolest thing was that she didn’t have to use her nebulizer. That was unheard of for her. Then a month later, I got a letter from the woman herself, and she said that she had gone to her doctors for her monthly checkup. She goes every month. And there, they came back after the test and said, “We don’t know how to explain this, but somehow your breathing capacity, your lung capacity, has dramatically increased.” And they said, “Well, it’s not possible, basically, but somehow it is.” And she said, “Oh.” So, they asked, “What have you done? I mean, is there anything unusual? Are you taking anything?” Because they were really curious why this could happen, because it doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t. And so, she said, “Well, my friend took me to this guy, and he did this thing like that.” And they go, “Oh, okay.” So, they write down on their form, and what they wrote on there was, “Faith Healer.” I went, “Faith Healer? Is that a category those guys have?” They can’t explain something, and they call him Faith Healer. So, I laughed, and I told her, “Oh, we should get a big tent and take it on the road.” But it was cool, because I never treated her individually.

Rick: Right, you just did the group thing.

Thomas: Yeah, and she came to some of my other group things afterwards, and I said, “How are you doing?” She said, “Great, fine.” So, she really improved the quality of her life dramatically, you can imagine. And yet, when we did this, I wasn’t doing anything, trying to fix anything or changing anything. So, we had that. We’ve had some fibroid tumors and thyroid things. It seems to work really well with that. And some bronchial distresses for sure. Let’s see, who else? Back? Oh, yeah. So, there were a number of cases like that where something has been chronic for a long time, and then within a matter, either almost immediately or within a few days, they just stop noticing it’s there. And what I find very interesting about that is sometimes I might treat somebody, and they come in with something that’s really been bothering them a long time. Then I might not see them for a long time. And then when I do, I say, “Oh, how’s that? Remember you had this knee problem, some cartilage or something?” They say, “No, I didn’t have that. What are you talking about?”

Rick: They totally forgot it.

Thomas: I say, “Yeah, you could barely walk.” And they go, “Oh, yeah, I kind of vaguely remember something about that. No, I’m good.” So, it makes sense to me because what these artifacts do is that they hold a space for a certain type of functioning. And when they’re not there anymore, there’s no need for a memory of it to be there. It dissipates. The memory dissipates along with it.

Rick: Right. Interesting. I should send my wife in. She has chronic lung problems, and she suspects she might have some kind of thyroid thing, too.

Thomas: I had a lady who had a thyroid problem where there were these little fibroid tumors near there, and the doctors were trying to decide what to do. So, she came to me, and I treated her a few times, maybe three times. And then when she went back for a test, the tumors had shrunken to a certain point that they didn’t really need to do anything with that. So, we’ve seen that. The cancer question, a very complex disease. There is a lot of emotion involved, and I know where most of that hangs out in the body no matter where the cancer is. I always go to this particular area here. People with bronchial problems and all that, a lot of times there are a lot of types of unique stresses that have to do with that. But mostly this area here has to do with frightful, fearful experiences. People who have a lot of fear, they will have a lot of these artifacts. It’s the congestion here, and sometimes they’ll have some congestion, things like that.

Rick: And you often see cancer in such people?

Thomas: No, it wasn’t really quite that. I was going to say about the cancer thing being complex, that they may have cancer in some other part of their body, but you always have to go there because these things have to unwind. We have a certain amount of stresses that get embedded in certain ways, and they have their own way and take their own time to unwind. They didn’t happen overnight. So, if I were to go in there and say, “Oh, look, that’s not right. That shouldn’t be there. I’m going to remove that or take that out.” How do I know that’s the right thing for you? So, my intention when I do these sessions, like if I would treat you, is always that may it be for the highest good of the mind, body, heart, and soul of Rick Archer.

Rick: You wrote a chapter in a book that you just gave me called “Thank God I…” and it has stories like, “Thank God I went to prison,” and “Thank God I got hit by a truck,” or whatever. And yours was, “Thank God I died,” or “I had this near-death experience.” Do you sometimes get the feeling that you had this near-death experience for a reason, as if the powers that be, so to speak, said, “All right, this guy has a great contribution to make as a healer, but first we’ve got to prepare him. Have him die, go through this whole thing, then he’ll come back, he’ll get rehabilitated.” I’m obviously putting this in simple terms, but you feel like there was a sort of a destiny that you were meant to fulfill, that this near-death experience was instrumental in helping you realize?

Thomas: Yeah, I didn’t know it at first, because this ability to do this, if I had it, I wasn’t aware of it. It took some number of years for that to unfold. But once it started to unfold, it happened very, very fast. But yeah, I always used to think that my whole purpose of being was just to be. To be a human being and live and experience.

Rick: Doing whatever. Playing the drums.

Thomas: Yeah, whatever it is. It’s a great thing. And I thought for the longest time, “That’s why I’m here.” So, it didn’t matter what I did. But then it finally did come to a point where I realized, “Ah, but I came back for…” There obviously must have been a purpose, because why would you do that? There wouldn’t be any reason. If you’re everything and all that, why do you choose to become very concentrated and compressed into this form? And so, I realized that. And that really came as a result of this opening up, of this healing thing. Like I say, I would have been fine to keep it all to myself, but it kept opening up and I thought, “Well, I’ll just honor that.” And I look back at when I had the experience with Guru Dev, I feel a great connection with Guru Dev all the time. I mean, a lot. And, I think the reason he became present there was so that he could help me let go of the past, so that I could move as deeply as possible into this experience to recognize that reality and come back. And then these things unfolded the way they did. And I’m very easy with that. I don’t push it, or try to make something happen. I mean, you can’t do any effort when you do this. It just has to be.

Rick: It’s interesting to think that Guru Dev, or actually, Swami Bramananda Saraswati, this man who lived on earth, actually came and did that. First of all, some people in the enlightenment circles these days keep emphasizing the point that there really is no person. We’re just this impersonal being and there is no one home, no one who speaks, no one who acts, no one who does anything. It’s just speaking takes place, acting takes place, and so on. And then others say that when an enlightened person dies, that’s it. It’s like a drop just going into the ocean and they no longer have any sort of identity to do anything or be anywhere. But in your experience, out of the blue. You had learned meditation, but otherwise you weren’t fixated on Guru Dev or anything. All of a sudden, this guy comes to you. And it wasn’t just a photograph. It was…

Thomas: -Nah it was like the being.

Rick: -The being. So, it’s interesting to consider what’s going on with that, whether the man that lived that life is actually functioning on some level, and intermediating in situations like this.

Thomas: Well, that was in order for me to recognize that it was him, in that form that he had been as a human being, but he exists all the time, just as we all do. What I realized from that little moment, that birth of consciousness, is that we always exist. That’s it. There’s never a time that we cease to be.

Rick: Not only we as impersonal consciousness, but we as unique expressions of that consciousness. Thomas Gates, in some form or other, will always exist.

Thomas: I’ll always be, yeah. And you will too, and everybody else. So perhaps with Guru Dev or others, there are some beings who can. Maybe that’s a little denser form of manifestation for him. Once you’re experiencing that really unbounded place, you don’t really have much desire to manifest into something in a grosser form. Why do that? But he is a very powerful essence in creation. And we can also. It’s interesting that here we are, we’re sitting on this couch right now, and we’re in this form, in these bodies. Is this the only place we’re existing right now?

Rick: Interesting question. We are, right now, existing in every single possible space and particle of the entire manifested creation. Right now. And sometimes in this life, it happens that we can have experiences, and we can cultivate the ability to have the experience of that. To be experiencing that. I’ve experienced qualities of other people who had been here before, who are not anymore physically in this form. But in that space of that broad essence, that field of subtle creation, there’s the identity mixed into that somewhere that can be more localized, and yet on a very subtle level, not in the body form.

Rick: So, you don’t mean just we as abstract, impersonal consciousness exist everywhere and in everything. You also mean: we as a sort of a flavor of some individuation exist in a much more expansive way.

Thomas: Yeah, but that individual aspect is faint. Very faint. Sometimes it’s a frequency, a vibration, a color, sometimes. But you know, one of the reasons I also know this about us existing in every particle, is that, when I had my near-death experience, right before I left, actually, I had this life review before I left the body. It was right before I left the body.

Rick: Yeah, you didn’t mention that. A lot of people say they have those things.

Thomas: I forget it all the time. People say, “How can you forget that?”

Rick: So, your life flashed before your eyes, so to speak?

Thomas: Yeah, but when I had it, I didn’t know I had it until many years later. It was the only thing, it was this thing that was occluded. And I know sometimes there was something which would start happening and I’d get really uncomfortable. And I’d go, “Oh man, well there’s something I don’t know. What is this?” And I knew it had to do with this overall experience. But I couldn’t get there. It was too scary. And so, one day I was watching a movie with a friend, what was it called? “Jacob’s Ladder.” And that movie did something to me. I don’t know what happened. Every now and then a movie will do that for me. And I got up off the couch, and this was a VCR back then, So, you know how there’s this snow on the screen because the movie’s run out. And I just get up and I go over and I press the button on the TV to turn it off. And it was like an explosion, like “Pow!” And instantly it was like a giant curtain opening up. And here, in this moment, was the full experience of that life review that I had had back then. But it wasn’t like a memory of having had it. It was the experience.

Rick: Wow, so it was almost like you relived the life review.

Thomas: Yeah, and at this point I could handle it. I was so weak at that time that I’m not sure that I would have been able to stick around.

Rick: Which is probably why it was occluded.

Thomas: But what I experienced was not so much like somebody saying, “This is your life. You remember the time you stole the pie off your mother’s window thing?” Or whatever it may be. You drove the car and crashed it and didn’t tell anybody. But it was very rapid. And what it was, was like, yes, I was experiencing the effect, in the end of it, the effect of every single thought and action that ever occurred in my life from the time, at that point from the time I was born to the time of the near-death experience itself.

Rick: The effect on whom?

Thomas: Of everything. On everything.

Rick: On everything.

Thomas: On every person, everything.

Rick: So, if you had made people sad or made them happy or whatever, some total influence you had had.

Thomas: But that has to happen really fast.

Rick: Yeah, otherwise you’d be in there all day.

Thomas: Within a matter of moments. I’m just standing there and my friend is waiting. But ultimately, I realized that every single particle of possible creation, we influence every living, breathing moment that we’re here. And so that’s overwhelming. That experience there brought me to my knees. And for three months, maybe two months, I couldn’t do much of anything. I stayed at home. I had these emotions.

Rick: After that review.

Thomas: I would cry and everything. I did all I saw I could do. I’d hear a song and I’d be like, “Boo!” But I knew that this has something to do with completing something about that experience. And I told my friends, “Don’t worry. Leave me alone. Check on me now and then. But don’t take me anywhere and don’t give me any drugs or anything like that because this has to play itself out.” And it did. And when it did, I felt great. It was like a completion of something. And that’s when I realized, “Oh, I am here for a purpose.” I didn’t know that I was going to do this healing thing, that came later.

Rick: So, I was going to ask, but you answered it. What was the utilitarian value of this life review? But it seems like it was one more piece of the whole puzzle of why you had the whole near-death experience to begin with. And it was a necessary purging or unraveling of stuff, processing.

Thomas: Yeah, completion of some circle in a way. So that’s why I know, through other experiences as well, that we fall under this illusion of being separate because it looks that way. The detail that we have created here is so wonderful that we look at something like that piano sitting over there, and that piano is that piano that’s made out of wood and stuff. I’m over here, and I’m made out of this other soft stuff. I’m thinking, “Is that piano thinking? I don’t know that.” Maybe it is. It’s thinking how dumb we are that we can’t communicate with it. But I realize we’re not separate, and there is actually no space between us and that.

Rick: And that’s your actual experience when you look at the piano? It’s not just a concept, it’s sort of like–

Thomas: No, I understand it, and sometimes I actually do experience it. There are moments when you can fall into these spaces where you do experience that. I’ve had that. To give you an example, one time I was in a restaurant here, a popular restaurant in town, very busy, a lot of people in there. I’m all the way back in the back, a place called Revelations. It’s a big kind of long hall. I was walking back from the one end of it, and I was all the way back there, but there’s the doorway up there in the front. And I was experiencing being already up there at the door, and I was experiencing everything that was occurring there, but yet my body was here.

Rick: As if it was like a remote viewing kind of thing.

Thomas: And so that’s why, when I do the long-distance sessions, it’s like the person is right there. There’s no distance. Everything is connected that way.

Rick: Where do you see this going in your life? It might be a silly question, and maybe you’re just living too much in the now to answer such a question, but do you sort of have a sense of how the next decade or two are going to unfold for you?

Thomas: Well, yeah, I’m writing, and also, I do a lot of workshops. I even do online workshops now where I can teach people how to do this as a self-treatment. And so, they can do like a five-minute treatment and cultivate that quality of coherence very quickly. And that’s been a very, very positive thing, people using that a lot in their professional lives as well. And then I train people also, doctors, health care professionals, and anyone who really wants to learn this, but they’re especially drawn to it, the doctors, training them how to actually do what I do in terms of treating others. And they’re incorporating that into their practices with very profound results. So, I see expanding that more and more. And I’m also working on a program now to help business executives, more of a corporate-type training where they can learn the self-treatment and have their people learn that so that they can increase the coherence in the workforce and therefore their productivity.

Rick: And have many people taken you up on that?

Thomas: Well, we’re just putting that approach together.

Rick: How about doctors? Are many doctors sort of close to you?

Thomas: Yeah, I’ve got a neurologist, a psychiatrist. We have a number of psychologists practicing who really do just get remarkable results with it.

Rick: Interesting.

Thomas: Much faster recoveries from intense trauma cases.

Rick: Yeah.

Thomas:  Faster than they normally would. And I also want to work more with some athletes, too, because I have my favorite teams, you know, and the guy gets injured and I just feel so bad like, “Oh, man, we need him.” [Laughter] But, I don’t want to just treat him, you know. So, I’ve talked to a few of the trainers out there, some of the pro teams, and we’re looking to do that as well. So, there are a lot of different possibilities that we’re doing. I have actually, now that I’m back in Fairfield, for now anyway, I’ve got courses coming up. Of course, you know, people will see this at all various times, so it’s kind of time sensitive. They won’t really know.

Rick: We’ll have a link to your website on backgap.com.

Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s easy, you know, for people. If they know my name, which is Thomas Gates, all they have to go is to thomasgates.com.

Rick: You do well for that. Yeah, okay, thomasgates.com.

Thomas: And that’ll get them there. And there, people can find out the different programs that I have. I have group sessions that I do twice a week for an hour that people can have. And you can have a free sample session. I do a group session. People can have that. Various things, it’s a fun place to go and visit.

Rick: Great. Well, that’s probably a good point to wrap it up.

Thomas: Yeah.

Rick: So, thanks. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from some people. That usually happens when I do these interviews, and it’s someone who does something with others like you do. People get in touch with them. So, we’ve been speaking with Thomas Gates. My name is Rick Archer, and there are various ways in which you can view this show. So, depending on where you’re seeing it, check out batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P dot com, and there you’ll find links to a number of different things, and you’ll also find archives of all the shows we’ve ever done. The next show, I won’t announce it because the schedule keeps shuffling around, but I do one a week, and you can get on an e-mail list if you like and be notified when each new one comes out. So, thank you very much. It’s been nice talking with you, Thomas.

Thomas: Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Rick: That’ll bring you down to earth.

Thomas: Yeah, here we go.

Rick: And we’ll see you next time.

Thomas: Great.