We are in the midst of a major evolutionary shift in the human species. Scientists are not admitting it yet. They have the data, but all the research has not been pulled together as a whole and cross-compared. This information needs to reach the general public in a manner that represents the best of current findings. This is one of the reasons why I have remained a researcher rather than becoming a minister or storyteller.

Actually, when I go back over my life, it seems as if the experiences I have had were those that would develop and hone research skills. It’s as if I was challenged at an early age to see and hear—think things through—by myself as an independent observer.

In first grade, for instance, I was the only child in school who could see music, hear numbers and smell color. I spent the better part of that year sitting on a dunce stool in the front of my class as an example of a bad child who told lies. I was regularly punished for telling the truth and praised for lies. This turned my world upside down, and caused a case of stutters which complicated the dyslexia I was born with. Reading became a huge problem. I secretly spent several years teaching myself to read and did a whole litany of other things that later helped me develop the motivation, the spunk, the fighting spirit I would need to excel in school.

I learned powers of observation and investigative techniques from my policeman stepfather from the age of nine. He always used the same MO. He would come up, grab me by the shoulders, twirl me around, look at me eyeball to eyeball and say, “Alright now, describe that man that just went by. What was the color of his hair, his eye color? Did he have a part? Was he wearing glasses? Describe his clothes, describe his body, his socks and shoes. Did he have a watch, wear a belt?” He did this with me off and on for three years. I never knew when, so I got to the point where I was looking at everything so I would be prepared.

At a harp concert in the early 1960s I experienced a full-blown kundalini awakening that inspired me to launch extensive investigations into altered states of consciousness, mysticism, and psychic phenomena. Years later a close friend died in a car accident. About a week after she died, while I was bobbing around in a swimming pool doing exercises, she manifested on top of the water, walked over to me and asked me to make sure that spiritual truth was brought to the people. I thought about it for awhile and said “Ok, Margaret.” She smiled and was very satisfied. Then she disappeared.

Because of my friend my friend Margaret, I started Idaho’s first non-profit metaphysical corporation called “Inner Forum.” We brought in some incredible speakers and sponsored many classes and workshops. I became editor of Inner Forum magazine, and we sponsored all kinds of research experiments with biorhythms and phenomena such as psychokinesis. This was in the mid 60s and early 70s. After six years of operation, I turned over the reins to a board of directors. The reason? I had died.

During the first three months of 1970 I went through three death events, each time experiencing a different near-death episode. Afterwards, I had to relearn how to stand, walk, run, climb stairs, how to tell the difference between left and right, how to see and hear properly. Rebuilding the body was one thing, but an even bigger challenge was learning how to use my mind again. My brain no longer accessed and processed in the manner I was used to. I had lost the conceptual level underlying my reality and had to rebuild all of my belief systems.

In my third near-death experience, I reached the realm that in research we call “the realm of all knowing.” In that dimension I suddenly knew all things—or at least felt I did. The puzzle pieces of life came together. While I was there, things were revealed to me about creation, about God and about souls. After those revelations were given, a voice spoke to me, unlike the voice of an angel or any spirit guide that I had been familiar with. There is no way to describe how different and powerful this voice was. It felt to me like every molecule and cell in the universe stood up and saluted when it spoke. I called it, “The Voice Like None Other.” It said, “Test revelation. You are to do the research. One book for each death.” Then it showed me what that meant and it named books two and three, but not book one. It showed me what was to be in each book, but not how to do this or how long it would take. I agreed to the task and that’s why I came back. I came back to do this work.

A chance meeting and hour long conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Kübler Ross in the Chicago O’Hare airport became a turning point. When I told her my story, she identified me as a near-death survivor. It was incredible for me to learn that what I had gone through had a name. I had gone through something that was real—an experience with a credible label. Although this helped me deal with my own experience, her explanation caused more questions than it gave me answers. A few months later I began my own research on the phenomenon.

My early training in police investigative techniques included not just how to interview people but also how to do observation analyses in a way that involved looking at body language and being alert to nonverbal cues. By the time my work began, I had left Idaho, moved to the Washington D.C. area and later to several spots in Virginia. In my job as a telephone systems analyst, I did a lot of work with engineers and installers, traveling constantly and living out of a suitcase.

My part of the country was anywhere east of the Mississippi River, and no matter what else I was doing, I was always a researcher. My travel allowed me to compare near-death cases in Minnesota with cases in Tennessee, Florida, Maine and wherever else I was sent. Along the way, I met a lot of people, especially in Canada, who were born in other countries. This expanded my research base to cover cases of different ethnicities. Whatever I found in one part of the country, I cross-checked with people in other areas to avoid cultural bias. I used questionnaires only after the fact to further explore further curiosities I found.

Before my books were published, I sent the manuscripts out for peer review. Peer review means doctors and professionals in the field go over your research methodology, evaluate how thorough you were and your conclusions.

So far, I’m the only person we know of who uses police investigative techniques in near-death research. Most others use “the scientific method,” which is good but limited. It doesn’t hold up in consciousness research because there are so many variables. You still need good observers. Since my interest was clarity and perspective, cross-checking, testing and retesting, I wound up being a challenger to the field, which was never my intention.

If people attack my work, they usually back off when they see how thorough it is and how it stands up to scrutiny. I have a humanities degree from Canada, not a MD or a Ph.D., yet I’m doing that level of work. If they look at my credentials and say, “Hey, who are you?” I say, “My credentials come from my work having passed twenty-two years of public examination. I have the largest research base in the field.” A couple of years ago I quit counting after interviewing 3000 adult and 277 children with near-death experiences. Whenever I went to see people, I also had sessions with their families, neighbors, bosses and health caregivers. By looking at things from many angles, I began to get a larger picture of the consequences, after effects and implications of the phenomena itself—how it changed people’s lives.

“Ancestral Spirits” Oil Painting by Suzanne De Veuve

No matter how long a person is dead, if they do revive, not only is there little or no brain damage, in the vast majority of the cases there is brain enhancement. The average near-death experiencer is without vital signs between five to twenty minutes, but it’s not unusual to find this extending for an hour or more. It is not exceptional for people to revive in the morgue. Yet, no matter how long they are deprived of oxygen and the heart is not beating, these people literally come back smarter than they were before. Whether they have extreme or partial intellect enhancement, they invariably come back as creative intuitives—creative problem solvers. I call the near-death experience a brain shift. In fact I call any major transformative experience a brain shift because of similar after-effects. In fact I no longer consider a near-death experience to be an anomaly, but rather part of the larger genre of transformations of consciousness.

There are two types of transformations—turbulent and tranquil. The turbulent type is usually very sudden and unexpected, like a kundalini breakthrough, a near-death episode, a sudden spiritual transformation, Shamanic vision quest, religious “Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” being hit by lightning or certain types of head trauma. The tranquil transformation comes after years of prayer, meditation, mindfulness, disciplines and exercises or simply from desiring to be a better person. Those people who go through it suddenly have the most trauma and disorientation.

Also near-death experiences are not always remembered. Child experiencers are six times more likely to repress or block their episode than adults. How you recognize them is through the universal pattern of physiological and psychological after-effects. My books give details about this as well as how to deal with it and how to integrate it. I talk about the four different types of experience and the various phases of integration.

In my interviews with people I use a lot of body language and facial expressions. My questions are simple, open ended and objective like, “What happened to you?” I use words like “and . . ?” “Tell me more.” “Oh, that’s very interesting. Would you describe that to me?” Words come tumbling out of people’s mouths as if they have been waiting for someone like me to come into their lives and show an interest. Give a near-death experiencer an interested listener and they will go on and on.

Of course you can’t interview a child until they are verbal and you don’t interview them in the same way as an adult. You have to know how to flow with a child’s mind, when to touch them and when not to touch them, when to laugh and when not to laugh. With children, I am always eye level, which means I spend a lot of time on the floor. I use facial expressions, roll on the floor, mimic body postures and behaviors. With the average child, give me five to ten minutes to gain their confidence. They usually open up after that. They have enough language to tell me a lot, especially with their drawings. One of the first things I learned early on was to keep the parents in another room. You do not want them around as children tend to say only what will please them. I go back and interview the parents and other family members later.

“Journey” Oil Painting by Susanne Sweet

It is remarkable what things come up. Even though children have the same experience and deal with the same aftereffects as adults, they do so differently—in some cases, just the opposite. I make a lot of these comparisons in my book, Children of the New Millennium. After a near-death experience, a child can hardly wait to get to church, and often it doesn’t matter what church. They want to be in God’s house and will drag their parents to the first church they can find. They want altars in their rooms, and they know whatever they put on that altar is holy. Adult experiencers are just the opposite. They can hardly wait to leave church. About two-thirds of them will leave organized religion. Also, kids can hardly wait until they are old enough to buy their own home. They will buy a home, even if they can’t afford it, and will make every sacrifice possible to keep it. Adults can hardly wait to get rid of home mortgages.

You will have to read the book to get a fuller sense of why this is. The child is suddenly in a light filled world with what they call “the people ” or the “bright ones.” (Very seldom will a young child say angel.) They are in a bright place where there is so much love, and then all of a sudden, they are back in their bodies, back in their lives, back on earth. If there is nothing in the experience to prepare them, like a voice that says, “Its not your time, you need to go back.” The experience can traumatize and disorient them, leaving a deep wound.

Look at how that imprints a child. They were suddenly in their true home, and then they lose it. They want that home back, home with a capital “H.” That need follows them throughout their life. Many try to satisfy it by owning a home that no one can take away from them. I talked to one gal in New York City who must be in her 60s. She said, “You know, when I finally sold my home, I thought I was going to die again.” She had that home for so many years, and when she finally sold it to live in an apartment, she could hardly handle the trauma. Her near-death experience had occurred when she was nine days old and imprinted her that heavily.

Since a child’s brain is still developing, a near-death experience is a major power punch. When this type of force hits these kids at junctures in brain development, it changes them in major ways. I truly feel that children have a greater challenge in dealing with their experience than adults, especially since many of them can’t make before and after comparisons.

After a near-death incident, a child will tend to think, “I must have done something wrong for the bright ones to go away. It’s my fault.” As a result, many go through confusing times. Some do very well but others really have problems. One third of my research base were having serious problems with alcohol within about five to six years after their experience. Within eight to ten years, twenty-one percent attempted suicide. With adult experiencers this number is less than four percent.

We tend to look at children as if they were small adults and we don’t realize that they think and process their experience differently. Rather than integrate, they compensate. In my book Children of the New Millennium, I give specific examples, pages of them.

My research shows that after the near-death episode, forty-eight percent of the children between the ages of birth and fifteen years, that I had sessions with tested as genius (average IQ being 150-160) with no genetic markers to account for it. In the sub group of children, between three to five years of age, the number jumps to eighty-one percent. The younger the child, the more apt they are to have an extreme jump in intelligence. Now, if you go even further and look at children with a near-death scenario between birth and eighteen months, those who had a dark or black light experience instead of a white or bright light experience, the IQ rating begins at 182. Before and after IQ comparisons show that the intelligence jump comes right after the near-death episode had occurred. Ninety-three percent of all the children came back loving math, science and history and eighty percent of those also had an enhancement in musical ability. Now if you are familiar with the brain, you know that the regions for music and math are right next to each other. It’s as if they are being linked together, as if they are one functional unit. Stop and think about the message this is giving us, about schools that cut their music programs so they can put more money into math and science. They will not produce good scientists or mathematicians unless they also provide these students with music classes. The studies clearly show that math and music go together.

Kids come back more mature after a near-death experience whereas adults come back more childlike. Both begin to abstract afterward, but you notice this more with the children. For example, a first grade boy drowned during the school year. When he came back to school, all of a sudden he wanted to know about Greek Mythology and why William Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe. He was beginning to think abstractly and freaked out his teacher. He was no longer interested in, “See Spot run.” You get a lot of this kind of thing. If you compare these child experiencers with the Millennial Generation, you will see many parallels.

“She Holds the Whole World” Oil Painting by Suzanne De Veuve

The human race is getting a jumpstart. We are changing and evolving, and this is happening three different ways—through transformations of consciousness (like the near-death experience), through children being born that way, and finally through people all over the globe choosing behaviors and life-style changes that reflect a more wholistic, spiritual way of living.
An evolutionary shift is reflected in a structural, chemical and functional change in the brain, alterations in the nervous system, digestive system and whole body. As near as I can tell through my research, higher octaves of the brain-mind are beginning to function and the effects are as physical as they are psychological.

Sociologist Paul Ray found that a new social and political force is growing in the United States today. He estimates that forty-four million people—roughly a quarter of the population—are choosing to blend modernism with traditionalism, east with west—to create a renaissance mindset of wholistic thinking. He labels this group of people “cultural creatives.” When their numbers reach thirty-three to thirty-five percent of the population, a “tipping point” can occur and the cultural creatives could become the majority political force in the country. That can happen in the next five to six years.

In the late 90s, the results of those countries who administer standard IQ tests in their schools was revealed. There was a jump of between twenty-four to twenty-six points in a significant percentage. This sharp increase over previous testing periods was too fast for the gene pool to account for. This effects the score for genius. Large numbers of the Millennial Generation—those born after 1982—scored between 150-160. Where have you heard that before? This is a global phenomenon and has the professionals really troubled. The scores show only a slight improvement in acquired intelligence—rote schooling. The biggest jump is in non-verbal intelligence—creative problem solving. Where is this nonverbal intelligence coming from? It’s not due to the schools or genetics. It’s not from TV because TV doesn’t demand anything of its viewers. No one knows where it is coming from or what to do with these new kids. They don’t match any previous model. They are brand new.

After reading Children of the New Millennium, Dr. Linda Silverman, one of the nation’s leading authorities on gifted children, called me on the phone. She told me, “Your work proves my work and my work proves yours . . . . Hang on to your hat. Of the most profoundly gifted children in my study, eighty percent of those with IQs beginning at around 184 were born premature and suffered extreme birth trauma. Afterwards they immediately displayed all of the characteristics of a child experiencer of a near-death state, trait for trait.”

About thirty-nine percent of the child experiencers in my study are multi-dimensionally aware. About seventy-five percent of those are focused on the progression of the soul. They are tied into the human family, the oneness of souls and the life continuum.

The other group of these multi-dimensional children is more interested in the cosmos, creation and the universe. This group doesn’t remember having lived in a human body before, but they clearly remember having lived before as bits and pieces of the universe, as a pulsar or standing wave. They are a part of the universe and they talk about hearing something like a SOS call saying that the earth, which is a living entity, needed help. So they answered the call and went through various processes to take on a physical body and handle the type of solidified matter that we have in this plane.

There is no funny stuff with these kids. They know they are here to help the earth. They know about souls and progression, but that is not their interest. They are interested in the environment, and almost to a person they say, “I’m here for the changes.” They talk about severe challenges to governments in the future of Earth and tremendous changes that are coming. Since they are kids, they don’t have a timeframe for this, but when I asked them to describe what they will look like when the changes come, they said that they are grown adults with older children or grandchildren. I did a little math and came up with the time period between 2013 and 2029.

From esoteric/mystery studies comes the idea of life streams or root races. These are major adaptations or mutations in the human species over thousands of years. They come in by degrees and their function is to develop a given chakra within the global mind/body. The first root race concerns itself with the first chakra and so forth. In my reading and talking to people I found out that this is the predicted time for the final degrees of the fifth root race to come in—the advanced blues.

“Rites of Spring” Oil Painting by Suzanne De Veuve

An excellent book called Generations (by historians William Strauss and Neil Howe) names and profiles eighteen generations of United States history. In so doing they named the millennial generation as those born between 1982 and 2003. Based on historical cycles, a predictive section at the back of the book sees that the Untied States will face its most severe challenges between 2013 and 2029. That is exactly the same time frame that these children describe and also has a tie in with the Mayan calendar, which ends December 21, 2012. That date marks the ending of a cycle called the fourth sun. The next day is the beginning of the fifth sun. If the influx of the fifth root race continues at its current rate, I’m willing to predict that by the beginning of the fifth sun, ninety percent of the world’s population could well be fifth root race types (of varying degrees).

The timing is exact—right on. Evolution is on schedule within its progression. The near-death children, the Millennial Generation and those who are choosing a fifth root race lifestyle (the cultural creatives) are going through the transformations of consciousness necessary to face what’s coming globally during the time of the fifth sun. This will enable us to face the major challenges between 2013 and 2029 in the most positive and constructive manner possible. I find this reassuring.

These exact dates are coming in from sources that are both empirical and esoteric. I pay attention to that. The time is also right for the Indigo children to begin to come in, but I feel there are not that many yet. What are being referred to as Indigo children is matching the description of the refined and more developed blues, the capstone of that adaptation in the human family. So what I see is that what’s being touted as Indigos are really the advanced blues.

As near as I can tell, the fifth root race started making itself known about the time of Jesus, maybe even a bit earlier. During the period of the European Renaissance and again from about 1850 on you see another huge influx and then more and more throughout the 20th century. What we are seeing now is the final blossoming and fruition of the blues. The fifth root race manifests higher intuition. The blues know themselves as individuals and have an enlightened wisdom. Their job is to fully develop the fifth chakra—associated with the thyroid, the throat, power issues and the will. They must fully face and solve the conundrum of “power over or power to.” During their time we have had to come to terms with genocidal attacks within countries or of one country against another. That test of power is coming to a climax.

The fifth root race is very attuned to human rights, social and environmental issues. They don’t want war, but they have a short fuse. They will not accept anything less than authenticity. They don’t care what your degrees are, how much you have experienced, how much you know or how old you are. They don’t respect courtesy or follow the dictum, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” They’ll honor their father and mother if their father and mother have earned it. They are very loving, open and compassionate children, but they don’t tolerate the inauthentic.

These children are facing a major challenge in communication and socialization. That is where they get caught. They know more than we do and are very inspired. They are movers and shakers, hyperactive because they are hyper-curious; they can’t learn enough. But how do you educate them? Schools aren’t prepared for them. Parents aren’t prepared for them. What do you do with them? We don’t know how to handle these kids, so we are drugging them, and in doing so we are cutting off their creativity. They are having a huge problem with Ritalin, because they are too sensitive to handle pharmaceuticals. Homeopathy, herbs, minerals and vitamins are going to bring greater balance to the needs of their body/mind.

These children are coming in with intuitive and intellectual abilities in equal measure. You can’t cut out their creativity or over-emphasize the intellect without losing them. If you try, you will create monsters. They have got to have dance, music, theater and ways of using their intuition. They are very inventive and they have to be able to experiment.

Linda Silverman told me that of the most profoundly gifted children in America, almost every one of them has left school. They are either being home schooled or are getting their schooling off the Internet. That means many are growing up without social and communication skills. By not understanding how to educate and nurture these children, we are losing their interest and genius at an alarming rate. You can’t just sit them down in front of a television and expect them to be happy. We have to balance their computer use with exercise and fresh air, with being in nature, with having pets and doing gardening. We have to get our kids back to a healthy diet, one that is not overloaded with drugs like sugar and caffeine. They’ve got to do hand work, toe work and legwork. They have to use their body with their brain. Any child needs that, but these kids will need it more. They have to run, jump and scream. They have to be allowed to experiment in science and also with what is loosely called the psychic and the arts of divination.

The indigo children are so fully individuated that they are not going to relate to regular personality issues. They are the messengers of the purer forms of inspiration. They are coming from a very different level and their challenges are going to be very different.

Most people think of the third eye as having to do with psychic abilities, but that isn’t correct. Most of our mystery schools teach that the third eye and sixth chakra function is about being. This root race is not going to be learning so much. They already are and they already know. Their job is the challenge of forgiveness and grace. We think we know about these things, but we really don’t. The deeper issues of the sixth chakra are about blending the other side with this side. Verbal and non-verbal language is going to change as the mind and brain become much more highly developed. There will be many different ways of conversing. I see language being very multi dimensional in the future—not just in a few years, or even in one single generation. It will take time.

One Indigo boy I talked to has started up a business where all of the monies he is earning are going into helping people in prisons around the globe and to fund the dismantling of land mines. He is coming from a different understanding of human rights and human issues than most people. He is willing to fund the practical side. He is not just inspiring people, not joining groups, not carrying a flag; he’s not writing about it; he’s not in the streets making a big fuss. He’s finding ways of earning the money. This kid is eleven or twelve. Think about the mind that understands how this needs to be approached. He has called on others to help and has set up networks. The money is coming in, and he knows exactly what to do with that money. He never went to his parents and said, “How do I do this?” He knows exactly how to appropriate that money, who to give it to and how to give it to them. His understanding of spirituality is integrated. He came in this way. He didn’t have a near-death experience. He is what I would call a true Indigo. These people are detached and individuated at the same time. He didn’t have to be raised. The blue children are like this too. Actually, the two groups will be a lot alike for awhile. Remember, it takes several thousand years or more for a given root race to come in and spread out among the populace.

The new children are not like anything we’ve known before. They are going to have to be raised and schooled differently if we are going to have healthy kids. We know enough now to recognize that and adjust. And many people in the field who have been working with these kids, are coming forth with ideas, techniques and exercises that work. We need to listen to them and promote their findings more broadly.

What we can substantiate scientifically from many disciplines is the rise children’s intuition, psychic ability, wisdom, intelligence, creativity, inventiveness and abstractions. It’s hard to tell the difference between advanced blues and the early indigos even if you can see auras unless you can discriminate between issues of forgiveness and grace and issues of power, especially willpower. I don’t think it’s necessary to identify children as blue or indigo. If you want to call them the new kids, if you want to call them the millennial kids, there is substance for that. We have no way to know how many indigos are coming in, but research is indicating there aren’t that many. What we are getting is incredibly advanced children—just in time for the emergence of the fifth sun—new kids for a new world.

PMH Atwater lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her extensive website with speaking schedule, articles and downloads can be visited at http://www.cinemind.com/atwater
Her first two books Coming Back to Life and Beyond the Light are considered to be bibles of the near-death experience.

“Future Memory (published by Hampton Roads, July 1999) is about pre-living the future before it occurs. It’s about brain shifts. It’s about the universe. It’s about the soul. It’s about God. Many of the revelations that were given to me are in the book, but really, it’s a device, a psychotronic device to help the reader experience a simulated brain shift. Every sentence, every paragraph, every page is mathematically formatted on the basis of a labyrinth. When you walk through a labyrinth, you follow the path. Similarly, when reading the book, if you skip around in reading it, you miss its transformational effect. If you read it from the first chapter to the last, it will bring you to the next highest level of brain functioning that is possible for you.”

Children of the New Millennium published by Three Rivers Press in 1999 is “a major study of child experiencers of near-states, their episodes, variations, and aftereffects. Also included is material on the millennial generation, those born between 1982 and about 2003, for comparison. Evolutionary factors are explored, especially the concept of “root races” and multi-dimensional children. No matter what your belief system is, or what you’ve previously read about near-death states, this book will surprise you.”

With David Morgan, she produced The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Near-Death Experiences. This 480-page Macmillan edition released in March/April 2000, has first class writing, new research and new cases and is the world’s first encyclopedic compendium of the entire field with all of its implications and aftereffects.

PMH atwater is also available for personal consultations.
She can be contacted by email at atwater@cinemind.com
or by regular mail at: You Can Change Your Life
P.O.Box 7691
Charlottesville, VA 22906-7691