‘Embraced’ Author Writes 2Nd Follow-Up

Many people over the years have told stories of near-death experiences, but few have written several best-selling books about the experience.

Author Betty Eadie has recently released her third book, “The Ripple Effect: Our Harvest,” about her near-death experience more than two decades ago.

Eadie will be in Spokane on Monday speaking and signing books at Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main. There will be a question-and-answer session at 7 p.m. followed by the book signing at 7:30 p.m.

Eadie’s first book about her experience, “Embraced by the Light,” spent time on the New York Times best-seller list, as did her follow-up, “The Awakening Heart.”

“The Ripple Effect” includes excerpts culled from thousands of letters written by readers covering a variety of subjects, Eadie said in a telephone interview.

“I want to focus in on the problems,” she said.

“Awakening” was written in response to myriad questions she was asked readers of her first book. Many wanted to know why she waited nearly 20 years to share her story. Eadie found that the Earth was void of the great love she found in heaven with God. She found she couldn’t watch TV or turn on the radio.

“I was repelled by it,” she said. “I began to withdraw. I even became depressed.”

She suffered from agoraphobia and panic attacks before pulling her life together. She began volunteering to work with cancer patients in order to get herself out of the house.

“I was going through a great growing time,” she said.

But her book writing didn’t stop after answering that question and others in “Awakening.”

“After that more letters came in,” she said, many from people relating their own near-death experiences. “They needed their questions answered in a better way.”

Eadie finds it difficult to convey what she experienced when she briefly died and then came back to life.

“There are really no words to describe it perfectly,” she said.

It was 1973 when she hemorrhaged twice after a hysterectomy. She felt her spirit leave her body, and she remembers visiting her family before meeting and talking to God. The lessons she learned from that experience are what she tries to convey in her books.

People ask if she plans to start her own church, she said, an idea she scoffs at.

“There’s already so many of those,” she said. “I feel that I can teach better and clearer by writing books.

“I will continue to write books as long as there are questions, as long as there is a need,” Eadie said. “I know in my heart that’s one of the reasons I was sent back.”

If there is one thing that Eadie wants her readers to learn, it’s that they need to love one another.

“If they could do that, everything would be OK,” she said. “To love one another is, in essence, loving God.

“That’s the bottom line, in a nutshell, of everything that I teach.”

“The Ripple Effect” ($22, Onjinjinkta Publishing) is available at area bookstores and online at www.onjinjinkta.com. Betty Eadie’s Web site is www.embracedbythelight.com.