"What's Dying Like?" by Princess Diana and Chris Farley … in their own words The actual experience of dying varies tremendously from person to person. Princess Diana, for example, was already a spiritual person and did not resist the process, and she had a peaceful crossing. Chris Farley on the other hand was not spiritual and resisted the process, which made it more difficult. We hear from Diana first, excerpted from her book "In Her Own Words: The After-death Journal of Princess Diana. Princess Diana On the evening of Saturday, August 30, 1997, Henri Paul, the driver of the car carrying Diana and Dodi El Fayed through Paris, was blinded by an intense light shone from a motorcycle that had just overtaken them in a tunnel. The driver lost control and the car slammed into a concrete support. Henri and Dodi were killed instantly, while Diana and her bodyguard hovered at death’s door. After several tortuous hours, Diana arrived at the hospital, where she takes up the story: I blinked my eyes several times. I was seeing a golden, glowing, pulsating light, and thought that perhaps I was hallucinating. Although barely conscious, the extent of my injuries was such that part of me could still feel intense pain through every nerve of my body. The soft yellow glow reached out to me, and suddenly I felt totally free from pain. The doctors and nurses would tell you that that it was just not possible for me to feel pain because I was not conscious when I was brought in to hospital. However, I did feel pain until the soft golden light filtered into me. I was so grateful that the pain was gone. The golden light took form – a beautiful woman. It wasn’t so much her appearance that surprised me as much as the energy she emanated. She extended her hand to me without uttering a single word and beckoned me to take it. I am not good at remembering the titles of books but I had read in people’s accounts of near-death experiences that they had gone towards a bright light as they departed this world. So, in view of all the books on the topic and shows on the telly, I expected that when I died, I, too, would see a bright light. Much to my surprise, I did not. But I did see the beautiful being, although initially, I wasn’t really sure whether she was a spirit or an angel. After looking at her, I decided that she was a spirit because she didn’t have wings. Her energy was pure goodness and love. She looked to me like the pictures of angels I had seen in many different books – a spirit guide, I supposed. She was unbelievably beautiful and serene, and I felt instantly at peace. As I gazed upon the beautiful golden spirit, I was aware that I was in between two planes – the earthly and the spiritual. It seemed I had a choice to make. The effort to stay alive was daunting and extremely tiring. I no longer wanted to fight and struggle for my life through the agonizing pain: I wanted rest and peace. I found out something rather amazing about what goes on when a person is in between life and death – that the mind and the soul are not always in agreement. Although my injuries were severe, my mind was saying, “Stay and fight. I still have so very much to live for – my two boys. I don’t want to leave them and yet I don’t want to live hooked up to tubes either.” On the one hand, my soul, was telling me, “Let’s go now. It’s time to go.” But on the other hand, my mind would retort, “Let’s wait and think about what you’re doing before you take this lovely being’s hand. If you do, you will, of course, pass over.” My struggle to stay or to go was short in duration, but a struggle nonetheless. An internal war was going on within me. Deep down, however, I knew there really was no option. Because of the injuries, my body could no longer fight, even though my mind was telling it to. My life as I knew it was over and I know now that the medical staff also knew it. Charles had been informed by telephone that I was in very bad shape. He had been advised that I would not live long even hooked up to the machines. He told the doctor to unhook me and to let me go in peace. The spirit’s smile, so kind and gentle, told me there was no pain or sorrow where she existed. I, too, desperately wanted to go there. I took her hand knowing I would be leaving my body behind. I left my body before the doctor could unhook me. I had made the decision to go on before any medical personnel made it for me. My spirit was instantly removed from my body. I was showered with feelings of peace and love. I am afraid that earthly words are inadequate to describe what I experienced, but I will try, nonetheless. Upon taking my guide’s hand, I heard a rushing of sound like ocean waves thundering to the shore. The rushing noise was over in a second and was followed by silence, pure delightful silence. I felt so very light and free. My body became vaporous and floaty. Small balloons of color flew all around me in every direction. Some of these colored balloons came and rested upon my shoulders. I turned to look at them and tried to touch them but as soon as I did, they burst like water balloons. The color from inside each balloon exploded in a mist and swirled all about me. Every color of the rainbow enveloped me. I thought how very pretty it was to be bathed in a rainbow. Actually, I became the rainbow. I was overwhelmed by a happiness and peace unlike anything I had ever known during life. My guide never let go of my hand during this process. I didn’t see her while I was going through the rainbow transformation, but I felt her hand still holding my own. The rainbow slowly unwrapped itself from around me and flew off, its colors still in formation. I was amazed to see that a rainbow had its own energy. I looked to the spirit for an explanation and she introduced herself to me. “I am Ariel, your spirit guide. That is not my earthly name, but rather the name I chose when I crossed over into spirit.” She smiled at my awe and said, “The rainbow was a gathering of spirits to welcome you.” I had never been given a welcome quite as beautiful as that before. It felt so good and loving that I could have absolutely burst. Ariel then said, “You are free to go wherever you choose.” An idea popped into my mind which really baffled me, “Would you take me to St. James Palace?” I asked her. I don’t know why I thought of that place but that is exactly what came to mind. Amazing really. I am sure it is well known by now how much I truly loathed the place while I was alive, so why on earth would I want to go there when I was dead? Ariel and I also went to Kensington Palace and looked down upon the scene. I saw the crowd grow larger and larger as people came to leave tribute to me. I realized why my spirit had led me here immediately after my death. I needed to see and hear first hand how much I truly was loved. A question that had always haunted me was finally being answered. Was I really loved for me, for being who I was? Most definitely yes! Chris Farley A few months after Diana crossed, on December 18, 1997, in the John Hancock building of Chicago, Chris Farley fought tooth and nail against the spirit guide who had come to lead him home. In a vain attempt to hang onto his life, he argued with his guide and tried to burrow his way back into his lifeless body. The problem was, as Chris later said, he just couldn’t believe he was dead. He used his tried and true tactics of denial and bluff to fight off his spirit guide and to make himself believe he was only having a bad reaction to the massive amounts of drugs and alcohol that he had just hours previously injected, ingested, snorted and drank. He had pushed his body to the limit once too often, and this time, it had pushed back, and him out. Chris now takes up the story, relayed through psychic medium, Christine Toomey: My death came suddenly and swiftly. One moment, I was zonked out of my skull, not knowing or caring about anything. I got up to do who knows what, stumbled and keeled into the wall. Then whamo! I fell to the ground with a thud and a groan. The next thing I know, this foggy thing was hovering over my slumped body. I knew in an instant that he was some kind of a messenger of death, so I did the only sane thing I could. I hid inside my dead body, hoping and praying that the humongous apparition would move on and fly away. They say that your spirit rises up and out of your body when you die. I must have been absent the day they taught that at spirit school, because my spirit was definitely not following protocol. I hid inside that body feeling like I weighed as much as my body had. See, when I peeked out of me, I freaked. After the fog cleared, it saw this Herculean spirit floating above me. That’s when I got this crazy idea to bond with my former body, acting like I was in paradise and loving it. I doubted that wild horses could have dragged me away. Momentarily, I hoped that this was just a real bad reaction to the huge quantity of drugs I had ingested, smoked and sniffed earlier that day, not to mention the booze. Right then and there, I made the decision to get serious about cleaning up my act. I really meant it this time. The spirit looking down at me wasn’t scary or ghoulish looking, just huge, really, really huge. Looking at him, I knew I wasn’t ready to die yet. I thought that if I fought the pull from this guy long and hard enough, I would win the fight and be able to seep back inside me where I belonged. He extended his massive hand to me. His arms were really built. This dude had muscles that my king-size bed would have fitted on. With room to spare. So I hunkered down with great determination and strength and prepared to stand my ground. The huge, and up to this point, quiet spirit extended his hand to me once more, and told me, “Take hold of it.” I pretended not to hear him. Then he got really mad. “Get up!” he commanded, loud enough to wake the dead. Literally. Faced with that bull roar, I quickly said, “Okay.” I shakily took hold of his hand. We immediately began our flight upwards. As we rose, he said, “I’m your spirit guide.” I turned to him and said, “Hello, spirit guy.” He gave me an odd look, rolled his eyes, then chuckled. As we flew, I figured out what had happened. My ears must have lost a bit of hearing when I had slammed onto the floor, because I thought he’d introduced himself as Spirit Guy. I guessed that he’d really said, “spirit guide.” I decided to keep calling him that, sort of to save face and because it would be an easy name for me to remember. I had heard about spirit guides before and now felt very protected and at ease flying around with Guy. We entered what I hoped to be heaven through a blanket of soft white light that had shimmery stars all around it. I didn’t see anyone else flying around near by. This surprised me since I thought that heaven was filled with angels and stuff like that. As if reading my mind, Guy said, “I’ll explain everything to you in a moment.” We landed in a park with flowers, benches, a path and birds flying overhead. Wait a minute. It suddenly dawned on me that Guy had communicated to me through his thoughts. From the moment I had first met him, he had never uttered a single word with his mouth. That seemed pretty cool to me and I hoped he would continue to do so. He did. He explained, “Every spiritual being communicates by thought. Words are no longer needed. Thoughts are a much quicker and more direct way of saying what needs to be said. Where we are, everyone and everything is aware of the thoughts of every other thing in the spiritual realm.” Oh, oh, I thought. This could be a very bad thing. I mean, what if I thought something, shall we say, unkind or impolite? “Now you are in spirit, you are no longer capable of thinking rude and nasty things about anything at all.” That was a relief, because while I’d been alive, swearing was my second language. I’ll bet a lot of you didn’t know that about me, did you? I didn’t swear around babies and children or old ladies, but anyone else was fair game, I’ll tell you that. Reading my thoughts, Guy said, “That’s not anything to be proud of.” He was right, I guess. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m a spirit now. Come on, think about it. One minute I’m alive, and the next, I’m floating out of my body as light as a feather, flying around with a spiritual muscle man that could bench press the city of Chicago with one arm. I think this new way of being is going to take some getting used to.

"What's Dying Like?" is excerpted from "Death Without Fear" by Tony Stubbs.

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