MG asks: “Do you know anything about the book Embraced by the Light, is it ok?”
Embraced by the Light, by Betty Eadie, is very problematic for Christians because it contains many doctrines that are not compatible with Christianity.
For instance, an article by Richard Abanes, Paul Carden and Joe Maxwell and appearing in the Winter 1994 edition of the Christian Research Journal, lists a few of the antithetical teachings:
Pre-mortal existence: “I began to see images…of an existence before my life on earth….The fact of a pre-earth life crystallized in my mind….Things were coming back…that had been purposely blocked from me by a ‘veil’ of forgetfulness at my birth” (pp. 31, 44).
Necessity of the fall of man: Eadie says that while in “heaven” she learned that Adam and Eve didn’t really “fall.” Instead, Eve “made a conscious decision to bring about conditions necessary for her progression, and her initiative was used to finally get Adam to partake of the fruit” (p. 109).
Plurality of gods: The Mormon doctrine that God the Father and Jesus Christ are entirely separate beings (gods) is advanced by Eadie (p. 47), who elsewhere hints at Mormonism’s doctrine of eternal progression to godhood (pp. 45, 61, 109, 146) and subtly implies the Mormon view that God is our literal father (p. 52). In LDS teaching, our Heavenly Father begot us first through celestial sex with one or more heavenly mothers.
Salvation after death: Embraced by the Light also endorses the Mormon claim that salvation is obtainable after death (p. 85). Eadie expands on this doctrine, however, to include the belief that everyone will eventually be saved (universalism). Her only qualifier is that it will definitely be through Jesus that we “all” return to God.
Eadie also told the authors that she was taught in the afterlife that all religions are necessary for the “spiritual progression of humanity”, and that all faiths essentially believed in the same God, but were taught by different instructors. This view is very New Age, which is not surprising as Eadie was a former hypnotherapist who claimed to have a history of paranormal experiences.
She also appears to condone abortion, saying that although it is “contrary to what is natural” that “pre-existing spirits can choose precisely when they want to enter a body still in the womb,” Abanes writes in this review.
“Consequently, pre-birth babies are only bodies waiting to get a spirit. Eadie, in other words, feels that aborted babies do not necessarily have spirits. In describing abortion, she states: ‘The spirit coming into the body feels a sense of rejection and sorrow. It knows the body was to be his….But the spirit also feels compassion for its mother, knowing that she made a decision based on the knowledge she had’ (p. 95).”
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. This book should be avoided by Christians.
For those interested in learning more about how the New Age movement has co-opted the field of near death experiences, this blog may be of interest to them.
