Divine Encounters Episode 126 | Near-Death Experience Story
David Suich is an engineer who says a YouTube video of an atheist’s near-death experience, clicked in 2007 while he was in chronic pain and losing faith, changed his life. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari how years of studying these accounts reshaped his beliefs, why he says Earth is a school of contrast, and what guides, a trailer and a long walk taught him along the way.
Key Takeaways
- David says chronic tendinitis began in 1999, and by 2007 pain and depression had him doubting whether God was real.
- He says a YouTube video of an atheist’s near-death experience renewed his faith in God, in himself and in his family relationships.
- He describes years of study that moved him from trying to fit near-death accounts into Christianity to accepting ideas like multiple lifetimes.
- David says Spirit nudged him in 2019 to sell everything, buy a trailer and live in nature, and that he and his now wife fell in love on the road.
- He says that near-death experiencers report Earth is one of the hardest places to live, and that souls here are honored for the courage it takes.
- He shares a story about a soldier and a backpack of rocks that turned out to be gold.
- His message: never give up hope, and know that you are loved more than your human brain can comprehend.
| Guest | David Suich |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 126 |
| Background | An engineer who says he wants evidence, not blind faith |
| What David says happened | In 2007 he watched a YouTube video of an atheist who had a near-death experience, and it changed his outlook |
| What he studied | Near-death accounts, one after another, for about 20 years |
| Who he says guides him | Spiritual guides who speak to him on a regular basis |
| A turning point | A 2019 nudge to live in a trailer in nature for a year |
| The message | Consciousness learns through contrast, and you are deeply loved |
Pain, Depression and Fading Faith
David says that in 1999 he came down with chronic tendinitis throughout his body. He thought of himself as a born-again Christian then, religious and believing in God. But after eight years of chronic pain, by 2007, it was worsening. He had tendinitis in his jaw, his hands and his feet, and it was making work difficult.
He became very depressed. His thinking went to some dark places about God. Maybe God was not real, he thought, but more likely He was real, and David was the disobedient Christian, the son He is embarrassed of, the failure. Then he adds a line he now believes the opposite of: God does not just love us, God adores us.
He started to lose faith. If you are in a season like that, please know you are not alone. If you are struggling, you are not alone. In the US you can call or text 988 any time.
A YouTube Video That Changed Everything
In 2007, David says, he clicked on a YouTube video of an atheist who died and had a near-death experience. That, he says, changed everything. It renewed his faith in God and in himself. It changed his relationship with his family, and even the way he treats nature.
He used to see nature as a resource to be exploited. Through his research, he says, he has come to learn that we are not separate from nature, we are part of it: “when we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.” He even behaves differently in public. Before, if he saw trash on the ground, he would think it was not his neighborhood and not his problem. Now he stops and picks it up.
He is honest that this did not necessarily make life easier. Life was easier as a Christian, he says, because believing things outside the cultural paradigm earns raised eyebrows. People think you are crazy, and if you are crazy, you might be dangerous. He calls it tough being one of the older souls trying to push along this raising of consciousness. But he says it is worth the effort.
Our complete guide to near-death experiences is a good starting place if you would like to explore the same stories he did.
Twenty Years of Pain and Medication
David tells it plainly. There is nothing you can do about pain except deal with it. You can treat it as a nuisance and try to find joy, or you can focus on it and wallow in it. He says he did the second one, and he turned to medication. His doctors put him on Vicodin. He wants to be clear he was taking the prescribed amount, averaging a couple a day, but he stayed on it for 20 years, and he says it eventually led to psychosis. He thought he was losing his mind.
His friend Jack, who had severe spinal degeneration, was on heavier medication, and he says Jack’s experience came on after only five years. Jack told him, Dave, it’s this medication, you need to get off it. In 2019, after 20 years in pain, David did, cold turkey. These are his own words about his own story.
A Tug From Spirit and a Trailer
That same year, David says, he felt a tug from Spirit: “sell everything you have, buy a trailer, and go out and live in nature for at least a year.” He did not want to do it. He did not want to go alone either, which struck him as strange. He was living by himself, a little lonely and out of work, and not dating anybody.
So he called his ex-girlfriend, who lived in Mexico and whom he had broken up with three years earlier. He asked if she wanted to quit her job and live in a trailer with him for a year to see the United States. She said okay.
They fell in love on that trip, he says, and they married. He calls her an angel of a woman. He later found out he was supposed to be a teacher and an author, helping with the great awakening he believes is happening in humanity. If he was not on track, he says, she was his backup plan.
He helped her too. She was an accountant in a job getting more and more stressful. They had four accountants, one quit, and the work went to the three who remained, then another quit, and so on. She was getting physically ill. He had some savings, so they helped each other.
Walking Again
David describes what happened next as amazing. About six months after he stopped the Vicodin, he says, his pain levels went way up at first and then normalized. Six months into living in nature, he started to feel a little better and used his mobility scooter less and less. Before, he could not be on his feet for more than 10 minutes and had to use the scooter at Walmart.
One day he decided to try walking a mile, which would normally have caused two weeks of pain. There was no pain. A couple of days later he walked two miles, then three, five and seven. At seven, it started hurting, so he backed off. Now, he says, he can work all day in the yard and walk five miles without a problem, with a little pain now and then.
He calls it a miraculous turn and says he does not fully understand it. Maybe it was leaving a big city, maybe a negative vibration where he had lived, or simply being in the country. What he does know is that he is grateful every day to be able to walk and not live with pain daily.
Guides and the Backpack of Rocks
David says he has spiritual guides who speak to him regularly. They teach him well, he says, and they are matter of fact and never judgmental. Recently, in a rough season, they told him, “Wait till you see what’s coming.” Then they brought back an old memory.
He was 17, on a youth retreat over 40 years ago. A youth pastor told a story about a soldier in complete darkness, injured, hungry, cold and tired. A sergeant ordered him to put on an empty backpack and start walking. Every time the soldier tripped on a rock, the sergeant had him pick it up and put it in the pack. The soldier asked, “Why am I putting rocks in my backpack to make it heavier?” The sergeant said to keep walking, it was for his own good.
When they reached base at sunrise, the soldier dropped the pack by his bed and slept. In the morning, he picked it up to empty the rocks, and they were gold.
David’s takeaway: sometimes we do not see the reason for what we go through until later. If not for his chronic pain, he says, he would not have met his wife, and his life would not have changed. “Sometimes you got to hit rock bottom to change,” he says, like someone moving through the dark night of the soul. Our page on the dark night of the soul explores that theme.
Why Souls Come to Earth: Consciousness Learns Through Contrast
David says the dance of consciousness is two steps forward and one step back, and sometimes you have to take the step back. “Consciousness learns through contrast.”
That, he says, is what we are doing on planet Earth. In the perfect environment of heaven it is hard to change and grow. He says near-death experiencers have been told that souls leave the comfort and joy of their heavenly homes to incarnate in tough lifetimes, and that if not for that, the growth of heaven could not continue. According to what he has heard, “Earth is the hardest place to have a life in this galaxy.” It is one of the three hardest in the universe, he says, so if you are here, you are an expert soul.
He says people who have near-death experiences are honored in heaven, “treated like war heroes.” Some of them ask why others are looking at them that way. The answer, in his words, is that they are brave and doing it because they love their heavenly family. When we are loving and kind, he says, it makes all of heaven happy. When we are brutal and selfish, they are a little disappointed. They wish we had chosen the path of love.
For related ideas, see our glossary entries on soul purpose and reincarnation.
An Engineer Who Needed Evidence
This message, David says, spoke truth to his heart, and it was what he needed. As an engineer, he wants evidence. He cannot work on blind faith or believe something because a man in a costume, as he puts it, tells him to. His guides and the spirits with him knew that, he says, so he looked into one account after another.
At first he tried to match the accounts with his Christian faith, and eventually it became impossible. He kept hearing things like, this is not your first time here, you have many lifetimes. He says that should have been obvious, since Jesus said John the Baptist was Elijah. The pattern was always the same. He would learn something new, say no, this can’t be true, and slowly accept it. In his words: “I deny it, and then I get evidence, and I finally accept it.”
The first thing he accepted was multiple lifetimes. Today he is a spiritual counselor, and when someone comes up on his screen, he gets flashes about their life. He says it is a normal part of his life now, and that recently the psychic side of it saved his life: he was told to leave the house where he was because he was in danger, and it turned out to be true.
Glimpses of the Future
David says a few of the near-death experiences he studied include glimpses of the future. One thing they said is that there will be a new kind of politician: gentle, soft spoken, ruling from love and compassion. They will not call their opponent an opponent. They will say “they’ll call him a colleague,” as David paraphrases it, and talk about how each person’s ideas might work for different reasons.
His first reaction was that it would never happen. Then he reminded himself of how often he has first denied something and then accepted it. As the consciousness of humanity continues to rise, he says, people will not stand for the power-hungry politician.
He also points to what he calls survival consciousness. When you are struggling to pay the bills and get through the day, your creativity and your desire to contribute are set aside. When the struggle is over, he says, it is amazing the creativity that comes out.
Never Give Up Hope
David closes gently. These lives are extremely challenging sometimes, and sometimes you just feel like giving up. His advice: “Just never give up hope. Good things are coming.” He believes “Everything that we do down here on planet Earth has a purpose,” and that the purpose is always for our highest good, even when we cannot see it.
His number one message is to know “that you are loved more than your human brain is capable of comprehending.” If that feels hard to believe today, our page on connecting with your higher self is a gentle place to begin.
Questions to Sit With
- David says that sometimes we cannot see the reason for what we go through until later. Is there a hard season in your life that you can now see differently?
- He says he first denies a new idea, then gets evidence, then accepts it. Where are you in that cycle with something right now?
- If, as David says, you are loved more than your human brain can comprehend, what would you do differently this week?
This week, take a walk outside, even a short one, and notice one thing in nature you usually pass by. Pick up one piece of trash on the way.
Spiritual Takeaways
- David says consciousness learns through contrast, and that Earth is a place of growth.
- He says near-death experiencers have been told that souls who incarnate here are honored for their courage.
- He describes difficult seasons as rocks that can turn out to be gold.
- He says we are not separate from nature, we are part of it.
- He says you are loved more than your human brain can comprehend.
Please enjoy my conversation with David Suich.
Guest Links: Connect With David Suich
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is David Suich?
David Suich is an engineer and near-death experience researcher who says he has spent about 20 years studying these accounts after a YouTube video renewed his faith in 2007.
What video changed David Suich’s life?
David says that in 2007 he clicked on a YouTube video of an atheist who died and had a near-death experience, and that it renewed his faith in God, in himself and in his family relationships.
Did David Suich have a near-death experience himself?
In this conversation, David shares what he learned from studying other people’s near-death experiences, along with his own experiences of guidance and chronic pain. He does not describe dying himself.
Why did David Suich move into a trailer?
David says that in 2019 he felt a tug from Spirit to sell everything, buy a trailer and live in nature for at least a year. He invited his ex-girlfriend, and they later married.
What is the story of the soldier and the backpack?
David recalls a story from a youth retreat when he was 17. A soldier in the dark is told to carry rocks in a backpack, and in the morning he finds that the rocks are gold. David’s lesson is that we may not see the reason for hard times until later.
What does consciousness learns through contrast mean?
David says it means growth comes through contrast, and that this is why souls come to Earth, a place he says near-death experiencers describe as one of the hardest to live in.
Why does David say souls are treated like war heroes?
David says near-death experiencers report being honored in heaven because they are brave and are living on Earth out of love for their heavenly family.
How did studying near-death experiences change David’s beliefs?
David says he first tried to fit these accounts into his Christian faith, but ideas like multiple lifetimes made that impossible. He says he would deny a new idea, find evidence and then accept it.
What does David say about the future?
David says some near-death experiencers were shown glimpses of the future, including a new kind of gentle politician who rules from love and compassion.
What is David Suich’s main message?
David’s message is to never give up hope, that good things are coming, and that you are loved more than your human brain is capable of comprehending.
Is this a medical claim?
No. Next Level Soul shares these stories as lived experiences in the guest’s own words. Nothing here is medical advice, and researchers continue to debate what such experiences mean.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What a near-death experience is
- Reincarnation in plain language
- David Suich on 14 years of near-death research
- Jack Morrigan on an atheist’s life changing near-death experience
- Dr. Jeffrey Long on thousands of near-death accounts
- Greg Shushan on ancient descriptions of near-death experiences
- Jeffrey Mishlove on patterns in 1,700 near-death accounts
- Understanding your soul purpose
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
David Suich 0:08
It was in 1999 that I came down with chronic tendinitis throughout my whole body, and I was a what I considered a born-again Christian back then. So I was religious and believed in God, but after eight years of chronic pain, 2007, that was worsening. I had tendonitis in my jaw, my hands, my feet, and it was making it difficult to work. And I became very depressed. And I thought, maybe God's not real, but more likely He's real. But I'm the disobedient Christian. I'm the son He's embarrassed of. I'm the failure. I'm the one who says I want nothing to do with you. God doesn't just love us, adores us. Now, when I say He, okay, so God contains all that's masculine and feminine. I I began to lose faith, and then in 2007, I clicked on this YouTube video of an atheist who died, and that just it changed everything, and it renewed my faith in God. It renewed my faith in myself. It changed my relationship with my family, even the way I treat nature. You know, before I treated nature like a resource to be exploited-natural resources-and I've come to learn now through my research that we're not separate from nature; we're part of nature. And when we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. So it even changes the way I behave in public. If I'm walking in public and I see a piece of trash, before I would say, "This isn't my neighborhood. I don't care. Well, now I'll stop and pick it up. And so it changed every aspect of my life for the positive. It didn't necessarily make life easier. I think life was easier as a Christian, because when you believe in things that are not part of the cultural paradigm, and you know this because of the all this work you're doing. You get the raised eyebrows, and there's this reaction of you're crazy, and because you're crazy, you might be dangerous, and I need to get away from you. So it's tough being one of the older souls who's trying to push this raising of consciousness along, the work that you're doing, but it's it's worth the effort. Nothing you can do about it. You got to deal with the pain. So I can be in pain and just treat it like a nuisance and try and be happy and find joy, or I can focus on it and make it worse and wallow in it. And that's what I did. And I turned to medication. My doctors put me on Vicodin. Now I wasn't popping Vicodins like their M&Ms, like Rush Limbaugh did when he had his back injury. I was taking the prescribed amounts. I I only averaged a couple a day, but I was on that for 20 years, and it eventually led to psychosis. I thought I was losing my mind, and my friend Jack, who had got a severe spinal degeneration, he was on heavier medication, and that happened to him only after five years. And he said, "Dave, it's this medication. You need to get off of it. So I did in 2019 after 20 years of being in the pain, cold turkey. 2019, I was getting the tug from Spirit: sell everything you have, buy a trailer, and go out and live in nature for at least a year. I'm thinking I don't want to do this, and I was thinking I don't want to go along by myself. That's strange, but I was living by myself. I was kind of lonely. I was out of work, and I thought I'm not even dating anybody, so I can't really ask a woman. So I call up my ex-girlfriend, who I broke up with three years ago, lived in Mexico, and I said, Hey, you want to quit your job and live in a trailer with me for a year and see the United States? And she goes, okay. And of course, we fell in love on that trip, and we got married. And she's an angel of a woman. And then I later found out that I was supposed to be a teacher and an author and help this great awakening that's happening now with humanity. And if I wasn't on track, she was my backup plan to come in.
David Suich 3:40
And then, of course I helped her too because she was in a job that was getting more and more stressful as an accountant, and she was being so overworked. They had four accountants and one quit because there was too much work, so they gave the work to the three that remained, and another one quit and they gave the work to. And it's just she was getting physically ill and and vomiting, and so I took her away from all that. I had some savings, so we helped each other. And amazingly, about six months after I stopped the Vicodin, the pain levels went way up at first, and then they normalized. And then, about six months into this, being out in nature, I started feeling a little better. I started using my mobility scooter less and less. I mean, I couldn't be on my feet for more than 10 minutes. I'd have to use my mobility scooter to go to Walmart. I thought one day, well, I'm going to try walking a mile, which would normally cause two weeks of pain, and there was no pain. And then a couple days later, I walked two, and then three, and then five, and then seven. And at seven, it started hurting. I backed off, and basically my body healed. I still have a little pain now and then, but I can work all day in the yard, and I can walk five miles without a problem. I had a miraculous healing. Yeah, it was wonderful. When I got out of California, got I got out of the big city, and I think there was a negative vibration where I was living, and and just being out in the country that changed things. So I really don't understand the whole thing. I'm just grateful every day of my life to. Able to walk and and not deal with pain every day. Just recently, my guides they brought back an old memory. I have spiritual guides that speak to me on a regular basis, and they're really good with teaching me. And they're very matter of fact. They're sort of never judgmental. They're just very matter of fact. But I'm going through this rough time, and they said, "Wait till you see what's coming. I said, "Well, what does that mean? I was 17 years old. It's a long time ago, over 40 years ago. I was in a youth retreat, and this youth pastor was up there talking about this story, and he said, "Okay, this soldier is in this dark area. It's completely dark. He's injured, and he's hungry and cold and tired. Can't see a thing, and he's with a sergeant. And the sergeant orders him, 'Put this backpack on, and the backpack's empty. He says, "Now start walking. He says, "Well, I can't see where I'm going. He goes, "Start walking. We got to get back to base. So they start walking, and every time he trips on a rock, the sergeant orders him to pick it up and put in the backpack. And he goes, "Why am I doing this, sergeant? He goes, "Just keep walking. Do what I tell you. It's for your own good. And he's mad at this sergeant. You know, he's being a jerk. Why do I have to go through this? I mean, we got to walk back. Why am I putting rocks in my backpack to make it heavier? They keep going. Now the backpack's full, and it's just a burden. They finally get back to base. The sun's coming up. He goes into his barracks, throws the backpack down by the side of his bed, and lays down. Wakes up the next morning, and he picks up the backpack to empty out the rocks, and they're gold. They're rocks of gold. And sometimes in life, we don't see the reason for the stuff we're going through until later. If it were not for my chronic pain, I would not have gotten together with this angel of a woman that I'm married to. My life would not have changed. I wouldn't have broken down. Sometimes you got to hit rock bottom to change, just like a drug addict going through the dark night of the soul and hitting rock bottom. The dance of consciousness is always one of two steps forward and one step back, and sometimes you got to take the step back. Consciousness learns through contrast.
David Suich 6:54
Matter of fact, that's what we're doing here on planet Earth. In the perfect environment of heaven, it's hard to change and grow. And near-death experiences have been told that if it were not for souls leaving the comfort and joy of their heavenly homes, disconnecting from feeling the beautiful love coming down into these tough lifetimes, and this is a tough place to be. If you're here on planet Earth, oh, you're an expert soul. Earth is the hardest place to have a life in this galaxy. It's one of three hardest in the universe. If it were not for souls incarnating, the growth and change of heaven could not continue. We're doing the tough work for creation. We are a critical part of the engine of growth of creation because consciousness learns through contrast, and that's why people are honored in heaven when they have these near-death experiences, they're treated like war heroes. Some of them even ask, "Why are you looking at me like that? Because you're brave, and you're doing it because you love your heavenly family. You're helping, literally helping God grow and evolve by doing what you're doing. When we are loving and kind and compassionate people, it makes all of heaven happy. And when we are brutal and selfish and manipulative. They're a little disappointed. They wish we would have chosen the path of love. And that message spoke such truth to my heart. And it was what I needed because, as an engineer, I want evidence. I can't work on blind faith and believe something because some guy in a costume, who we call a priest, tells me to believe it. I needed evidence, and my guides and the spirits who are with me knew that that's what I needed, and so I just looked into one after another, after another, after another, and finally I was like, "Well, I gotta, I gotta tell people about this, just like you're telling people about it. So it's been a wonderful journey. Well, at first, what I was trying to do is match these near-death experiences with my Christian faith, and it eventually became impossible because I would hear things like, "Well, this isn't your first time here. You have many lifetimes, and of course, that should have been obvious because they-it's in the Bible. Jesus said John the Baptist was Elijah, so you know it's in there. But the pattern was always the same. I would hear something, I would learn something new from these experiences, and I would say no, this can't be true, and slowly I would accept it. And just as I was getting comfortable, they'd give me the next thing to to take on. So the first one was like multiple lifetimes. I'm a spiritual counselor, and so now somebody comes up on the screen, and I get flashes about their life. Not always, but I see things, and so now it's just a normal part of my life. My guides who speak to me on a daily basis and psychic things and things like that. And just recently, the the psychic stuff saved my life. I was told to get out of the house where I was because I was in danger. It turned out it was true, so it just became a normal part of my life. But it's it's the same process that's still happening today. I deny it, and then I get evidence, and I finally accept it. A few of these near death experiences are shown, glimpses of the future, and one of the things they said is there's going to be a new kind of politician in the future, and they're going to be gentle and soft-spoken and rule from love and compassion. And they won't even call their opponent an opponent; they'll call him a colleague, and they'll say things like, 'Well, Jim has these ideas, and you know I think they'll work for these reasons, but I have these ideas.'" And they may work better for these reasons. And I'm thinking, oh, that's never going to happen. Well, it will, as the consciousness of humanity continues to rise. They're not going to stand for the power-hungry politician.
David Suich 10:10
So when you're in a struggle to survive, and most of us, many of us, I would say, are in survival consciousness, you're trying to just pay the bills and get through the day without going crazy and without losing your mind, and when you're in survival consciousness, your creativity, your enthusiasm to do what you love to do, to make a beneficial contribution to humanity, to really do something that benefits society-that's set aside. I'm got to focus on surviving, and so when that need and struggle is over, it's amazing the creativity that comes out when we're not fighting each other, when we're not worried about this person's going to steal or rob from me. These lives are extremely challenging sometimes, and sometimes you just feel like giving up. Just never give up hope. Good things are coming. Everything that we do down here on planet Earth has a purpose, and that purpose is always for our highest good. And we don't always see it, but the most important message I can leave: number one, know that you are loved more than your human brain is capable of comprehending.
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