'I saw God after near-death experience - it was nothing like I expected'

A woman who endured a near-fatal motorcycle crash claims she encountered God during a near-death experience - and insists it was completely different from what she had anticipated.

Beverly Brodsky maintains the God she witnessed bears no resemblance to biblical descriptions and declares the encounter transformed her life entirely.

Beverly grew up in a conservative Jewish household in Philadelphia. Horrified by the Holocaust's atrocities at just eight years old, she rejected God and embraced atheism in 1958.

However, at 20 years of age in 1970, her world shifted dramatically following a devastating motorcycle collision near Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, reports the Express.

She sustained a fractured skull whilst the right side of her face was completely torn away. Beverly endured intensive care at UCLA Hospital for a fortnight.

Medical staff informed her they typically witnessed such severe injuries only in war zones, requiring salt-soaked bandages to be wrapped around her wounds.

Discharged without pain relief, she felt utterly hopeless and cried out to a God she had long dismissed. "God, if you're out there, you can have me now because I'm finished," she pleaded.

Instantly, all her agony disappeared and she found herself floating above her physical form. She witnessed an angel on the ceiling who appeared masculine and radiated an inner luminescence, she claims.

According to NDE, she said he grasped her hand, causing all doubt and frantic questions to evaporate. Beverly shared her extraordinary experience with author Kenneth Ring, saying: "I barely had time to realise the glorious strangeness of the situation - that I was me but not in my body - when I was joined by a radiant being bathed in a shimmering white glow.

"Like myself, this being flew but had no wings. I felt a reverent awe when I turned to him; this was no ordinary angel or spirit, but he had been sent to deliver me. Such love and gentleness emanated from his being that I felt that I was in the presence of the Messiah."

"Whoever he was, his presence deepened my serenity and awakened a feeling of joy as I recognised my companion. Gently he took my hand and we flew right through the window. I felt no surprise at my ability to do this. In this wondrous presence, everything was as it should be."

She then remembers being guided towards a bright light over the Pacific Ocean up a path. She added: "Now still hand in hand with the angel, I was led into the opening of the small, dark passageway."

She journeyed for a considerable time before finally arriving at her "destination." Beverley shared: "There, before me, was the living presence of the light. Within it I sensed an all-pervading intelligence, wisdom, compassion, love, and truth. There was neither form nor sex to this perfect being.

"It, which I shall in the future call he, in keeping without our commonly accepted syntax, contained everything, as white light contains all the colours of a rainbow when penetrating a prism. And deep within me came an instant and wondrous recognition: I, even I, was facing God.

"I immediately lashed out at him with all the questions I had ever wondered about; all the injustices I had seen in the physical world. I don't know if I did this deliberately, but I discovered that God knows all your thoughts immediately and responds telepathically. My mind was naked; in fact, I became pure mind.

"The ethereal body which I had travelled in through the tunnel seemed to be no more; it was just my personal intelligence confronting that Universal Mind, which clothed itself in a glorious, living light that was more felt than seen, since no eye could absorb its splendour.

"I was given more than just the answers to my questions; all knowledge unfolded to me, like the instant blossoming of an infinite number of flowers all at once. I was filled with God's knowledge, and in that precious aspect of his Beingness, I was one with him. But my journey of discovery was just beginning.

"The last thing that I saw before all external vision ended was a glorious fire - the core and center of a marvelous star. Perhaps this was a symbol for the blessing that was now to come to me."

She then found herself back in her damaged body. Now a Church member, Beverley has dedicated years to sharing her near death experience (NDE) with others. Her NDE account is taken from Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino and Kenneth Ring's publication, Lessons From The Light, used with permission.

Ring described Beverly Brodsky's NDE as "possibly the most moving in my entire collection." Beverly has been featured in McCall's magazine, appeared in a BBC documentary (The Human Body), conducted the first NDE interview on Israeli public radio, and is listed in the 2006 edition of Who's Who in America.