Anyone who has ever lost a loved one can relate to the profound sorrow and longing for communication that Norman Ober felt when his wife died from cancer 17 years ago. Unlike most who experience such grief, Anita and Norman reconnected telepathically by channeling. Their miraculous story of love after death is recounted in Ober's latest book, "Anita's Heaven." For anyone who has ever lost a loved one, "Anita's Heaven" provides inspiring assurance that all is well with loved ones who have left this world and will be for us when it is our turn to go.

Interview with Norman Ober

Today, Tyler R. Tichelaar of Reader Views has the privilege of being joined by Norman Ober, author of “Anita’s Heaven.”

Norman Ober’s story focuses on his deceased wife, Anita, and how, beginning three years after her death in 1990, she has been communicating with him through channeling, explaining to him the mysteries of heaven and what life is like there.

Tyler:  Thank you for joining me today, Norman. Wow, what a fascinating experience you have had. To begin, can you tell our readers how you began to channel your wife and just what the term “channeling” means?

Norman:  I’d love to, Tyler. It’s explained in the book. I discovered it first as automatic writing in a book by Helen Greaves called “A Testimony of Light.” My daughter Dody and I found it in a great Denver bookstore called “The Tattered Cover.”

I’d been begging, wheedling and berating a God I didn’t believe in, trying to pry Anita loose and somehow get her spirit back into my life. I was going crazy without her and couldn’t believe for a minute that “death do us part” applied to us.

Channeling is a broader term than automatic writing. It includes people who communicate mind to mind, or by having visions or dreams. Some hear voices of loved ones. To communicate as Anita and I do, she had to align our vibrations to form a channel. She knew how badly off I was without her, learned what she had to do and grappled for me until she linked us up. It worked because we were both determined to connect. And what a difference it made in me!

Tyler: You’re a lucky man, Norman. Your experiences would obviously help a lot of other people overcome their grief if they could channel after they lost loved ones. Why do you think you and Anita are among the very few able to communicate despite death’s divide?

Norman:  Tyler, both parties have to want desperately to bring it off. Yes, I was very lucky. A man who doesn’t believe in God obviously doesn’t believe in the afterlife. He’ll never try, no matter how much he misses his loved one.

To answer your question, I’m not convinced Anita and I are among the very few who channel. Conditioning or ignorance may make it improbable that everyone will seize the opportunity.

But God’s energy helps anyone who can’t stop loving and grieving, anyone who dedicates himself to making the connection, no matter how long it takes. We’re a minority, but there are more than a few twin flames in eternity.

Tyler:  In “Anita’s Heaven”, you mention it took you three years to find each other and fourteen months for you to believe you really were communicating with your wife and not simply imagining the experiences. How did you finally convince yourself the messages were valid?

Norman:   When they started, atheism and skepticism held me back. Anita was patient. I was on one hand ecstatic that we were back in touch, IF it were true . But the truth that percolated from her letters eventually converted me to a believer.

Tyler:  You must have met with several people who are skeptical about your experiences. What is your response to them?

Norman:  Most of my best friends are atheists. They’re unmoved by my newfound deism. But we’re still friends. Arnold Goren, Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at New York University, thinks I’m a deserter to my faithlessness. But he knows I’m sincere and calls “Anita’s Heaven” a beautiful and lyrical book. I haven’t run across any readers who challenged me. When I do, I’ll let the book speak for itself.

Tyler:  I am intrigued that the book mentions there is life on other planets. Could you tell us a little about that?

Norman:  When Anita’s letters began referring to ten universes, all but one with a peopled planet, it strained my belief system. But I was so impressed, when I began to believe, that I asked Anita for a précis on each planet. She sent me long letters about each and I boiled them down to keep that section of the book from overwhelming the rest of it.

All nine peopled planets are described in the order in which they were created. Earth was sixth. The people of one formerly occupied planet wiped themselves out in one terrible day. That’s in the book, too.

Tyler:“Anita’s Heaven” also discusses reincarnation. Could you explain the reasoning behind why people keep reincarnating rather than just having the one-chance-at-life as Christianity has always taught us?

Norman:   Anita sees God’s most important operations in heaven as taking back spent souls from His planets, rehabilitating and purifying them and recycling them from life to heaven and back to life. Reincarnation is voluntary. I’ve asked her why, if it’s as wonderful as she says, anyone would ever voluntarily leave heaven for life.

She thinks reincarnation is simply in our genes--that we’re programmed to “decide” to return and that if there were no stimulus to reincarnate, by now heaven would be bulging to the celestial rafters with billions of stagnant souls.

Tyler:  An interesting point, Norman. I have read, however, that reincarnation is also a process of evolution—that we keep coming back to learn lessons until we get them right, and that ultimately the goal is to end our reincarnation process. Is that true of Anita’s experiences?

Norman:  She hasn’t identified the process with evolution exactly but she HAS lectured me a number of times, when I was missing her the most and considered suicide, that we are meant to live full lives, learn from them and do better next time. We’ve discussed the Buddhist concept of nirvana and she says that, to her, nirvana is what heaven is now.

Her view is that we are subtly programmed to reincarnate again and again. But she does say some elect to join God’s work force permanently. In fact, Anita and I are planning to do just that and work in human betterment. I simply never want to lose her again. If that means eternity, then heaven will be eternal for us.

Tyler: Norman, Anita’s descriptions of heaven line up closely with those I’ve read in other books by people who have returned to life, after a near-death experience. I’m referring to such books as Betty Eadie’s “Embraced by the Light” and Raymond Moody’s “Life after Life.” One such book stated that a woman who had such an experience kept asking those around her where was Jesus, and they told her heaven didn’t have a Jesus. I have to ask where Jesus and Christianity fit into this, or if they do. If there is no Jesus, should we reject Christianity or other religious traditions? Are humanity’s religious beliefs outdated or incorrect?

Norman:  Anita and I have written about that, too. She tells me (it’s in the book) that God never frowns at people who see Him as Allah, Mohammed, Buddha or any other God name--and there have been thousands. His view is that, no matter what they call Him, they all mean the same God and do their best to define Him.

As to near death experiences, what a woman projects when she is near death is hardly proof that there’s no Jesus in heaven. That said, I have to tell you–this is in the book, too--that Anita didn’t succeed in finding Jesus there when I asked her to try. She describes religiously inclined groups as believing in Jesus. They say Jesus is “near the Light”--with God. But they’ve never seen him and don’t try to.

We decided that Jesus is not a myth but a real person. But religions’ claim that he is the son of God and those who like to think he somehow replaced The Old Man in His job have no more credible facts than the woman whose altered state told her that there is no Jesus in heaven.

Anita believes Jesus died, went to heaven and eventually reincarnated. But she can’t prove that either. God doesn’t care what any of us think on the subject but cares very much that the peoples He created lie, cheat, hate, enslave, subjugate or kill one another. He and His workers have never stopped their efforts to improve human chemistry and make future generations immune to the character degradation evolution and environment cause in so many of us.

Tyler: Wow, Norman, that’s a great response to my question. In closing, Norman, if Anita were here (maybe she even is) what do you think she would want her message to be to our readers?

Norman:   Anita’s two favorite subjects are God and love. She wants--and I join her in this--more of us to trust God’s love, to love Him and one another without bias, suspicion, hatred, and other common evils. SHE believes in God and religion.

I believe in God now, thanks to Anita. But I have no patience with organized-for-profit-and-power religions. Anita agrees they hold and seek more power, but she says houses of worship provide millions with inspiration, solace, spiritual growth, community aid and sociability. We’d both like to see religions give up their dogmas and concentrate on setting and keeping to high ethical standards for themselves and their flocks.

Tyler: Is Anita able to share with you anything about the future of humanity? Is there hope for us? As we reincarnate and evolve will our world become more peaceful and spiritual, or are we fated to blow ourselves up in one day as that other planet you mentioned earlier?

Norman:  Tyler, that’s hard to answer. Neither Anita nor I claim to be psychics or have any special occult powers. She does refer to one planet destroyed entirely and another that came close to it but struggles on with its damaged mutants.

But God didn’t do it. Anita says God doesn’t listen to advice to erase us all and start over again, but she worries that He may lose patience with domination and slaughter and do just that. We hope it won’t be soon and believe it’s time the principles of love for God and one another come to the fore in all of us.

Tyler: Thank you so much, Norman, for joining me today. You have given us all a great deal to think about, and I know many of our readers will want to learn more about “Anita’s Heaven.”  Will you tell us where they may purchase a copy?

Norman:  Right now there are two ways to get “Anita’s Heaven” or have your bookstore order it. Visit the website www.anitasheaven.com for more about the book and how to order it through Blooming Twig Books. For a signed copy, Email anitasheaven.optonline.net. Books I send cost $16.95 plus 1.04 New Jersey State Tax and postage, the new priority flat rate $4.60 or, if you choose, media mail is about half the priority rate but slower.

Thank you, Tyler, and thanks, readers. “Anita’s Heaven” wants you.