In 1975, I was sitting in my living room in Seattle when I began to think about God and my relationship to him. I started by visualizing myself as a tiny grain of sand on an endless beach, insignificant and meaningless, when the following thoughts came to me: I am a creature and that implies there is a Creator. On the other hand, without creatures, a creator could not be called creator. The identity of each depends on the existence of the other by "mutual necessary interdependence," as parent/child, teacher/student and employer/employee are.

At that moment a tunnel opened, my astral body entered it, and I was met by a luminous being who gave me the warmest WELCOME.

Telepathically, I asked where I was and was told "the other side." To my right side, there was a large semicircular portal with lights, some stronger than others, moving about. When I asked what those were, I was informed that they were the spiritual survivors, the stronger lights indicating more advanced spiritual development. 

I thanked the being, my astral body came back, and the tunnel closed. 

A few weeks later, I called my mother and, after narrating my experience, she told me that my father had also spoken of a dark tunnel while in a medically-induced coma after briefly regaining consciousness. 

In 1978, I found The Urantia Book, the 2,097-page revelation of 196 Papers authored by celestial beings in 1934-35 and published as a book in 1955. Urantia means Earth. 

A short time later, I discovered that the luminous being was my guardian seraphim, aka guardian angel, described in The Urantia Book. (www.urantia.org (P.1210.9) “The third circle. The Adjuster’s [God's spirit within] work is much more effective after the human ascender attains the third circle and receives a ‘personal seraphic guardian’ [like mine] of destiny. While there is no apparent concert of effort between the Adjuster and the seraphic guardian, nonetheless there is to be observed an unmistakable improvement in all phases of cosmic achievement and spiritual development subsequent to the assignment of the personal seraphic attendant. When the third circle is attained, the Adjuster endeavors to morontiaize* the mind of man during the remainder of the mortal life span, to make the remaining circles, and achieve the final stage of the divine-human association before natural death dissolves the unique partnership.”) [*The morontia nature of the soul necessarily involves the first steps in morontia life, and its evolution allows human personalities to access morontia realities guided by their indwelling Adjuster and assisted by other mindal and spiritual influences. All these influences are essential to guide personalities in the evolution of their morontia soul through the 7 psychic circles.]