Artum. Part 1

This article was published by the UK Spiritualist magazine 'Two Worlds' in their November 2007 issue. It is the original version, of a true story. There is no such thing as death.

My name is Nat Bondar, I was born in the city of Cherkassy in Ukraine, during USSR times and my first language is Russian. When I was nine years old, I experienced a dramatic spiritual awakening and developed full clairvoyance. Fortunately my mother was keenly interested in psychic and spiritual affairs and encouraged my ability.

When the Chernobyl accident happened, 200km away from my home town, we were living in an apartment on the fifth floor of a block of flats with neighbours all around us. We did most of our shopping in a local market and I adapted my vision to 'look' at the fruit and vegetables to see how safe they were to eat or not; if they had a black cloud of radiation about them - we didn't buy them. Everything we bought to eat or drink, I would scrutinise first, I discovered I could not only see the radiation, but also pesticide and herbicide chemicals too. In our home, I found that I could not only 'see through' our walls and observe what our neighbours were cooking for dinner, but I could also actually temporarily 'leave my body' and travel in my spirit body anywhere I wanted to. My mother and I went to local meetings of a society for people interested in psychic matters and that was where I began to read books about psychic subjects and my spiritual education began.

During my adolescence, lots of people would come to our flat to ask me to look at their health auras - or to look at photographs of their relatives and to tell them what I 'saw'. Many people wanted reassurance about their lives and loved ones and I did what I could to help them.

One day in the hot summer of 1998, a group of young people were swimming and playing in the local Dnieper river when a young girl got caught in the strong current and a teenage boy swam out to help her. He managed to get her in reach of other helpers but he himself then got caught in the undercurrents and was pulled under. Sadly this young lad drowned...

His name was Artum, he was a neighbour of mine on a floor above mine, although we weren't close friends, we knew each other enough to say 'hello', he was sixteen years old, two years younger than me.

It was a terrible tragedy for someone so young to die and our whole apartment block was talking about it, but his parents were out all day and only returned in the evening to the shocking news. Many folk were confused and mixed up about it. Some thought it couldn't be true, others hoped it wasn't Artum; perhaps hoping it was a mistake - and that he'd maybe just had an accident and was in hospital maybe...

My mother and I didn't really know what to think, I remember we were talking about it in the evening around 10pm and I said 'well maybe I should go and have a look', I could invisibly enter Artums' flat and see what was really going on. Mum agreed, and I went.

As I entered the room, I saw a crowd of people, his parents were distraught and amidst the people I saw Artum, he was in his spirit form and he looked right at me and stared - realising that I could see him. I got scared and instantly vanished to return back home. It was true and he had drowned in the river.

Later at 3am in the morning I awoke to find Artum 'standing' in our flat, dripping wet and wearing his swimming trunks, asking me to help him. This was the beginning of an extraordinary experience.

In my culture we have definite 'folk beliefs' about what happens when people die. We believe that for the first 9 days after death, the deceased persons' spirit will remain in association to their prior life, staying in the local environment and near to their family and friends. After the 9th day, they 'leave' that reality and enter another one where there is no connection to their former life at all. However, on the 40th day after death, they can return for that one day to once more be involved with their former life. Then after this, there is generally no return. However my people have a cultural 'remembrance day', which takes place a week after Easter every year. On this date, whole villages and towns will visit the graves of their departed family and friends to 'remember them' that one day. In Cherkassy, the whole city will do this and crowds and crowds of people attend the cemetery and bring special foods and drinks to the event. It is quite a spectacle, children are given sweets and apples, and adults give speeches, make toasts to the memory of the departed and bring flowers for their graves. On this day, every year it is a traditional belief that the deceased can attend. The next day, it's all over and the cemetery is completely empty again.

Artum needed me to help him come to terms with his situation. He told me that 'he swam back to the water surface and back to the bank' but although he shouted at his friends, none of them would listen to him, everyone was ignoring him, it was very upsetting. When he tried to grab a friend's arm, his hand passed right through him. When this happened, he got very scared and then ran all the way home (a distance of several miles), but when he got home, he tried to bang on the door and his hand couldn't hit the door, getting terrified now he shouted and screamed, but no one heard him. Realising his parents were out, he knew they had to be at their allotment, so he ran there to them, but when he got to them, they couldn't hear or see him.

I began to explain what had happened to him, and tried to comfort him as best I could. Then for the next day or so, he would follow me everywhere I went. I was taking exams at college at the time and he was even with me in the examinations room; I kept asking him for help!

I realised that he didn't understand a lot about his condition; he'd always try to move out of people's way and had difficulty coming in and out of rooms - so I told him he could walk through doors and walls. He didn't believe me! So I had to leave my body and show him how 'I' could do it, when I did this and he tried it for the first time he was absolutely overjoyed; he then spent ages jumping in and out of rooms just for the fun of it...

It was a couple of days before people in the apartment block began to talk about whether I could make a connection between Artum and his parents. I had only told my mum about him, nobody else knew.

But people talk - and someone approached my mum and she said something about Artum and I - and quite quickly, a meeting was arranged between his mum and dad, my mum and I and of course Artum. Here I was; a quiet girl with no intentions and certainly no preparations for such a meeting. However, when questions were asked, I'd listen to what Artum wanted to say and I'd repeat his words; it went quite well.

Meetings followed meetings and his parents became closer and closer with my mum and I; I would go to their apartment and would describe what Artum was saying and doing, his actions and expressions confirmed to them that he was definitely 'alive'. His dad would have so many questions, page after page sometimes! Artum described to them what it was like for him to go through bodily death. He described his confusion at seeing his body covered in a square chequered shirt; it wasn't his. He tried repeatedly to 'get back into his body but it was as though there was an 'invisible shield' surrounding it.

I commented to his mother at one meeting that he was standing in the doorway to their lounge with one hand on a bar that crossed above the door. I didn't realise the significance of this until she said he was a keen sportsman and used the bar everyday to do 'pull up' exercises.

Artum began to describe what 'life' was like in the spirit world. I would either repeat his words afterwards, then his father later began to use a tape recorder to record our 'conversations'. When his parents weren't present, I'd write his words down on paper for them. We'd have all sorts of topics and subjects and Artum sometimes went to great lengths to answer questions put to him.

He'd frequently answer questions with a profoundly philosophical (for a teenage boy) emphasis, it was clear after a week that he'd fully come to terms with his departure from his prior life in this world.

On the 9th day after Artum passed over, everyone knew this would be the day he would 'leave us'.

At lunchtime on this day my mum and I went to his parents flat. Artum was already there. His dad had a lot of questions and had the tape recorder running throughout the meeting. Some of the questions put to him were about personal, social family issues. Other questions were far different. His parents had definitely relaxed some of their grief from our conversations, they still felt his loss from their life, but at the same time, they'd become aware of an entirely new perception of 'life' for him.

In the past, I have been present on the '9th day' after someone's death and I have seen a spirit figure in a white gown present. These figures are always wearing a heavy white robe and the hood over their head always hides their faces. Although I have 'asked questions' to these figures, I have never had them answer me; as though they either ignore me or perhaps more likely they can't hear me.

On this day, Artum described the 'duty' of the white figure to me. It was actually a 'Guard' to ensure he would have no trouble and difficulty in making the crossing from the reality he was in to

the one he was to go to. Apparently this is when the spirit is vulnerable and it is necessary for the figure to be present on this occasion for everyone.

Finally the time came and I saw the white robed figure appear, then a few moments later I saw a column of light gradually begin to appear in the room, Artum began to say his goodbyes... His parents were crying - as this truly was when their only son would be leaving them. It was a very emotional moment. I tried to describe everything I saw. Artum stepped into the column of light. However, he didn't then 'rise up' in it as I had expected, but instead his image slowly began to disappear, all the while he was looking us, smiling. Eventually I could see nothing of him and the column of light grew brighter and brighter, to the point that I could barely look at it. Then it gradually began to diminish and moments later it was completely gone and we were alone.

Some eighteen months later, Artum's father met a man that had been the one who had found his son's body further downstream from where he'd drowned. This man said he had taken his shirt off to cover the body, it was a shirt with a square chequered pattern.

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