(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John Henry Westen Show is Catholic speaker Robert Bartlett. He discusses his near-death experiences, hearing the voice of God, and how such experiences inspired him to become a devout Catholic.
This is Part 1 of a two-part interview. Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.
I began the episode by asking Bartlett about his upbringing. Bartlett explained that his father was Mormon and his mother was a fallen-away Catholic. They raised their children non-religiously, though he was baptized at his grandmother’s insistence.
He then dove into the story of his first near-death experience, from when he was a child. This occurred while he was playing on his uncle’s motorcycle in the garage as if he were riding it; the handlebars pinched him across the throat and shoved him against the wall.
“My mother found me out there; she had to resuscitate me. And it was soon after that I had God speaking to me, and He said, ‘You can never add to me, and you can’t take away from me,’” Bartlett said.
I asked Bartlett what that message meant to him, and he explained that being young and living agnostically, he didn’t know what it meant. He then told me that he continued having conversations with God when he’d play in his backyard but didn’t tell his parents about these visions, fearing they would think he was crazy.
Then I asked Bartlett about the vision he received that he would die at the age of 32. He explained that when he was 26, his grandmother was in the hospital but was expected to recover. While visiting her, he had a feeling come over him.
“I had a feeling come over me, like, when God speaks to you … it’s all understanding. I just turned and looked at my buddy, and I said, ‘My grandmother is going to die tomorrow.’ And she did. And then it was soon after that I got the number in my head would just always be there, that I was going to die at the age of 32.”
Flash forward to when Bartlett was 29 and attending sniper school during the Iraq War. While there, the number in his visions had flipped back and forth between 32 and 31. Wanting to “get right with God,” Bartlett began attending Mass. Right before his deployment, he told a Baptist chaplain about his visions. The chaplain downplayed the visions, saying this would never happen, but prayed with him.
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I jumped in to ask how he died the first time, and Bartlett told me he was in Iraq on a reconnaissance patrol in an armored Humvee when they were hit with an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) bomb.
And [the EFP] cut me in half from the left corner of my temple, down through my jaw. And then we had ball bearings the size of quarters coming in through the firewall in the dashboard. So my buddy was killed instantly, and my gunner lost his legs. He was in the turret, next to me. So he has a little strap underneath his legs and his butt, so he can sit down in the turret while we’re driving. And the bomb cut me in half, it took his legs off, and then it took the top of my truck commander’s head off and then went out the other side of the armored vehicle and kept on going.
Over the next few days, Bartlett had to be revived twice in Iraq before being flown to Walter Reed Hospital in the U.S. and placed in an induced coma. I asked him about the visions he experienced during his recovery, which he detailed:
I was naked on my knees, and there were stairs, there was an all-marble landing out there. There were stairs going down into this pool, and in this pool [there are] pillars. And the first two pillars were broken off and laying down in the pool. And then further out there was two more pillars. And in the center of these four pillars was a drip coming from eternity.
And it was filling up this pool. And as soon as I saw that I knew it was blood. It was the blood of Jesus where those who wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that’s where you go. I went right to the gate, and so I was in between the two gates. And then I turned behind me … naked on my knees, and a huge dragon, and I mean huge, was on a pillar on the same marble landing that I was on.
And it came down off there when I started to turn back towards the blood, he came down off there, and he started tearing me apart, and it was all where my injuries were and just flesh was coming off me, and I got to feel how evil he is, like the depth of his being forever marked me. I mean, I can go into a house that needs to be blessed, and I know something’s not right, [I’m] sensitive to it.
And then I just turned back towards the blood, and I just flat out begged God to get out of there. … And I instantly was out of there, and it was like He put me in the palm of His hand, and I got to feel His love for me.
Watch or listen to my full interview with Robert Bartlett to hear his full story and stay tuned for Part 2.
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