That is essentially the root of the concept of Hell, the gathering of souls. (It should be noted that Christians, Buddhists, Greeks, etc. have all had near-death experiences with their own religious figures and this is a purely natural phenomenon.)
Quote:That is essentially the root of the concept of Hell, the gathering of souls. (It should be noted that Christians, Buddhists, Greeks, etc. have all had near-death experiences with their own religious figures and this is a purely natural phenomenon.)
Interesting as I'm a bleiever of NDE. I have always felt that NDE is the root of all religions. It is what tells us we have a soul and something akin to a God does exist.
I'm not sure, logically, that I can believe in either - at least not as Christianity would have it. The Bible tells people that they are sent to heck for eternity for not believing in a certain doctrine (namely the divinity of Christ), as well as for sin. Now, last time I checked, the average human life was around 74 years. Assuming that every second of that life is spent in sin (not counting sleep, eating, pooping, etc), then even so, that prescribed eternal punishment is infinitely disproportionate to the crime. The whole notion is utterly illogical, and a perfect picture of injustice. If anything, it conjures fear in us, which, incidentally, is a powerful social and political tool. Just read up on your history - it's had many uses.
And since we're by nature somewhat selfish, doesn't that mean the traditional Christian God sets us up to knock us down? And this whole Jesus thing... believing in a doctrine makes us clean in his eyes? Isn't that rather counter-intuitive, and an unnecessary, elaborate run-around for a relationship that ought to be simple and intuitive?? Judaism and Islam have far simpler methods of having a relationship with God and avoiding hell.
Regardless, I am inclined to believe that hell and Satan are just the tools and methods of fear-mongers.
The out of body experience is caused by electrical sensations in the right angular gyrus. Glutamate is released in abundance when brain cells die and will cause other cells to die so the brain releases an NMDA receptor blocker to stop the spread of glutamate and this causes the vast majority of visions (the visions usually consist of a prominent figure in their lives whether real or imagined: beings of light, God, Jesus, Buddha, family members, pets, etc.) It is also believed that DMT and agmatine are key factors in explaining the rest of the experiences (agmatine is a neuro-transmitter and may be the real cause of the out-of-body experiences that were created by the electrical sensations I mentioned earlier.)
Quote:The out of body experience is caused by electrical sensations in the right angular gyrus. Glutamate is released in abundance when brain cells die and will cause other cells to die so the brain releases an NMDA receptor blocker to stop the spread of glutamate and this causes the vast majority of visions (the visions usually consist of a prominent figure in their lives whether real or imagined: beings of light, God, Jesus, Buddha, family members, pets, etc.) It is also believed that DMT and agmatine are key factors in explaining the rest of the experiences (agmatine is a neuro-transmitter and may be the real cause of the out-of-body experiences that were created by the electrical sensations I mentioned earlier.)
No, dead wrong on this one. Most OBE are people viewing themselves from above watching what is going on around their body. They see and relate after the event in great detail what is happening to them and around them. They relate details no unconscious person can see. You should get a good book on the subject. There are a lot of misconception about what NDE and OBE is.
One of the more interesting aspects of this is the ability of blind people to see events that they could never see even if conscious. This can't be passed off as delusions or visions.
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html
In the list of four arguments for the Afterlife Hypothesis, the most important argument is omitted (later in the book it is addressed in passing). This primary and most basic tenet of the Afterlife Hypothesis?-that spirit (and consciousness) separate from the body?-deserves primary attention, but Blackmore instead addresses tangential arguments.
Failing to formulate a clear and concise statement of what must be demonstrated to support each hypothesis, she fails to test clear assumptions and ends up concluding neither has proof, after which she expresses her feeling the Dying Brain Hypothesis must be right. Skeptics make the mistake of claiming scientific proof when Blackmore offers only opinion.
Blackmore, in my opinion, ignores the research and takes a tortuous route into pure speculation of a most tenuous nature. She speculates the only 'I' is a mental model, and the reason we apparently get out of the body is tied in with why we think we are in it, namely:
"Part of the answer is that building a model from eye-level view is the most efficient way of making use of the information coming in from our predominant sense." And, "It can only be a guess, but I imagine that dogs are more inclined to feel they are inside their noses than we are."
Time to stop for a chuckle, then on with her suggestion that these models (who we really are) dissolve under various conditions such as drugs. Blackmore writes:
"I shall never forget my own ketamine experience, the extraordinary sensation of watching the floating parts of the body that seemed to have nothing to do with 'me' coming in and out of vision as 'I' seemed to drift about away from them."
She says "I shall never forget" but, according to her hypothesis, the "I" should have been dissolved. Incapacitate the model maker, and the model should disappear. Yet there is this stable sense of "I." The "I" that "shall never forget." She is unable to live her own theory.
Skeptics claim Blackmore provides scientific proof that NDEs are merely brain phenomena, proof spirit does not exist. This is simply false. Dying to Live presents conjecture, assumptions, speculation, but no proof. Furthermore, her conjecture does not match the evidence she presents.
The skeptics' second claim, that she has explored both hypotheses as an unbiased researcher is also false. The major shortcoming of Dying to Live is a failure to explore or present the Afterlife Hypothesis. It is propped up on false legs in order to be knocked down.
Every time the evidence and the reports clearly support the Afterlife Hypothesis, she makes a non-sequitur leap to the Dying Brain Hypothesis. Should we blame her for not understanding the Afterlife Hypothesis? No. This is not her area of expertise.
What is perhaps most needed in the field of NDE studies is a clear statement of the Afterlife Hypothesis so authors, like Blackmore, will be forced to address the actual hypothesis, not straw man versions.
The out of body experience is caused by electrical sensations in the right angular gyrus. Glutamate is released in abundance when brain cells die and will cause other cells to die so the brain releases an NMDA receptor blocker to stop the spread of glutamate and this causes the vast majority of visions (the visions usually consist of a prominent figure in their lives whether real or imagined: beings of light, God, Jesus, Buddha, family members, pets, etc.) It is also believed that DMT and agmatine are key factors in explaining the rest of the experiences (agmatine is a neuro-transmitter and may be the real cause of the out-of-body experiences that were created by the electrical sensations I mentioned earlier.)
She'ol, the Hebrew word for hell, does not refer to a place of eternal punishment. The concept of eternal punishment is a perversion of the original texts. Many of the references to graves and pits are translations of the same word that is used for Hell. Hell refers to the gathering of souls after death. The root of the word She'ol (and thus Hell) is Sha'al, which essentially refers to "a questioning," or less poetically the near-death experience. Deut. 32:22 and Psalm 116:3 talks about near-death experiences of burning while Job 14:13 refers to a near-death experience of comfort and rest. Have you ever heard about the "tunnel" that people experience when they are dying? That is essentially the root of the concept of Hell, the gathering of souls. (It should be noted that Christians, Buddhists, Greeks, etc. have all had near-death experiences with their own religious figures and this is a purely natural phenomenon.)
The most damning concept of death is what many refer to Hell as the fire and brimstone. This originates from the Hebrew word Gei Himmon, the valley of Hinnom (Joshua 15:8, 18:16; II Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31; Nehemiah 11:30), a place where children were sacrificed to the Canaanite god Moloch. Over time this was eventually called Gehenna in Greek. They kept their pit on fire by adding brimstone to it. In Matthew 23:33 it is typically translated "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" but that is a bad translation because Jesus said gehenna. Jesus was asking the societal outcasts (Pagans ruled at this time) how they expected to not be thrown into the pit of fire in the valley of Hinnom. Over time the Greek concept of Hades was adopted and abominated. The early Christians related Gehenna to Hades in an attempt to scare current Christians away from possibly conversions to Paganism and perhaps convert a few Pagans to Christianity. It is essentially a political/scare tactic and nothing more.
Edit: It needs to be known that I am an atheist and don't believe anything in the Bible. The above is merely my understanding of the texts and culture at the time.
Those who support the afterlife hypothesis have provided no knowledge so the fact that you consider me unknowledgable on the subject is not surprising. The best they have been able to do is argue from a culture or philosophical perspective and their entire hypothesis relies on anecdotal evidence, nothing of substance or worth in science.
Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist whose latest book, Light and Death, includes a detailed medical and scientific analysis of an amazing near-death experience of a woman named Pam Reynolds. She underwent a rare operation to remove a giant basilar artery aneurysm in her brain that threatened her life. The size and location of the aneurysm, however, precluded its safe removal using the standard neuro-surgical techniques. She was referred to a doctor who had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest. It allowed Pam's aneurysm to be excised with a reasonable chance of success. This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death. After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life. During the time that Pam was in standstill, she experienced a NDE. Her remarkably detailed veridical out-of-body observations during her surgery were later verified to be very accurate. This case is considered to be one of the strongest cases of veridical evidence in NDE research because of her ability to describe the unique surgical instruments and procedures used and her ability to describe in detail these events while she was clinically and brain dead.
Dr. Bruce Greyson documented perhaps one of the most compelling examples of a person who had a NDE and observed events while outside of his body which were later verified by others. The only way that these events could have been observed by the experiencer was if in fact he was outside of his body. Al Sullivan was a 55 year old truck driver who was undergoing triple by-pass surgery when he had a powerful NDE that included an encounter with his deceased mother and brother-in-law, who told Al to go back to his to tell one of his neighbors that their son with lymphoma will be OK. Furthermore, during the NDE, Al accurately noticed that the surgeon operating on him was flapping his arms in an unusual fashion, with his hands in his armpits. When he came back to his body after the surgery was over, the surgeon was startled that Al could describe his own arm flapping, which was his idiosyncratic method of keeping his hands sterile.
Addressing the frequent rejoinder that such events can be accounted for as hallucinations, Dr. Greyson notes that if NDEs are hallucinations, then how is it that such incredibly accurate and verifiable information is resulting from the NDEs? People on drugs who have NDEs see fewer deceased relatives when they travel out of body. This suggests that people who do see relatives are clear-minded, not hallucinating. In some cases of children, they see dead relatives whom they had never met or seen pictures of. This begs the following question: How could they hallucinate accurately the visual images of someone they have never met? When assessing the surmounting data as a whole, Greyson said that the survival hypothesis is the most parsimonious explanation for the growing database of NDEs.
In order for the afterlife hypothesis to have any chance of not being thrown in the recycling bin the spirit must be made of some substance. They have tried to detect it materialistically and energetically. According to the weight experiments the spirit cannot be made of matter. According to the infrared, ultraviolet, and electromagnetic detection experiments it also cannot be composed of energy. (It should be noted that mass is the result of gravity pushing down on stabilized forms of energy called matter, so all of them tested energy.) These facts tell us that the spirit, if it does exist, is immaterial. Or, in other words, "nothing of substance."
And do you honestly believe the skeptics have ignored the stories? I do not. Furthermore, I have not ignored such stories either. Many years ago I was a Christian and I studied many of the different things that Christians are interested in. After I stepped away from Christianity I began searching for different religious beliefs that I felt were worth value. I read a few things about Buddhism but the only thing of value was the principles of Karma. I also studied various other things like out of body experiences, astral projection, theosophist materials like the Stanzas of Dzyan and The Secret Doctrine, etc. I am now an atheist because through my studies I have come to realize that there are way too many people in this world trying to deceive others. Practically all of the "genuine" out of body experience stories told by "believers" have way too many control problems that make them absolutely useless.
18. Science and the Near Death Experience
'There seems little doubt that NDE's occur in all cultures and have occurred at all times through recorded history ... the NDE happens to young and old, to people from all walks of life, to those whose life has a spiritual dimension and to those who profess no faith at all ... there are many examples of people who have a NDE at a time when they did not even know that such a phenomenon existed.'
Dr Peter Fenwick
The Near Death Experience (NDE) is a powerful argument for the existence of the afterlife. As medical resuscitation techniques are being improved more and more people are being brought back from the border of clinical death. A number of them recount an intense profoundly meaningful experience in which they seem to be alive and functioning outside their body. For many, a near death experience is an extremely powerful emotional and spiritual experience.
The evidence for the NDE is consistent, overwhelming and exoteric ?- experienced by the many. The NDE experiential evidence is also consistent with other experiential evidence for survival ?- evidence which includes the OBE, information obtained from mental and physical mediums and with apparitions.
Psychics say that in a crisis situation, where death is almost inevitable or is perceived to be inevitable, the duplicate physical body, the astral or etheric body, leaves the physical body and experiences the first stages of the afterlife ?- see below. When death does not occur, the duplicate body resumes its place in the physical body. Skeptics say that there is no such thing as a duplicate body and whatever one experiences has to do with the problems of the physical body itself ¾ it's all in the mind.
Studies have shown that NDE's occurred following illness, surgery, childbirth, accident, heart attack and attempted suicide.
One pioneer in this area was a medical doctor and philosopher, Dr Raymond Moody Jr, who began his work as a skeptic and is now totally convinced of the reality of life after death. His first book Life After Life in 1975 is considered the classic work which opened this area to modern research was followed by two others in 1983 and 1988.
Since 1975 there have been many studies in many countries ?- so much so that there are now several international associations and journals for the investigation of near-death studies. Cherie Sutherland's excellent Australian book (1992) contains a selected bibliography of over 150 scholarly research reports.
Fifteen common elements
Moody found a striking similarity in accounts of 150 people who had these experiences ?- so much so that he was able to identify fifteen different elements which recur again and again in these reports. He constructed a typical experience which contains all of these elements:
A man is dying and, as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He begins to hear an uncomfortable noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel. After this he finds himself outside of his own physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, and he sees his own body from a distance, as though he is a spectator. He watches the resuscitation attempt from this unusual vantage point and is in a state of emotional upheaval.
After a while he collects himself and becomes more accustomed to his odd condition. He notices that he still has a 'body', but one of a very different nature and with very different powers from the physical body he has left behind. Soon other things begin to happen. Others come to meet and help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died, and a loving, warm spirit of a kind he has never encountered before ?- a being of light ?- appears before him. This being asks him a question, nonverbal, to make him evaluate his life and helps him along by showing him a panoramic instantaneous playback of the major events of his life. At some point he finds himself approaching some sort of barrier or border, apparently representing the limit between earthly life and the next life. Yet, he finds that he must go back to the earth, that the time for his death has not yet come. At this point he resists, for by now he is taken up with his experiences in the afterlife and does not want to return. He is overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love, and peace. Despite his attitude, though, he somehow reunites with his physical body and lives.
Later he tries to tell others, but he has trouble doing so. In the first place, he can find no human words adequate to describe these unearthly experiences. He also finds that others scoff, so he stops telling other people. Still the experience affects his life profoundly, especially his view about death and its relationship to life (Moody 1975: 21-23).
Dr Kenneth Ring, who produced a scientific study of Near-Death Experiences in 1980, confirmed Dr Moody's findings but found that people went through the experience in stages and a large number of people experienced only the first ones.
Other studies by Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson (1977), Michael Sabom and Sarah Kreutziger (1976), Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1983), Craig Lundahl (1981) and Bruce Greyson and Ian Stevenson (1980) all confirmed Moody's description.
They saw while unconscious
Dr Sabom, a Georgia cardiologist, interviewed 100 hospital patients who had narrowly escaped death. Of these 61 per cent reported experiencing classical NDE of the type closely corresponding to those published in 1975 by Moody.
Many of the patients who had been revived were able to describe in great technical detail exactly what went on in the operating room while they were supposedly unconscious or dead. Dr Sabom, investigated the hypothesis that these patients were merely using their creative imagination, or knowledge that they had subconsciously picked up through earlier exposure to emergency care.
He interviewed a group of seasoned cardiac patients who had not undergone Near-Death Experiences and asked them to imagine watching a medical team reviving a heart attack victim and to describe in as much detail as possible the steps being taken. To his surprise 80% of them misdescribed the procedures. On the other hand none of the group which claimed to have witnessed their resuscitation while out of their bodies made an error about the procedure (Sabom 1980: 120-121).
A common experience
There are now literally millions of people from all over the world who have undergone a Near-Death Experience. In 1983 a major American survey by George Gallup Jr reported that eight million Americans, approximately five per cent of the adult population, had experienced one (Gallup 1982). A 1989 Australian survey by Allan Kellehear and Patrick Heaven found that ten percent of 179 people claimed to have experienced at least five typical elements of a NDE.
Studies in widely differing geographic locations have produced remarkably similar findings eg. Margot Grey's study of NDEs in England (Grey 1985), Paola Giovetti's study in Italy (Giovetti 1982), Dorothy Counts' study in Melanesia (Counts 1983), Satwant Pasricha and Ian Stevenson's (1986) study in India. More studies are coming out from different countries on a regular basis, and historical examples show that the experience has been remarkably consistent over time (see Plato's example of Er's NDE in The Republic reprinted 1973).
Yet while these experiences have been happening throughout human history, in western culture it is only in the last twenty years that people have felt free to talk about them and the effect that they have had on their lives.
Coming back with unexplained information
There are many accounts of people having near death experiences returning with factual information which they had no prior knowledge of. These include being able to identify ancestors from pictures, learning about siblings who had died before their own birth, learning about family secrets etc. Others were able to document information they had learned about future events (see for example Eadie 1992, Brinkley 1994).
Common after-effects
Cherie Sutherland, an Australian researcher, interviewed 50 NDE survivors in depth and found that the effects on the lives of survivors had been remarkably consistent and quite different from the effects of drug or chemical induced hallucinations. She identified many effects which have been substantiated by other studies eg. Ring (1980 and 1984) Atwater (1988). These included:
a universal belief in life after death
a high proportion (80%) now believed in re-incarnation
a total absence of fear of death
a large shift from organized religion to personal spiritual practice
a statistically significant increase in psychic sensitivity
a more positive view of self and of others
an increased desire for solitude
an increased sense of purpose
a lack of interest in material success coupled with a marked increase in interest in spiritual development
50% experienced major difficulties in close relationships as a result of their changed priorities
an increase in health consciousness
most drank less alcohol
almost all gave up smoking
most gave up prescription drugs
most watched less television
most read fewer newspapers
an increased interest in alternative healing
an increased interest in learning and self-development
75% experienced a major career change in which they moved towards areas of helping others.
An independent American study by Dr Melvin Morse found that NDE survivors have three times the number of verifiable psychic experiences as the general population, were frequently unable to wear watches and often had electrical conduction problems such as shorting out lap top computers and erasing credit cards (Morse 1992). He also found that adults who had near-death experiences gave more money to charity than control subjects, volunteered more in the community, were more frequently involved in helping professions, did not suffer from drug abuse and ate more fresh fruit and vegetables than control populations (Morse 1992).
Alternative explanations.
Naturally, the near death experience cannot be taken simply at face value without examining alternative explanations. These include:
Are they making it up?
As stated above, those who studied the NDE ?- scientists, doctors, psychologists, other investigators and skeptics ?- all now claim with absolute certainty that the NDE does exist.
Some open-minded cardiologist investigators assumed the NDE did not exist but subsequently changed their mind. Michael Sabom, the cardiologist mentioned above, admitted that before he started to investigate he felt sure that NDEs must be 'conscious fabrications' either on the part of those reporting them or those writing about them. However, once he began to investigate he was absolutely staggered by the genuineness of the phenomena.
Another most highly credible cardiologist who was initially skeptical was Maurice Rawlings who states in his book Beyond Death's Door (1978) that he had always believed in death as total extinction until one day a forty eight year old postman dropped 'dead' in his office. As he began to resuscitate him the patient began screaming: 'I'm in Hell! Keep me out of hell!' . At first Rawlings says he told him: 'Keep your hell to yourself ?- I'm busy trying to save your life' but gradually he became convinced by the sheer terror of the man he was working on. So absolutely traumatic and convincing was the experience that Dr Rawlings went on to write books about it. If you accept the word of a highly credible and highly qualified cardiologist, his whole life changed after this experience.
The Pharmacological Explanation?
Some suggest that NDE's are caused by drugs administered to the patient at the time of his crisis. Drugs such as ketamine and morphine have been suggested. Moody investigated this hypothesis and rejected it (Moody 1975: 160-161). This was because many of the patients who experienced NDE's had not been given drugs, that drug-induced visions were markedly different from each other and from genuine NDE's in content and intensity and had no profound long-term effects.
LSD?
Some investigators including R K Siegel reported that some of those who have taken hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD have experiences similar to NDEs. But we are also informed that there are distinct differences between the effect of LSD and the NDE. This has been effectively dealt with by Moody and others.
Oxygen Deprivation?
It is sometimes argued that the NDE is caused by oxygen starvation and is a normal response of a 'dying brain'. However many people have experienced Near-Death Experience before there was any physiological stress and in some case when there was no physical injury at all (Moody 1975: 163). Sabom, consistent with Dr Fenwick, noted that in genuine cases of oxygen deprivation there is a 'progressive muddling and confusion of cognitive abilities' which is in direct contrast to the clarity and expansion of consciousness reported by those having a NDE (Sabom 1980:176).
Psychological Explanations?
There have been various attempts to claim that NDE's are basically 'wish fulfillment' ?- that you see what you have been culturally conditioned to expect. However Ring (1984) Sabom (1982) and Grosso (1981) have all found that there is no link, no correlation between religious beliefs and experience of a NDE.
Other psychologists like Uri Lowental (1981) have argued, without giving any evidence, that NDE's are 'a reliving of the birth experience'. Their hypotheses are generally considered unhelpful speculation.
Psychologists Kletti and Noyes (1981) have claimed that NDE's represent 'depersonalization and pleasurable fantasies which represent a form of psychic protection against the threat of destruction'. However this explanation has also been refuted by Gabbard and Twemlow (1981) who point out that while depersonalization usually occurs in persons between 15 and 30 it is virtually unheard of in people over 40.
Others have proposed that NDE's are forms of 'autoscopic hallucination' ?- a rare psychiatric disorder. However both Sabom (1982) and Gabbard and Twemlow (1981) found this implausible on the basis of a number of significant differences.
Neurophysiological Explanations?
Moody considered parallels between the past life review of NDE patients and the flashbacks experienced by people with neurological abnormalities. He concluded that both were essentially different in that whereas the flashbacks were random and of trivial events not remembered after the attack, in the life review typical of a NDE the events were in chronological order and were of highlights of the life. They were all seen at once and constituted a 'unifying vision' which gave the person insight into his life's purpose (Moody 1975: 166).
The dying brain?
Dr Peter Fenwick is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a neuropsychiatrist with an international reputation ?- a specialist in the mind/brain interface and the problem of consciousness. He is Britain's leading clinical authority on the NDE and is President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.
With his wife Elizabeth, also a Cambridge-trained professional scientist, Dr Peter Fenwick made a thorough investigation of the argument by skeptics and materialist psychologists that a near death experience is caused by the physiological effects of the dying brain (Fenwick 1996).
The argument by psychologists against the NDE has to be seen in the light of their very limited knowledge of the functioning of the brain. Psychologists do not have the necessary depth of academic and practical professional training of neuropsychiatrists like Dr Peter Fenwick to professionally assess the physiology of the NDE. The professional training of psychologists includes only a very basic training in physiology. A look at five standard textbooks on university Psychology shows that study of brain functioning constitutes less than 5% of the overall learning on psychology. Psychologists in training do not practice surgery, let alone the highly specialized field of human brain surgery.
Certainly, someone in the position of Dr Fenwick would have all the technical knowledge to accurately assess whether or not the NDE can be explained by what is happening in the dying brain. Dr Fenwick states that these psychologists write absolute rubbish when they venture into areas of knowledge outside their technical expertise, knowledge they don't have, don't understand and which is outside their everyday work.
He is scathing with the skeptics:
(They) just don't have the knowledge...So much rubbish is talked about Near-Death Experiences by people who don't have to deal with these things on a daily basis. So I'm absolutely sure that such experiences are not caused by oxygen shortages, endorphins or anything of that kind. And certainly none of these things would account for the transcendental quality of many of these experiences, the fact that people feel an infinite sense of loss when they leave them behind (Fenwick 1995:47).
As a consultant neuro-psychiatrist Dr Fenwick constantly works with people who are confused, disoriented and brain-damaged and he points out:
What is quite clear is that any disorientation of brain function leads to a disorientation of perception and reduced memory. You can't normally get highly-structured and clearly remembered experiences from a highly damaged or disoriented brain (Fenwick 1995:47).
He likewise refutes the endorphin argument:
As for that stuff about endorphins, we're boosting the effect they have all the time because thousands of people are given morphine every day. That certainly produces calmness, but it doesn't produce structured experiences (Fenwick 1995:47).
Closed-minded skeptics are asked to answer the following questions:
If the NDE is the effect of a dying brain it should happen to everyone who is dying. Why is it that not all of those who are near death whose brain is 'dying' experience a NDE?
If the NDE is wish fulfillment, why is it that not every NDE experience is a positive one? Why is it that some experience a neutral and/or a horrific negative NDE as documented by Phyllis Atwater (1994).
If the NDE is caused by the release of endorphins, what objective evidence exists to show that the release of endorphins necessarily elicits a life review in an orderly way?
What objective evidence exists to show that the release of endorphins leads to the breakdown of a sense of time and its relationship to 'self'?
Why is it that nearly all experiencers of NDEs undergo a permanent transformation which is consistent with spiritual refinement, a more refined way of living?
Why is it that most experiencers of NDEs relate their newly found intrinsic motivation to the powerful experience they had out of the body?
What objective proof is presented to show that understanding of the role of the limbic system and temporal lobe can account for the experiences of familiarity, insight and deja vu and the statistically significant increase in psychic experiences that follow NDEs?
How do skeptics explain the incredible consistencies between NDEs and OBEs?
Physical explanations insufficient
Elizabeth Fenwick, co-writer of the book The Truth in the Light ?- An investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences (1996) actually began her research thinking that all could be explained in scientific terms. But, after investigating, she concluded:
While you may be able to find scientific reasons for bits of the Near-Death Experience, I can't find any explanation which covers the whole thing. You have to account for it as a package and skeptics ... simply don't do that. None of the purely physical explanations will do (Skeptics) vastly underestimate the extent to which Near-Death Experiences are not just a set of random things happening, but a highly organized and detailed affair (Fenwick 1995:47).
These views are supported by a study of Near-Death Experiences in Holland by cardiologist Dr William van Lommel and his team who studied 345 cases who would have died without resuscitation. Ten per cent recalled a substantial Near-Death Experience and a further eight percent had a less pronounced one.
These patients were compared to a control group who were identical in terms of seriousness of their illness but who had not had a Near-Death Experience. According To Dr Van Lommel (1995):
Our most striking finding was that Near-Death Experiences do not have a physical or medical root. After all, 100 per cent of the patients suffered a shortage of oxygen, 100 per cent were given morphine-like medications, 100 per cent were victims of severe stress, so those are plainly not the reasons why 18 per cent had Near-Death Experiences and 82 per cent didn't. If they had been triggered by any one of those things, everyone would have had Near-Death Experiences (Van Lommel 1995).
Similarly Yvonne Kason, a Canadian psychiatrist, has found in her clinical practice people who are not close to dying reporting near death-like experiences; these included people who thought they were about to die and people who were meditating (Kason 1994:73).
Without doubt, the near death experience together with the Out of Body Experience and with other objective evidence of the psychic phenomena presented in this work, constitute a most powerful objective argument for the afterlife.
For more information on Near Death Experiences and their after-effects visit the home page of the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS).
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