Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (16 page)
Read Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience Online
Authors: Pim van Lommel
Christianity
The message spread by NDErs that love and acceptance of oneself and others is what matters most in life matches one of the central tenets of Christianity. Love and forgiveness are connected, just as Jesus preached: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31; all biblical quotes from the
NRSV
). “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
According to the gospel, Christ was capable of miracles and miraculous healings. He experienced visions and premonitions: he knew that he would be betrayed and put to death. In other words, he had what is now known as an enhanced intuitive sensitivity. Following Jesus’s death on the cross, Christians believe he arose on the third day when his disciples recognized him in a new body. Within the Christian tradition a particular form of life after death is generally accepted, although the various Catholic and Protestant denominations all have their own, very different interpretations. At times, the chances of entering paradise seem to hinge on whether or not people have been baptized or confirmed rather than on their way of life; according to some Christian denominations, the possibility of eternal life is virtually nil for nonbelievers.
The Old and New Testaments feature many references to an imperishable soul and a material, perishable body. I have selected a few quotations on death and the soul’s sojourn outside the body. Ecclesiastes 12:5–7 says about death, “Because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken,…and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.” About the dimension without time and distance, in which the whole past and future can be experienced in one’s consciousness, Ecclesiastes 3:15 says, “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.”
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:6–8, “So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” And in 2 Corinthians 12:2–4 Paul wrote, “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.”
For centuries the following quotes from the Bible have stirred the debate about the possibility of reincarnation. In John 3:6–7 it is written, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’” And in Matthew 11:13–14 we read that Jesus said, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.” It was not until the Second Council of Constantinople in 553
C.E
. that the Christian Church officially and definitively rejected the idea of rebirth.
The Christian tradition also features a great many mystics who claimed to have had direct contact with the divine during their ecstatic visions. In terms of content these visions are quite similar to near-death experiences. The best-known mystics are Francis of Assisi, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Ávila, and John of the Cross. Some mystics even received the stigmata, displaying wounds to their hands, feet, and right side, something that is viewed by the Christian Church as a clear physical manifestation (materialization) of the Christ consciousness.
Islam
Muslims believe that the Qur’an is a direct revelation from Allah, which is why the scriptures are holy to them. There is no God but the One, and Muhammad (570–633
C.E
.) is his prophet. Islam believes in the judgment at the end of time, when each person will be led before Allah for an individual trial. All will be accountable for their actions. Surah 99:7–8 says, “Then shall anyone who has done an atom’s weight of good, see it! And anyone who has done an atom’s weight of evil, shall see it.”
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There are echoes here of the life review during an NDE. Islam too knows the concept of an eternal paradise for those who have lived a good and pure life, and also an everlasting hell for disbelievers and apostates is described, without any hope of redemption.
Similarities and Differences Between Various World Religions, and Parallels with NDE
For those readers who want to know more about the differences and similarities between the various world religions, and the parallels between these religions and the content and consequences of an NDE, several books can be recommended. In his book
Bijna dood ervaringen en wereldreligies: Getuigenis van universele waarheid
(Near-Death Experiences and World Religions: Testimony of Universal Truth), Bob Coppes focuses mainly on the parallels between these world religions and the content and consequences of an NDE. Of course this book is only one of many that describe the similarities between near-death experience and religious or mystical experiences within the various world religions, and especially between NDE and views on death within Christianity.
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Some Ancient NDE Reports
Reports of visions and mystical or religious experiences, often caused by life-threatening situations such as near-drowning, suffocation, exhaustion, or high fever, are prevalent across all times and cultures. Nowadays, we classify these cases as near-death experiences. The classical visions of three legendary people by the names of Er of Pamphylia, Aridaeus-Thespesius of Soli, and Timarchus of Chaeronea are relayed in the writings of Plato and Plutarch. I will quote here only from the vision of Er because it must be treated as the oldest report of an NDE. Readers who are interested in mystical experiences from ancient, medieval, and modern times may want to consult the book
Otherworld Journeys
by Carol Zaleski as well a recent article about the three already mentioned ancient reports of near-death experiences.
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Plato: The Vision of Er
In
The Republic
Plato has Socrates narrate the myth or vision of Er. It is an extensive meditation on the destiny of the human soul after death and the way in which our next life on earth is determined. The quotation here has been slightly abridged but preserves the essence of Er’s near-death experience. Socrates recounts:
I will tell you a tale…of a hero, Er the son of Armenius…. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pyre, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world.
He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey…and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty.
The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this: He said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold; or once in a hundred years…and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born.
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Er explains that the souls resume their journey after seven days and in due course arrive at a place where three sirens sing of the past, present, and future. The souls present are told about their destiny and to “behold a new cycle of life and mortality.” Every soul is free to choose his or her lot, and responsibility for the new life lies with the one who chooses. As Er explains:
And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth, having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good…. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle—sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life.
Once everybody had chosen their next life, they went in the order of their lots to the siren of the past, and via the siren of the present to the siren of the future, and afterward they jointly marched to the plain of forgetfulness. It was evening when they set up camp by a river. They were all told to drink a certain quantity of water, and as soon as somebody drank they forgot everything. At midnight, after they had fallen asleep, it thundered and the earth shook. Suddenly they were driven upward in all different directions, heading toward birth, like shooting stars.
He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.
An Eighth-Century NDE Report
From the many fine early medieval examples of religious and mystical experiences, I would like to recount the story of Drythelm as chronicled in the eighth century by the Anglo-Saxon monk Bede. One evening Drythelm died of a serious illness but regained consciousness at sunrise the following morning; his grieving relatives were “terrified beyond measure” as he suddenly rose from his deathbed. Drythelm first told his detailed story to his wife and later to a monk, who in turn passed it on to Bede:
I was guided by a man of shining countenance and wearing bright robes. We went in silence in what appeared to me to be the direction of the rising of the sun at the summer solstice. As we walked we came to a very deep and broad valley of infinite length. It lay on our left and one side of it was exceedingly terrible with a raging fire, while the other was no less intolerable on account of the violent hail and icy snow which was drifting and blowing everywhere…. Since a countless multitude of misshapen spirits, far and wide, was being tortured in this alternation of misery as far as I could see, and without any interval of respite, I began to think that this might be hell, of whose intolerable torments I had often heard tell. But my guide who went before me answered my thoughts, “Do not believe it,” he said, “this is not hell as you think.”…
As we entered this darkness, it quickly grew so thick that I could see nothing except the shape and the garment of my guide…. I saw, as the globes of fire now shot up and now fell back again ceaselessly into the bottom of the pit, that the tips of the flames as they ascended were full of human souls which, like sparks flying upward with the smoke, were now tossed on high and now, as the vaporous flames fell back, were sucked down into the depths….
It was the one who had guided me before…. He began to lead me in the direction of the rising of the winter sun and quickly brought me out of the darkness into a serene and bright atmosphere. As he led me on in open light, I saw a very great wall in front of us…. When we had reached the wall we suddenly found ourselves on top of it…. There was a very broad and pleasant plain, full of such fragrance of growing flowers that the marvelous sweetness of the scent quickly dispelled the foul stench of the gloomy furnace which had hung around me…. In this meadow there were innumerable bands of men in white robes, and many companies of happy people sat around…. I began to think that this might perhaps be the kingdom of heaven of which I had often heard tell. But he answered my thought: “No.”…
When we had passed through these abodes of the blessed spirits, I saw in front of us a much more gracious light than before, and amidst it I heard the sweetest sound of people singing. So wonderful was the fragrance which spread from this place that the scent which I had thought superlative before, when I savoured it, now seemed to me a very ordinary fragrance; and the wondrous light which shone over the flowery field, in comparison with the light which now appeared, seemed feeble and weak.
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