The Near Death Experience In Children

 One of the first books I ever read about the Near Death Experience (NDE) was "Closer To The Light" by Melvin Morse, MD.  Morse was a NDE researcher specializing in the experience in children who had suffered catastrophic events (like almost drowning in a swimming pool) and survived.  The stories these children tell about witnessing an afterlife are compelling and fascinating.

Morse points out that these young NDE experiencers do not have an ax to grind.  They have not yet been indoctrinated into a particular religion and feel no need to interpret the experience with what they learned in church.  They simply tell the unvarnished truth, or usually they do.  One child told Morse that he had been climbing a stairway to Heaven.  Another spoke of a crystal castle.  Two different boys claimed that in that new place "you could double jump." 

For anyone interested in pursuing a better understanding of the Near Death Experience, "Closer To The Light" is an excellent starting place. I recommend it.

Where Do Dead Loved Ones Go?

If you fear death or are grieving over the death of a loved one, this video offers a lot of comforting insights and truths about the nature of our reality.  

Art Bell's "Midnight In The Desert"

Art Bell

Art Bell was a guru of the paranormal, a pundit with an open mind about weird phenomena.  He ran a popular radio program from the small town of Pahrump, Nevada, called "Midnight In The Desert."  if you were up late or couldn't sleep, or were a truck driver on a lonely road at night, Art Bell's program was interesting and entertaining.

After my favorite dog Bogie died in 2017, I listened to recorded programs of Art Bell on the Internet, as a way of coping with my grief.  Art was not a kook or weirdo, just a well spoken man with an open mind and an interest in paranormal possibilities. His guests and his callers told stories of ghosts, time travel, life after death, alien abductions and other topics.  He did not necessarily believe all the stories, but he did not debate the visitors to his program.  He let them speak, and discussion ensued among callers to the program.

Art Bell died in April of 2018 of an accidental overdose of his prescription medications, and is buried in Pahrump next to his wife.  When he died, a great mind and personality was lost.

There are websites on Yahoo and the Internet that have many of Art's recorded programs.  Here is the link to one of them, and I do recommend it.  Art's favorite topic was the Near Death Experiece, or NDEs, and his discussion of the topic with NDE resercher Jeffrey Long, MD, is my favorite episode.  See link above.

Fear of Death

When I was young, the fear of death bothered me a great deal.  I remember taking my first business course at West Valley Junior College, when classes were still being held on the former campus of Campbell Junior High School, before it moved to a permanent campus in Saratoga, California.  During a break, I stood outside the classroom drinking vending machine coffee.  I was filled with horror and dread at the knowledge that I would someday die, that the world would go on without me.  Traffic would still fill the streets, people would still go to work, students would still attend classes but I wouldn’t be there.  

As the years passed, the dread and horror lessened and now, in old age, they have ceased completely.  So many friends and family members have preceded me in death that I feel somewhat guilty at having survived them.  Why am I still here?  Am I being punished?

A subject that interests me greatly is the near death experience, a common phenomenon among those who have flatlined but still survived.  A common characteristic is that the experiencers have felt enveloped in a bright light and immersed in feelings of great love, i.e., that they feel loved beyond all prior experience.  They meet loved ones who died before, and are even reunited with deceased pets like dogs and cats.  Most do not want to come back but are told they have no choice, that their time is not yet.  

An original researcher into the phenomenon is Raymond Moody, whose book “Life After Life” introduced the subject to millions.  Moody reported that after studying thousands of NDEs since, he finally just accepted it for what it seems, that there is an afterlife and that we survive physical death.

I hope so.  I would like to rejoin departed friends, family and especially my dogs, in another dimension, in a better world than this.  Is it true?  Hope costs nothing and I will find out in not too many more years.  

A Rainy Day, a Good Cigar, God and the Near Death Experience

I delivered some bookkeeping reports and checks to a client in Gilroy this morning, then swung by the Morgan Hill Cigar Company in Morgan Hill.  I bought five Churchill cigars for $7 each, and am enjoying one right now.  I am sitting in the backyard gazebo; the sky is completely overcast and the air is cold and moist with rain.  Great nap weather, and I shall avail myself of it after my cigar.

As I grow older, I think more and more about death and what comes next.  I am not afraid of death, but feel I need to prepare for it.   I am not a member of any religion, but I believe in God, not a big man in the sky with a giant beard, but as a force that permeates and includes the universe and anything beyond.

I have been reading books on the near death experience (NDE), and find them very interesting.  One of the best was Science and the Near Death Experience, How Consciousness Survives Death, by Chris Carter.  Carter discusses quantum mechanics and posits that consciousness is not produced by the brain, though it uses the brain to carry out bodily functions in the here and now.  Carter gives examples of how consciousness is greatly expanded at times when the brain is near death or otherwise nonfunctioning.  Of course, he points to NDEs as proof.  (Note:  it is not true that a nonfunctioning brain makes one into a Democrat, though the mistake is understandable.)  Carter spends some time refuting skeptic theories about the NDE.

Near Death Experiences sometimes occur when someone flatlines and is near physical death.  The person experiences an out-of-body perspective, where he or she watches from above a team of doctors working to save his or her life, from a vantage point on the ceiling.  If the NDE continues for a time, the voyager is pulled into a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, and finds himself speeding toward the light, which grows bigger and nearer.  He meets and communicates with departed friends and relatives. He may experience a life review, where every moment of his life is replayed for his viewing and lessons learned. Wonderful gardens, colors and music are often experienced during the NDE as well.  The greatest impression NDE voyagers describe is being enveloped in great love, with a feeling of peace, acceptance and well-being.

Finally, those who live to tell about the experience are sent back to this life.  They are told "it's not your time, you have to go back," at which time they are returned to their body.  NDEs are fairly common, and have been described in many cultures and time periods.  One's religious persuasion usually has little effect on what the voyager sees, hears and experiences.  Most people who have an NDE lose all fear of death, and may find renewed purpose and meaning for their lives.

Another book I am reading is The Experience of God, by David Bentley Hart.  Hart's book seeks to clarify issues and terms for atheists, so that deists and atheists can at least be on the same page in the great debate.  His book clarifies some concepts for me, but his writing is highly technical and filled with vernacular, so frequent use of the dictionary is necessary.  The reader has to work quite hard to get to the meaning of his essays, and I suspect many will give up before finishing the book.  It is not written for the layman, unfortunately.

The opponents of both these writers are generally called "materialists," that is, people who believe there is no reality beyond our physical existence.  If they can't see it, smell it, taste it or measure it, then (or so they believe) it does not exist.  Needless to say, I am not a materialist.