This blog is more than an account of Near Death Experiences. It ponders in detail the tough questions of life. Who are you, and why are you here in this physical world? What happens when you die, and is there a judgment? However, most anything could appear here. This is not a news blog, archived posts are just as relevant as new posts. Check the boxes at the top of the page for the Contents, Contact, Forum and other links.
Sigmund Freud wrote many books. I found “Totem and Taboo” in a used book store and quickly purchased it. It was the last of his books that I hadn’t read. When I got home, I found an old, yellowed newspaper clipping in the back. The clipping was an interview of Dr. Freud by one of the staff reporters.
Now, Freud was very popular, and the “in” crowd of socialites would often quote and discuss his work at their parties. They were called Freudians. Sometimes these discussions would make the local newspapers, or radio, because of the controversial nature of Freud’s theories.
The newspaper reporter, in the clipping, asked Dr. Freud what he thought of the “Freudians” who quoted his works in the media.
Freud replied: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; me, I am not a Freudian, and I would rather be quoted by my critics, than by my friends, because they quote me more accurately; however, these ideas and concepts of mine are merely the tools of my trade, it is really love that heals.”
I returned the book, unread, to the used book store. I had learned the truth of Sigmund Freud’s life work. There was no need to probe further.
Suppose a friend gave you a picture puzzle. One of those 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles in a plain box. No picture on the cover to show what the puzzle would look like when assembled. Would you accept the task of putting the pieces together? How would you go about assembling it?
You would know, or at least believe, that the box contained all the pieces necessary for complete assembly, and none that were not necessary. So you would likely spread the pieces onto a large table and start gathering pieces with similar colors into groups. A logical and rational approach. Then try to assemble each group, and later assemble the groups to produce the completed picture.
The realities of life are not like putting a picture puzzle together. We don’t know how many pieces there are, neither do we know what pieces belong, and what pieces don’t belong when we attempt to answer the great questions of life. Where did the Universe come from, and ultimately, where did life come from? Do we have a creator, or was it all an accident of nature? What is nature? Does our lives have any purpose or meaning?
We use theories to help us understand the answers to the great questions of life. Theories are possibilities, part fact, and part opinion. Here is one of many definitions of theories from a dictionary.
A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.
Sounds good on the surface, but how well substantiated can the beginning of life be, or the beginning of the Universe? There were no observers present, nor any way to research the beginnings. It is true to say theories may contain certain facts, but theories are not facts, they are possibilities. We dig up primate fossils, that is a fact. But there is no complete chain of primate fossils verifying the decent of man. That is theory. So theories are really some fact, and a lot of opinion, or imagination about what those facts mean, and how they fit into the puzzle of life.
Concerning the picture puzzle mentioned earlier, would a theory have helped assemble this puzzle? If the facts (pieces) were mostly blue in color, a theory (possibility) might be the picture is water, or sky, or has a blue background. Now would a theory help solve this picture puzzle? No. Theories do not help in solving the problems of life. They only deceive us into thinking we have a solution, which is false. In order to form a theory, we must use our imagination to fill in the spaces not in evidence from the facts. It is at this point that theories become a liability, a stumbling block to finding future facts.
Consider the theory of materialism, which states that all things in the world can be explained by natural occurrences. When applied to consciousness we have “Mental processes are physical processes in the brain.” If mental processes are physical processes then why do we call them mental processes? Are they not mental? We talk about mental health, and mental illnesses, as well as we talk about physical health, and physical illnesses. If the brain is physical exactly what is mental?
We have a real mystery of life here. The theory is that the brain creates consciousness, our consciousness, so it follows logically that the brain creates you and I. That would make us less than the brain, otherwise the brain would be capable of creating something greater than itself. If we are less than the brain how can we ever know how it functions, how can the lesser master the greater, all research will fail.
The theory of materialism does not adequately explain consciousness, it is rather a huge stumbling block in the research of consciousness which is now showing that consciousness is not a product of the brain. Near death experience research is showing that consciousness is separate from the brain and continues to live after the brain and body dies. But this materialism theory, held by mainstream science, is blocking the acceptance of these newly observed, and researched facts disputing the materialism theory.
The material facts are an active brain produces electrical activity. This activity can be measured by different machines in different parts of the brain. That’s it for the facts. The rest is theory. There is no evidence the electrical activity of the brain is consciousness. In light of the new research this activity is only the footprint of consciousness, the result of consciousness, and not consciousness in and of itself. The results of brain mapping, vary from individual to individual. Even the brain implants use only the electrical activity of the brain, not specific thoughts. There has never been any physical evidence of thoughts, memory, emotions, or consciousness found in the human brain.
Research on near death experiences are now being done in more than a dozen universities here and abroad. Most of the research has been published in accredited journals of science. The research is showing consciousness is separate from the brain, and continues to live after the brain and body are clinically dead. When applying these new facts it becomes obvious why we talk about mental and physical activities as separate entities. It is because they are separate entities.
There is more to life than materialism and research has shown solid evidence of it. Many people call it the spiritual dimension. The one thing I hope you remember from this writing is to put theories in their proper place as possibilities and not look upon them as facts. I will add links to a couple of videos to show more of the research in a visual format.
The relationship between science and near death experiences is bitter-sweet. In the 60’s main stream science began to take a wrong turn down the dead-end street of materialism. In the 70’s, researchers like Dr. Raymond Moody, and Elisabeth Keubler-Ross were studying the subject of death and dying in hospitals.
What Moody, and Keubler-Ross researched were events called near death experiences. So named by Dr. Moody. While these experiences were not new, the large number of people experiencing them were new. Due to better methods of resuscitation doctors were reviving more patients that died on the operating tables. Patients that told the doctors they went out of their body and watched the resuscitation of their clinically dead bodies. Fortunately not all doctors dismissed the “stories” of their patient’s near death experiences as dreaming or hallucinating, and so research began in earnest.
Over 30 years later a dozen universities both here and abroad are engaged in near death experience research. There is now a large amount of data from this research that shows human consciousness lives on after the death of the brain and body.
This research represents a serious challenge to main stream science’s belief in materialism. This research shows that materialism is not the only game in town, it shows man is spiritual by nature.
So our world consists of a least two known dimensions: the spiritual and the physical. I don’t think this is news to most people. Spirituality has always played a large role in our society.
But ever since science opted for materialism, or natural explanations for all events, and actions in our Universe, there has been a growing disagreement between spirituality and science.
Now I believe that the solid evidence of man’s spirituality should end this conflict forever. Both science and spirituality can have their rightful places in our society.
Near death experiences just don’t seem to fit into any of the patterns of religion or science. Most experiencers are neither religious nor scientific minded in their approach to life after their near death experience. Maybe there could be a way to integrate religion and science into a higher more complete discipline using principles learned from near death experiences.
Below you can find some links to the research showing consciousness continues to live after the death of the brain and body. Since this blog is mainly devoted to showing the reality of near death experiences more links can be found there.
There are people who say there is no God, or spiritual world, and that all religion is mythology because there is no way to scientifically prove it exists. They call themselves skeptics. Yet skeptics, at least most of them, do believe in things that can’t be proven scientifically. They believe in scientific theories such as the theory of evolution, the big bang theory, and the theory that our consciousness was created by our brain. But there is no real proof that these theories are true, that is why they call them theories. Are they real skeptics or just people with an agenda. Seems to me real skeptics would be skeptical about anything that could not be proven. Not just a few choice items. Ponder this.
