(2022-07-29, 09:55 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]
Considering the various "maps of the afterlife" that have been channeled or intuited or otherwise adduced and in part invented over past centuries, it seems to me that there are so many, and such great, differences that it may only be possible to come up with a few main central elements that are fairly consistant between the various visions. It seems to me much of these conceptions or maps must be essentially human imagination fueled by contemporary cultural beliefs, ideas and fears.
It needs to be kept in mind how so many of these supposed features of the afterlife appear very likely to be human imagination strongly influenced by then current ideas and concepts and fears. Just one example is Myers' supposed communications through Geraldine Cummins that there are living beings inhabiting the Sun and other stars in the universe, and also inhabiting the other planets, and that these are different facets of the grand afterlife journeys of all sentient beings.
I think that given the apparent unreliability of all this material, not much can be done to improve the accuracy of a "map" synthesized just from this material. The best that can be done, it seems to me, is to for the greatest part depend on actual first hand reports of experiences and communications from the beginning stages of the afterlife journey afforded mostly by NDEs (which generally amount to glimpses not complete visions). And I think there is some consistency and plausibility in the glimpses given by the "Peak in Darien" powerful mystical experiences or visions in some of the accounts documented by for instance Richard Maurice Bucke in his book Cosmic Consciousness. And of course there are the many apparent communications with the dead through mediums. I think these should be considered, but are much less reliable, both since they are transmitted through the psyches and culturally conditioned minds and subconsciousnesses of the mediums, and because the content has been so variable , ranging all over the canvas.
I think that the most we can say with any certainty on this matter of the true nature and anatomy of the afterlife is that it exists and that it somehow is a very good thing for human beings.
(2022-07-30, 07:28 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Considering the various "maps of the afterlife" that have been channeled or intuited or otherwise adduced and in part invented over past centuries, it seems to me that there are so many, and such great, differences that it may only be possible to come up with a few main central elements that are fairly consistant between the various visions. It seems to me much of these conceptions or maps must be essentially human imagination fueled by contemporary cultural beliefs, ideas and fears.
Apparently in Beyond Human Personality Myers tells Cummins that a portion of the afterlife is made up of our own belief systems.
But yeah I'm not sure what to make of all the disparate claims of the "spirit world"...I doubt they can all be the same place though the threads between varied afterlife reports - as Carter notes - weave together in ways that suggest at least in the cross section with this "mundane" world there are important commonalities.
I'm increasingly taken with the somewhat Dualist, somewhat Neutral Monist idea that our reality is a cross section between some kind of Imaginal reality and a realm that is much more "mundane" and in accordance with our "physical" world...of course quantum mechanics has shown this "mundane" reality has wonders of its own...
Going to post some stuff from Shushan's latest book:
Quote:Many excellent books and articles investigate the evidence of NDEs, mediumship, and reincarnation, outlining the pros and cons of their support for the survival hypothesis. While the present book will not cover such ground in depth, it will examine how the cultural dimension impacts the debate, both on empirical and metaphysical levels. It explores the relationships between afterlife beliefs and NDEs in history and across-cultures, and in light of shamanic experiences, reincarnation memories, and mediumship. It contains both an overview and the conclusions of over two decades of research into cross-cultural afterlife beliefs, NDEs, and other extraordinary experiences. I’ve reached these conclusions by combining ideas and methods from a variety of disciplines, with a background in Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, Egyptology, and the historical Study of Religions which itself is an interdisciplinary field, drawing largely on anthropology and sociology. Unlike any of these disciplines, however, I also cross over into metaphysics, philosophy, and parapsychology.
Shushan, Gregory . The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife (p. 23). White Crow Productions Ltd. Kindle Edition.
I'll mostly be summarizing, and where I can linking to sources describing the cases. Ideally Psi Encyclopedia will have some record of the many of the cases referenced, and if not them at least some record will exist on the Net.
Also possible we've covered some of the cases he references, but looking at the first part of the book I don't think I reference the historical record of NDEs in this thread as many are new-to-me:
Quote:In mid-3rd century BCE China, a man “sickened and breathed his last.” After several days, however, he revived “and said he had witnessed all sorts of things relating to kwei [demons] and shen [deities] in the heavens and on earth, with the sensation of being in a dreaming state, and by no means dead” (de Groot 1892: IV, 127). This is just one of over a hundred similar narratives from ancient and medieval China. Over 700 years later and over 5000 miles distant in Greece, Plutarch recounted the experience of Thespesius of Soli who, in c. 81 CE, apparently died then returned to life three days later. Thespesius claimed that his soul had left his body and traveled to a place where stars radiated light “on which his soul was smoothly and swiftly gliding in every direction.” He “could see all around himself as if his soul would have been a single eye.” He met spirits of deceased relatives, one of whom took him on a tour of otherworldly places of reward and punishment. Previously wicked, avaricious, and given to “lewd and illegal acts,” Thespesius returned transformed into an honest, devout man and “altered the whole course of his life” (Plutarch in Platthy 1992: 74). At least a dozen such narratives survive from Classical antiquity. Some 2,000 miles away and 500 years later, a Spanish monk named Peter apparently died and was “restored to life again.” He described seeing men who knew suffering various torments in hell, then being rescued from the same fate by an angel. The angel sent him back to his body, instructing him lead a better life, which he did after “waking out of the sleep of everlasting death.” This is one of five such accounts found in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (c. 593/4) (Gardiner 1989: 47-50), followed by dozens of others from throughout medieval Europe.
Shushan, Gregory . The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife (pp. 24-25). White Crow Productions Ltd. Kindle Edition.
(2021-12-03, 09:58 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Continuing this theme:
The Case for the Afterlife
Chris Carter
Quote:I argue in this paper that the theory of Super-ESP has no rational foundation, and
that it is nothing more than an excuse to not accept the most straightforward
inference from the data.
Going back in this thread to an issue I don't think was fully explored:
Re. "super-Psi" or Living Agent Psi (LAP) as a general explanation for the afterlife evidence and therefore denying the reality of the afterlife:
I think it is DOA for many reasons, probably the most telling one being the empirical evidence of veridical NDEs. Which are first-hand accounts of vivid "realer-than real" paranormal experiences of enhanced consciousness while out of body that would require detailed and absolutely impossibly convoluted and unlikely mechanisms to have been generated by LAP rather than being actually what they clearly have been experienced as by the NDEers.
NDE features needed to be synthesized by LAP would have to include in addition to the investigated and verified veridical evidence, the common feature of a profound life-changing transformation in personality including loss of fear of death and fundamental change in orientation, toward love and spirituality, and conviction that they are not their body (engendered by vivid realer-than-real first-hand experiences of being out of body).
Using LAP to debunk NDEs is exceedingly implausible.
I think that the underlying motivation of most proponents of LAP is to adopt a less career-threatening stance vs. the modern secular religon of materialist reductionist scientism. To adopt a model that since it denies the reality of any afterlife, therefore less dramatically challenges the prevailing mainstream paradigm. After all, to explain psi and esp naturalistically may be at least remotely possible and less of a challenge to scientism than a model containing an afterlife and the existence of an immaterial mobile center of consciousness (i.e. spirit) that can survive physical death, which is absolute heresy to scientism.
(2022-08-13, 03:37 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Going back in this thread to an issue I don't think was fully explored:
Re. "super-Psi" or Living Agent Psi (LAP) as a general explanation for the afterlife evidence and therefore denying the reality of the afterlife:
I think it is DOA for many reasons, probably the most telling one being the empirical evidence of veridical NDEs. Which are first-hand accounts of vivid "realer-than real" paranormal experiences of enhanced consciousness while out of body that would require detailed and absolutely impossibly convoluted and unlikely mechanisms to have been generated by LAP rather than being actually what they clearly have been experienced as by the NDEers.
NDE features needed to be synthesized by LAP would have to include in addition to the investigated and verified veridical evidence, the common feature of a profound life-changing transformation in personality including loss of fear of death and fundamental change in orientation, toward love and spirituality, and conviction that they are not their body (engendered by vivid realer-than-real first-hand experiences of being out of body).
Using LAP to debunk NDEs is exceedingly implausible.
I think that the underlying motivation of most proponents of LAP is to adopt a less career-threatening stance vs. the modern secular religon of materialist reductionist scientism. To adopt a model that since it denies the reality of any afterlife, therefore less dramatically challenges the prevailing mainstream paradigm. After all, to explain psi and esp naturalistically may be at least remotely possible and less of a challenge to scientism than a model containing an afterlife and the existence of an immaterial mobile center of consciousness (i.e. spirit) that can survive physical death, which is absolute heresy to scientism.
I mentioned it briefly in this thread because it felt implausible but the idea from LAP supporters is that the experience of being Out of Body is a hallucination while the information gained is through LAP. This extended even to pressure measurements that indicated the presence of an astral/subtle-body...the argument went something like the measurements are genuine PK but there is no actual subtle body...
It very much feels like a cheat. Really the credence for LAP seems to come from mediumship which has hits but also wild inaccuracies...however even there, regarding the question Shushan tries to answer -
What is the Afterlife actually like? - it isn't clear to me that we have many good cases where a channeled figure provides evidence of their existence *and* then describes the afterlife...there are the Cross Correspondence cases but outside that not sure? However there do seem to be commonalities between some of these descriptions and commonalities found in NDEs & in-between-lives memories of certain reincarnation cases.
So regarding the last post on Shushan's The Next World:
Quote:1. ...he revived “and said he had witnessed all sorts of things relating to kwei [demons] and shen [deities] in the heavens and on earth, with the sensation of being in a dreaming state, and by no means dead” (de Groot 1892: IV, 127).
2. Plutarch recounted the experience of Thespesius...Thespesius returned transformed into an honest, devout man and “altered the whole course of his life” (Plutarch in Platthy 1992: 74).
3. Some 2,000 miles away and 500 years later, a Spanish monk named Peter apparently died and was “restored to life again.” ...This is one of five such accounts found in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (c. 593/4) (Gardiner 1989: 47-50), followed by dozens of others from throughout medieval Europe.
The first book, on Chinese religion by de Groot,
can be found in the public domain here. It seems more mythical than a definite record, as the corpse apparently is dead for several days. OTOH perhaps the person was ill for a few days but in the context of the text it's about people who live after being buried for some time.
The second book, Platthy's Near-death Experiences in Antiquity, is out of print and AFAICTell not a public domain document online. However we do get some details about
Thespesius in a paper by Marinus van der Sluijs on three ancient NDEs:
Quote:...reported in Plutarch’s The Divine Vengeance (1984, pp. 268–299; 22–33 [563D-568A]). This account concerned a man from Soli, Cilicia, whose original name was Aridaeus, but who was given the new name of Thespesius in the course of his sojourn in the ‘other world.’
‘‘He had fallen from a height and struck his neck, and although there had been no wound, but only a concussion, he died away. On the third day, at the very time of his funeral, he revived’’ (p. 271). Plutarch related that this man, while appearing to be dead, had the sensation that ‘‘his intelligence was driven from his body’’ and that he ‘‘had risen somewhat and was breathing with his whole being and seeing on all
sides, his soul having opened wide as if it were a single eye’’ (p. 273).
Having familiarized himself with the mobility of his new ‘body’ and noted the presence of souls of many different types in the elevated environment to which he had ascended, Aridaeus ‘‘recognized one soul,
that of a kinsman, though not distinctly, as he was but a child when the kinsman died; but it drew near and said: ‘Greetings, Thespesius’’’ (p. 277). This ‘guide’ then took Thespesius on a tour of the various
regions in the ‘afterlife.’ These regions included ‘‘a great chasm extending all the way down ... called the place of Lethe’’ (p. 285) and another ‘‘deep chasm in the ambient’’ (p. 287; see also Mead, 1907, p.
27) which was ‘‘a large crater with streams pouring into it, one whiter than sea-foam or snow, another like the violet of the rainbow, and others of different tints, each having from afar a lustre of its own’’ (p.
287). Thespesius also saw a region with ‘‘those who were suffering punishment’’ (pp. 291, 293). The ‘‘final spectacle of his vision’’ was that of ‘‘the souls returning to a second birth, as they were forcibly bent to fit all manner of living things and altered in shape by the framers of these’’ (p. 297). While he was watching this scene, a ‘‘woman interposed, and he was suddenly pulled away as by a cord and cast in a strong and violent gust of wind upon his body, opening his eyes again almost from his very grave’’ (p. 299).
Finally, the third & last NDE mentioned in the opening is found in Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante by Eileen Gardner. There's a few additional NDE tales in there and I'll get into those in the next post.
(2022-08-16, 02:41 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Finally, the third & last NDE mentioned in the opening is found in Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante by Eileen Gardner. There's a few additional NDE tales in there and I'll get into those in the next post.
For a reminder, from my first post on Shushan's book:
"Some 2,000 miles away and 500 years later, a Spanish monk named Peter apparently died and was “restored to life again.” He described seeing men who knew suffering various torments in hell, then being rescued from the same fate by an angel. The angel sent him back to his body, instructing him lead a better life, which he did after “waking out of the sleep of everlasting death.” This is one of five such accounts found in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (c. 593/4) (Gardiner 1989: 47-50), followed by dozens of others from throughout medieval Europe."
From Gardiner's Visions of Heaven & Hell before Dante:
Quote:A certain Slav was a monk and lived with me here in this city in my monastery. He used to tell me that when he lived in the wilderness he knew a monk named Peter, who was born in Spain. He lived with him in the vast desert called Evasa. He said that Peter told him how, before he came to dwell in that place, he had died from a certain illness and was immediately restored to life again. He declared that he had seen the torments and innumerable places of hell and many people, who were mighty in this world, hanging in those flames. As he himself was carried to be thrown also into the same fire, an angel in beautiful attire suddenly appeared. The angel would not allow him to be cast into those torments but spoke to him in this manner: “Go back again, and from now on look carefully after yourself and how you lead your life.” After these words his body grew warm little by little. Waking out of this sleep of everlasting death, he reported all those things that happened around him. Then he devoted himself to such fasting and vigils that, although he said nothing, his very life and conversation still spoke of the torments that he had seen and still feared. Thus God’s merciful providence arranged by his temporal death that he did not die forever.
Gardiner, Eileen. Visions of Heaven & Hell before Dante (p. 50). Italica Press. Kindle Edition.
And here's some information on the
Dialogues of Pope Gregory from Wikipedia.
Also some details from
Medieval Near-Death Experiences entry in the Psi Encyclopedia:
Quote:The sixth-century pope Gregory the Great included three NDE tales in the fourth book of his Dialogues. In the first, a hermit who revives from death reports that he visited hell, where he saw powerful men dangling in fire and found himself being dragged in before being rescured by an angel, who told him to ‘consider carefully how you will live from now on’. The hermit is transformed, undertaking fasts and vigils.
The second concerns a businessman named Stephen who does not believe in hell but is forced to change his view when he temporarily dies and sees it for himself. It appears that this is a case of mistaken identity, the intended victim having been ‘Stephen the blacksmith’. The death at the same hour of a blacksmith named Stephen is given as evidence of veridicality.
In the third anecdote, a soldier struck by plague in Rome recounts:
Quote:[T]here was a bridge, under which ran a black, gloomy river which breathed forth an intolerably foul-smelling vapor. But across the bridge there were delightful meadows carpeted with green grass and sweet smelling flowers … meeting places for people clothed in white … If any unjust person wished to cross, he slipped and fell into the dark and stinking water. But the just, who were not blocked by guilt, freely and easily made their way across to the region of delight.
He recognizes Stephen the businessman, whose foot slips on the bridge; as he dangles, good spirits try to raise him by the arms and evil spirits try to drag him down by the hips, symbolizing respectively his generosity in alms-giving and his carnal vices.4
The rest of the entry also gives us a sense of more historical context.
Shushan gives us a few more NDEs across space and time:
- From the Florentine Codex (approx 15 century) he notes the NDE of Quetzalpetlatl, who meets dead relatives and the rain god Tlaloc. It's recorded she returned with some healing abilities.
- Thomas Harriot is
told of two Native American NDEs (public domain) (1588)
Quote:For the confirmation of this opinion, they tolde me two stories of two men that had been lately dead and revived againe, the one happened but few yeres before our comming into the countrey of a wicked man which having beene dead and buried, the next day the earth of the grave beeing seene to move, was taken up againe; Who made declaration where his soule had beene, that is to saie very neere entring into Popogusso, had not one of the gods saved him & gave him leave to returne againe, and teach his friends what they should doe to avoid that terrible place of torment.
The other happened in the same yeere wee were there, but in a towne that was threescore miles from vs, and it was tolde mee for straunge newes that one beeing dead, buried and taken up againe as the first, shewed that although his bodie had lien dead in the grave, yet his soule was alive, and had travailed farre in a long broade way, on both sides whereof grew most delicate and pleasant trees, bearing more rare and excellent fruites then ever he had seene before or was able to expresse, and at length came to most brave and faire houses, neere which hee met his father, that had beene dead before, who gaue him great charge to goe backe againe and shew his friendes what good they were to doe to enioy the pleasures of that place, which when he had done he should after come againe.
- The next is from
An account of the Mamaia or Visionary Heresy of Tahiti which is sadly not in the public domain. It's about a woman who dies in the 1800s, sees her dead relatives, and is told she must return to the world of the living. Upon her return she was however happy and became a more spiritual person.
- In the 1900s, from William Charles Willoughby's Soul of the Bantu a Bagamma Ngwato boy dies, goes to place where he sees deceased relatives (brother, father, uncle) but is told by his uncle he must return to the world of the living. However the boy notes "they sent me back with great peace". This is one of a dozen such accounts according to Shushan.
So Shushan gives us NDEs from 3rd Century BCE China to the 1900s in Africa from around the world. Shushan notes these NDEs span about 2500 yrs in seven different religious traditions. This far predates Moody's 1975 work that (IIRC) coined the term "Near Death Experience".
We aren't far enough yet to compare to Super Psi, but one does wonder why the commonalities occur across places and times. This will become more interesting as Shushan looks into NDEs that seemed to influence religious belief rather than simply echo details of the religious context of the NDEr.
To continue with this reading of Shusan's The Next World, the next part of Shushan's book was a variety of NDE historical debate. He gets into the skeptic vs proponent stuff (like the DMT in the brain debate) but I feel like most of this has been covered excellently by Tim and others.
Apparently Ring noted there was a lack of life reviews in NDEs due to suicide, but this is from 1980 so I don't know if that has held up. Though this is a new book some of the data seems old.
This was an interesting tidbit:
Quote:In Native North America, for example, NDEs were commonly valorized, and attempts were made to replicate them in shamanic visionary practices. In Africa, however, NDEs were often considered to be aberrational, viewed through the lens of local possession and sorcery beliefs, and were thus rarely incorporated into accepted afterlife conceptions. Furthermore, despite the cross-cultural similarities of these narratives to those found in other parts of the world, certain NDE elements do seem to correspond to social organization or scale. Aside from a lack of life reviews, only in small-scale societies, for example, do NDEs commonly feature an afterlife realm located in or accessed via an earthly locale, and which is reached by walking along a path or road.
Will have to look more into Indigenous NDEs.
A few more tidbits from this reading:
Quote:The investigation of NDEs in the blind is another important area of research, for they report visual perceptions during the experience. Dozens of such cases have been published, including from individuals who have been blind since birth. This is significant because people who have never had the resources to “model reality” in the way Blackmore describes should not be able to do so during an NDE. Rather than simply impressions of light and darkness, their accounts include detailed observations of hospital rooms during OBEs, deceased relatives, and so on. This is in striking contrast to dreams of the blind, which are not visual (Ring & Cooper 1997, 1999).
I guess this could be Super Psi, but I think the challenge again is the lack of evolutionary explanation. It just seems odd that Super Psi can let you see things when you are blind, but only at the point of having an NDE.
Quote:Interestingly, this is explicitly supported in the Bardo Thödol which states that a “Clear Light” will appear in whatever form is most beneficial to the individual: as the Buddha to a Buddhist, as Vishnu to a Vaishnava Hindu, as Jesus to a Christian, or as Muhammad to a Muslim (Badham 1997). The description of dying in the Bardo Thödol, in fact, so closely corresponds to the NDE that it can effectively be seen as verification that the book genuinely is what it purports to be – a preparation for what happens at death.