(2024-01-26, 06:23 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Survival doesn't offer much meaning, unless one finds the cessation of consciousness at bodily death to indicate life has no meaning.
However Survival, AFAICTell, seems to show the realms beyond are apparently as chaotic and questionable as life on Earth.
In this life and the next it seems we must make our own meaning.
I'm curious. Confining the data being considered to the NDE accounts (which does amount to a large part of the total), do you still think that chaos and meaninglessness (especially tragedy) rule the spiritual realm as they often seem to rule the physical Earth?
(2024-01-27, 03:32 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]I'm curious. Confining the data being considered to the NDE accounts (which does amount to a large part of the total), do you still think that chaos and meaninglessness (especially tragedy) rule the spiritual realm as they often seem to rule the physical Earth?
I don't know if the afterlife can be as tragic, since that tragedy is tied to mortality and the suffering of physical bodies.
However we know there are distressing NDEs, and the historical record is far more questionable about said NDEs resolving to positive outcomes.
Beyond NDEs, we have CORTs where sometimes people seem to choose to reincarnate even with bodily damage from a previous life affect their health in the new one. There's also a case from the book Old Souls that comes to mind, of a woman murdered by an abusive husband reincarnating into a washer woman in extreme poverty.
There are descriptions of the afterlife that suggest the consciousness has mastery over Time and Space...and other descriptions that suggest a mundane existence that might even require someone to get a job...
Then looking at writings
such as Graham Hancock's experiences, and sum total of spiritual experiences also leaves us with questions about the nature of the Other Side. Conflicting religions, along with the overlap between spirits of a certain kind and alien abductions, are also indicators - IMO anyway - that the next life is not the resolution of all conflict and distress.
Additionally take the question of choice in incarnation. If this world is a school - a bizarre comparison since any educational institution that allows for the horrors some experience in this world would be shut down - what does it say about the mentality of souls? Do they incarnate because they seek variety, even suffering horrors? Is immortality just that boring, so souls end up treating bodily experiences as a kind of drug?
To be clear the claims that the vast majority of the afterlife communications are "hungry ghosts" or some kind of demons, or that this world is a prison, are also not in line with the evidence. There is Good, and powerful benevolent entities, according to afterlife accounts. And if the dead were just evil spirits seeking attention and devotion we wouldn't have communications from dead children assuring their parents - arguably the most vulnerable to manipulation of hope - not to worry because they are in a better place that might even include other family who've passed on.
As mentioned before, hopefully not to the point of annoyance, I think William James best describes the state of affairs:
Quote:I CONFESS that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world may not in part depend on the personal response which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight,—as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild half-saved universe our nature is adapted. The deepest thing in our nature is this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and our unwillingnesses, our faiths and our fears. As through the cracks and crannies of caverns those waters exude from the earth’s bosom which then form the fountain-heads of springs, so in these crepuscular depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise. Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments—the veto, for example, which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith—sound to us like mere chatterings of the teeth …
These then are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. The ‘scientific’ proof that you are right may not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage of being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached...
(2024-01-27, 08:33 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know if the afterlife can be as tragic, since that tragedy is tied to mortality and the suffering of physical bodies.
However we know there are distressing NDEs, and the historical record is far more questionable about said NDEs resolving to positive outcomes.
Beyond NDEs, we have CORTs where sometimes people seem to choose to reincarnate even with bodily damage from a previous life affect their health in the new one. There's also a case from the book Old Souls that comes to mind, of a woman murdered by an abusive husband reincarnating into a washer woman in extreme poverty.
There are descriptions of the afterlife that suggest the consciousness has mastery over Time and Space...and other descriptions that suggest a mundane existence that might even require someone to get a job...
Then looking at writings such as Graham Hancock's experiences, and sum total of spiritual experiences also leaves us with questions about the nature of the Other Side. Conflicting religions, along with the overlap between spirits of a certain kind and alien abductions, are also indicators - IMO anyway - that the next life is not the resolution of all conflict and distress.
Additionally take the question of choice in incarnation. If this world is a school - a bizarre comparison since any educational institution that allows for the horrors some experience in this world would be shut down - what does it say about the mentality of souls? Do they incarnate because they seek variety, even suffering horrors? Is immortality just that boring, so souls end up treating bodily experiences as a kind of drug?
To be clear the claims that the vast majority of the afterlife communications are "hungry ghosts" or some kind of demons, or that this world is a prison, are also not in line with the evidence. There is Good, and powerful benevolent entities, according to afterlife accounts. And if the dead were just evil spirits seeking attention and devotion we wouldn't have communications from dead children assuring their parents - arguably the most vulnerable to manipulation of hope - not to worry because they are in a better place that might even include other family who've passed on.
As mentioned before, hopefully not to the point of annoyance, I think William James best describes the state of affairs:
The many cases of paranormal phenomena not appearing to point to a comprehensively wonderful afterlife, including "hellish" or negative NDEs, and data even questioning whether whatever survives and makes choices regarding the next life really is the human personality, stand as indications that the afterlife is a complicated place or state of being that we just don't understand, certainly not always total joy and love. I am well aware of this, but in terms of amount of data these are exceptions to the picture pointed to by the majority of NDEs. Positive NDEs do constitute the great majority of the paranormal data indicative of some sort of survival, due to the sheer number of cases. In many, a considerable preponderance, of reported NDEs the person seems to be experiencing the "outskirts" of a very positive afterlife, and this just may point to there generally actually being a very positive afterlife. Of course, maybe not - we really just don't know, but in that instance there would have to be a vast deception going on.
Here's my take, for what it's worth.
Firstly, the Near Death Experience might be a special case. It might constitute a kind of snapshot of afterlife conditions for the benefit of the experiencer but with the full understanding that this is a temporary "visit".
Then, from all that I have read, the actual after-death experience can be very varied. I've read of people being hardly aware (or completely unaware) that they have died, the surroundings seeming so familiar and "normal". I've read of people who maintain the earthly personality until they gradually become accustomed to their new reality. I've also read of an in-between stage, something akin to the Buddhist "bardo". Yet others who hang around the earthly plane at least to be close to loved ones and maybe to attend their own funeral.
Otherwise, I've read of those who have travelled through various "soul levels" or those who have experienced hellish conditions. Books and movies such as "Nosso Lar" and "What Dreams May Come" describe environments which conform quite well with other works I've read by mediums and channels.
One common theme runs through all of these - the idealist view that we, being made of conscious stuff, create our experiences according to our beliefs, desires, fears and convictions.
Pity the poor buggers who have a distressing near-death experience, that doesn't fit into Greyson's NDE scale - because there are no marks available for distressing experiences. Hence these experiences ain't investigated in studies which rely on the Greyson NDE scale to decide who has/has not had an NDE.
You lot then insist NDE's are a real experience of an afterlife, leaving the distressing experients isolated with their experience, and concerned about what might await them.
Have any of you even read Nancy Evans Bush 'Dancing Past The Dark'?
(2024-01-28, 09:10 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Pity the poor buggers who have a distressing near-death experience, that doesn't fit into Greyson's NDE scale - because there are no marks available for distressing experiences. Hence these experiences ain't investigated in studies which rely on the Greyson NDE scale to decide who has/has not had an NDE.
You lot then insist NDE's are a real experience of an afterlife, leaving the distressing experients isolated with their experience, and concerned about what might await them.
Have any of you even read Nancy Evans Bush 'Dancing Past The Dark'?
Van Lommel didn't find one negative NDE in his prospective study, Max. That was a large study. Some of Parnia's patient's recollections are open to interpretation. This is a very controversial area whuch raises many questions for which there are no satisfactory answers.
You say... us
lot (me included) insist NDE's are a real experience of an afterlife. Well of course, they could hardly be anything else. However,
You...Max, don't accept that NDE's represent an afterlife because you don't accept that anything leaves the body in the initial phase (the OBE) that could actually experience an afterlife. You can't profess to accept the secondary/other phases of NDE's as real/legitimate, postive
or negative, if you deny the initial split from the body so to speak. By the mechanics of your theory, nothing goes anywhere, so why would you even be bothered ? All NDE's to you must be "imaginations" of some sort or type.
Leaving that aside, I personally supect that there
are areas where some people go and jolly well deserve to go, too, (jolly well lol ) but it's not my business to pass judgement on other human beings. I have spoken to some people who ended up in what they desribed as a grey area, very unpleasant, populated with unpleasant people. I've never heard (personally that is) an experience of devils with pitch forks but it can't be ruled out, who knows. They certainly exist.
I'm sure you've occasionally met some very unpleasant people (maybe frankly evil ) in your life, I know I have. But whence comes evil (god), what is evil, what is being good; what is being bad? I'm not religious at all but I do however accept the basic teachings of Christ because I believe them to be authentic. I also accept the clearly authentic NDE's accounts of those that have been dead and come back (although I may occasionally have been duped, naturally). It doesn't always fit together, but for me personally, there is enough consistency, overall. Others will of course disagree and that's fine.
(2024-01-28, 03:25 PM)tim Wrote: [ -> ]You say... us lot (me included) insist NDE's are a real experience of an afterlife. Well of course, they could hardly be anything else.
I am actually more sure of Survival than having any knowledge of what that Survival is exactly like.
To ideally clarify this, what is most convincing about NDEs as evidence to me are:
- Veridical OOBEs, both the physical world seen by the OOBEr and the times a person's "subtle body" experiencing the OOBE is witnessed as an apparition.
- Communication of Anomalous Knowledge which includes learning of a previously unknown dead relative, learning of someone who was thought to be alive is actually dead, and other cases of that type.
- The incredibly limited state of the brain having said experiences.
The actual place descriptions and meetings with entities (gods, angels, etc) I think are more questionable, especially looking at the historical record. We'll probably have to wait to see it all for ourselves...
(2024-01-28, 09:10 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Have any of you even read Nancy Evans Bush 'Dancing Past The Dark'?
Some of it, though I could admittedly do with a refresher...
(2024-01-29, 02:26 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Some of it, though I could admittedly do with a refresher...
I read it years ago, Sci. Gave it away like I do (have done) with most of my books. From memory, she 'saw' some symbols like Yin and Yang (but not exactly that) which she found disturbing, not pleasant. I was none the wiser about why it occurs when I'd finished which is not surprising and I don't think we ever will be, but it got good reviews. I think the take on it was not to see them as necessarily a terrible thing, but that some 'positives' may be taken from them (negative NDE's)
(2024-01-29, 02:23 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I am actually more sure of Survival than having any knowledge of what that Survival is exactly like.
To ideally clarify this, what is most convincing about NDEs as evidence to me are:
- Veridical OOBEs, both the physical world seen by the OOBEr and the times a person's "subtle body" experiencing the OOBE is witnessed as an apparition.
- Communication of Anomalous Knowledge which includes learning of a previously unknown dead relative, learning of someone who was thought to be alive is actually dead, and other cases of that type.
- The incredibly limited state of the brain having said experiences.
The actual place descriptions and meetings with entities (gods, angels, etc) I think are more questionable, especially looking at the historical record. We'll probably have to wait to see it all for ourselves...
All of which are supportive of experience arising from what we share.
All the anomalous stuff being clues that we're
not isolated individuals in a separate world
at all... but that our experience comes into being
through what [appears to us] to be the matching patterns that connect us.
This is far more important to us now, than waiting for what comes next...
We are absolutely stuck within the result (experience), and peering out from within trying to understand. Most everyone is stuck in the lie we are taught, that we are isolated individuals in a separate world.
The challenge is whether we can rise up and successfully digest this truth, or whether we fail and the truth instead consumes us.
Again, I'm not a bit religious, but the deep wisdom hidden within the Gospel of Thomas addresses this exact issue:
(7*) Jesus said, "
Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."
*Lambdin Translation.