Keith Augustine interview

Yes, because all that is talked about (because it is perceived as remarkable) is the post hoc report or story about the incident, rather than the original incident itself. There aren't any cases where the original incident itself has been documented prior to feedback and the incident is regarded as remarkable.

Linda

Once again, this is muddled to me. Who's doing the regarding?

Once again, this is muddled to me. Who's doing the regarding?

Us. Parapsychologists. The audience for these stories.

Linda

[Edited to include source link, and also  to improve formatting: reduced font from size 6 to 4 and added proper spacing between paragraphs. -- Doug]

Was just thinking about Augustine today, as I have heard NDE researchers answer all his arguments exhaustively all except for one (maybe they have but I haven't looked yet). And that is about the occasional NDE where someone makes the choice to "not return" yet are still returned anyways. He totally ignores the alternative interpretations of these kinds of cases that the actual researchers put forth and prefer (so do I), but oh well. You all take a read, its a dousy of a passage though 

https://infidels.org/library/modern/keit...#crossings

(1) The Fenwicks themselves presented the case of the NDEr cited earlier who was beckoned to board a blue train 'into the afterlife' and did so, though his experience ended with the sensation of being resuscitated. Didn't boarding the blue train seem a lot like crossing a 'point of no return'? But if this NDEr had really crossed a final threshold in another realm, why did he eventually 'come to' on the deck of the frigate?

The NDEr reported that the passengers had beckoned him to board the train, implying that doing so would be a significant decision to cross a point of no return. Moody, for example, reports the case of a nurse giving birth for the first time who found herself sailing across a large waterway being beckoned by dead relatives to join them. The nurse reported immediately telling them that she wasn't ready to die, implying that she automatically knew crossing over to the shore on the other side of the waterway would be going past a point of no return (Blackmore, "Dying" 193). In the Fenwicks' case the NDEr actually did board the blue train—he did appear to cross a point of no return—yet still returned to tell the tale anyway.

This NDEr didn't describe boarding the train explicitly as crossing a point of no return, but it certainly seems reminiscent of the one-way boat trip across a river felt to be a point of no return described by other NDErs (e.g., Moody's case above and the childhood NDE reported by Morse where living playmates are seen on the other side of a river).

Ultimately, even the Fenwicks concede this:

David Whitmarsh meets no barrier. When people on the train beckoned to him he was actually able to go aboard. Nothing seemed to be holding him back or preventing him from boarding. One feels that David was well on his way [to the afterlife?] when resuscitation intervened (Fenwick and Fenwick 155-156).

But if his double had detached from his normal physical body long ago and was well on its way to 'the other side,' how could he have felt his resuscitation, and how could it have brought him back into his body? We would expect these features if he had 'been inside' his body the entire time and bodily sensations eventually became part of his hallucination.

(2) Serdahely reports a case where an NDEr explicitly says she crossed a barrier between life and death and yet still was restored to life:

One of the three [NDErs told to return] was instructed apparently by a deceased grandmother not to cross a line in front of her. The OBEr did cross the line, at which point the grandmother said, 'I told you not to cross the line.' The older woman 'got right in [her] face' and said, 'You are to go back now!' (Serdahely, "Variations" 191).

(3) After undergoing a panoramic life review during his NDE in 1978, Tom Sawyer was both given a choice and decided not to return to life by entering the light at the end of the tunnel, but was nevertheless 'returned' to life:

I was given a choice. I could return to normal life or become part of this light.... I chose to stay and become part of that light. I then had the feeling of going through the tunnel in reverse, and I slammed back down into my body(Harris and Bascom 129).

If NDEs are brain-generated hallucinations, nothing would seem to prevent experiences where NDErs decide not to return to life, or cross 'a point of no return,' but find themselves restored to life anyway; and in these cases we find exactly that.

Desperado,

I do understand your desire to get to the truth about the reality of near death experiences but presenting Keith Augustine's "nits" to be "re-picked" is never going to resolve anything or satisfy you.

Keith is an ideological debunker. I've had quite a few email exchanges with him, the last time I sent him confirmation from Dr Robert Spetzler (Head of Barrow Neurological Institute) that Pam Reynolds was under burst suppression when she heard the conversation about her arteries.

Keith responded by informing me that he doesn't pay much attention to what "this" or "that" doctor says about the case.

Funnily enough however, he does listen to what militant atheist and failed NDE debunker, Dr Gerald Woerlee (who was never involved in the case) has to say. So, as regards the question of "inconsistencies" and cherry picking, I think Augustine takes the biscuit and cannot be taken too seriously.

(email available for admin privately if required)

[Laird]

email available for admin privately if required

You've always been able to back up in this way in the past, tim - I personally see no need to request email confirmation in this instance. But am happy to oblige if others require it.

You've always been able to back up in this way in the past, tim - I personally see no need to request email confirmation in this instance. But am happy to oblige if others require it.

Thanks, Laird but as you say, if anyone wants confirmation, no problem. BTW I don't think Keith is a bad person but he lets himself down in this respect. There's no doubt at all now that Pam was under burst suppression when she heard the conversation. Keith should amend his comment on the case but he doesn't want to.

Just with slight relevance to the above (Augustine wise), in Leslie Kean's book, "Surviving Death" she presents a very revealing interview with Pam, conducted by former BBC journalist, Tim Coleman.

In that interview, Pam tells us that the first picture of the bone saw that Dr Sabom sent her (in the course of his investigations into this case) was wrong. It was a year before he sent her another picture of it and this time it was the right one.

If this picture in Pam's mind was a confabulated mind model based on the "noise" that Augustine and Woerlee asserted that she must have heard (wrongly because the BAER clicks would have been so much louder and obviously closer to her ears ) then why didn't the first picture of a bone saw that Sabom sent her, suffice ?

She must have had a pretty precise image already in her head. Where did it come from ?

[Laird]

Tim, please, think a little more clearly. Dr Sabom obviously mentioned in passing to a nurse in the hallway what the actual bone saw looked like, and Pam heard this subliminally while she was only semi-conscious and resting after the operation. When, then, she was sent the first picture, the subliminal image conjured up from the semi-consciously heard hallway words of Dr Sabom didn't match, even though she had no conscious idea why, yet told herself it was because she had actually seen the saw while she was hovering above the operation even though she wasn't and didn't know why she thought she had been and... OK. Maybe you had it right in the first place.

Tim, please, think a little more  clearly. Dr Sabom obviously mentioned in passing to a nurse in the hallway what the actual bone saw looked like, and Pam heard this subliminally while she was only semi-conscious and resting after the operation. When, then, she was sent the first picture, the subliminal image conjured up from the semi-consciously heard hallway words of Dr Sabom didn't match, even though she had no conscious idea why, yet told herself it was because she had actually seen the saw while she was hovering above the operation even though she wasn't and didn't know why she thought she had been and... OK. Maybe you had it right in the first place.

 Yes, Laird you nailed it !  Sabom , as you know of course, wasn't there at Barrow.