The WHWWD Thread

What Happens When We Die?

It occurred to me, while responding to another thread, that we all have an idea of what happens to us when we die but that those ideas seem to vary quite a lot. So I thought I'd start a new resource-based thread (as opposed to a debate/argument thread) in which we can describe our concepts and how we arrived at them by citing source information and influences. So I am suggesting a description of the stages we go through, the nature of the afterlife environment, whether the personality we are now continues ad-infinitum or that personality is reincarnated as another and finally, what happens down the line when, perhaps, the cycle of incarnations is complete or the afterlife personality migrates to other levels, becomes part of something bigger or simply dissolves into some god-like entity.

This, clearly, is not a thread for our skeptics who, it can probably be assumed, would have a one-word answer: "nothing". Having said that and from my own point of view, I don't mind anyone pointing out fallacious conclusions so long as the reasons for the fallacies are not of the "because it defies the laws of nature and physics" variety because that just inserts a materialistic assumption which could be seen as a deliberate attempt to derail the discussion.

What I am hoping for is the aforementioned description accompanied by citations. Book quotes, videos, first-hand accounts, NDE descriptions, historical accounts, descriptions from mediums and channels, philosophical debates and even novels and movies based, perhaps, on popular accounts or cultural beliefs.

I will add my own entry in due course but I need a while to arrange my thoughts and look for supporting links.

What Happens When We Die?

It occurred to me, while responding to another thread, that we all have an idea of what happens to us when we die but that those ideas seem to vary quite a lot. So I thought I'd start a new resource-based thread (as opposed to a debate/argument thread) in which we can describe our concepts and how we arrived at them by citing source information and influences. So I am suggesting a description of the stages we go through, the nature of the afterlife environment, whether the personality we are now continues ad-infinitum or that personality is reincarnated as another and finally, what happens down the line when, perhaps, the cycle of incarnations is complete or the afterlife personality migrates to other levels, becomes part of something bigger or simply dissolves into some god-like entity.

This, clearly, is not a thread for our skeptics who, it can probably be assumed, would have a one-word answer: "nothing". Having said that and from my own point of view, I don't mind anyone pointing out fallacious conclusions so long as the reasons for the fallacies are not of the "because it defies the laws of nature and physics" variety because that just inserts a materialistic assumption which could be seen as a deliberate attempt to derail the discussion.

What I am hoping for is the aforementioned description accompanied by citations. Book quotes, videos, first-hand accounts, NDE descriptions, historical accounts, descriptions from mediums and channels, philosophical debates and even novels and movies based, perhaps, on popular accounts or cultural beliefs.

I will add my own entry in due course but I need a while to arrange my thoughts and look for supporting links.

Science measures things (variables), assigns them units of measure for objective reference and models how the variables are related.

Science can measure a dead body and the rate of decomposition.

Can science measure what happens to a person's information?  Some people's information seems to live on in ideas (information objects) that they represented while alive.  If information is real (and I am an Informational Realist) then are you dead as long as people think about you and love you?  Do we live on in our thoughts we leave behind or we predict for the future?

 If information is real (and I am an Informational Realist) then are you dead as long as people think about you and love you?  Do we live on in our thoughts we leave behind or we predict for the future?

I can't really comment on Information Realism and I know that's your thing but this last bit reminds me of the kind of empty solace offered by an atheist at a funeral.

What happens when we die.

Having studied near death experience for over forty years, reading thousands of accounts with a particular interest
in NDE's occurring during cardiac arrest and after having spoken in detail (with a necessary critical approach) to quite a number of people who have had them, I'm confident that consciousness continues, ie there is no death of consciousness. And I'm quite confident that the events will be broadly in line with this man's experience. 

A typical case in particular that I was able to get to talk to (but there are several) illustrates how persuasive and inexplicable these experiences are. A man in his forties, no religion not even spiritual; a practical minded engineer developed severe chest pain and collapsed in his house.  

Just to reiterate he had never heard of or read anything about near death experiences. His wife summoned paramedics and when they arrived he was lying flat out on the couch in his lounge with his feet raised to try to get the blood flowing back up to his head. The medics began checking him out during which time he had a massive cardiac arrest.

He reported floating out of his body up into the air (above) where he could see everything that was going on in the room. He saw them defibrillating him (his body) unsuccessfully. He saw his wife becoming hysterical and the ambulance crew calling for back up (another team) because of the seriousness of the arrest. He saw the defibrillator paddles short out (stop working) and witnessed a friend of his (who had come from next door) running outside to vomit (this occurred)

He "looked" in the direction of where his friend was going and he saw him outside, throwing up on his drive. (there were no windows on that side of the house) He then saw the second ambulance arriving on the driveway and was able to later identify who was driving it (they actually became friends the driver was so bewildered about this)

He then said a tunnel opened up in the air next to him with a light glimmering in the distance and he went headfirst (his words) down it, all the while the light getting brighter and brighter until he came out in front of some kind of a figure/being that was so incredibly bright (his words) he couldn't see it's face (he mentioned feelings of love and bliss etc)

What occurred next was something he didn't have any words to describe (he called it heaven) but I'm not going to reproduce any of that as it tends to attract scathing derision for obvious reasons but what I can say is that he saw relatives who had died before he was born and later identified them. 

He was "sent back" after spending what he felt was like three to four months (in fact he was dead for three to four minutes) and immediately found himself looking up into the face of the paramedics who had successfully defibrillated him and (unusually) returned him to consciousness.

He told them (the medics) he wanted to go back (die) and they then urged him to "fight with us not against us"
After dozens of injections along with the defibrillations he was eventually taken to hospital where his life was saved by
the application of a very expensive clot busting drug (more than $3000 then) and a specialist cardiologist, although he lost 40% of his heart function.

Now, the point is, how can any of that relatively common experience be explained by misfiring neurons and retrospective confabulation after the event ? It just doesn't make any sense to me to try to explain it that way. We have hundreds of these cases now and I find the never ending objections of the sceptics absolutely ridiculous. When you have one of these experiences, you don't doubt it, you know very well what happened. Would Malf and co deny it if it happened to them ?

What happens when we die.

...


Now, the point is, how can any of that relatively common experience be explained by misfiring neurons and retrospective confabulation after the event ? It just doesn't make any sense to me to try to explain it that way. We have hundreds of these cases now and I find the never ending objections of the sceptics absolutely ridiculous. When you have one of these experiences, you don't doubt it, you know very well what happened. Would Malf and co deny it if it happened to them ?

Thanks Tim. I appreciate your time and effort in explaining why you believe that we do survive and that the personality survives intact. In my OP I tried to be clear that I wasn't looking for arguments of the kind we could all get into with skeptics but rather for a selection of ideas about what the afterlife is like (yes, starting from and including the dying process). Perhaps we might, for the sake of this discussion, make the assumption that we do survive. We already know that skeptics don't believe that so they may like to sit this one out or read it and scoff privately. What I would prefer to see is not only a description of what is to come but how we came to form that picture of the afterlife. If through books, articles, mediums, etc., then some references, quotes and links would be much appreciated. Nevertheless, the thread will go its own way as always so these are just suggestions.

I'm due at my bowling club shortly but I'll try to cobble something of a story together later.

Thanks Tim. I appreciate your time and effort in explaining why you believe that we do survive and that the personality survives intact. In my OP I tried to be clear that I wasn't looking for arguments of the kind we could all get into with skeptics but rather for a selection of ideas about what the afterlife is like (yes, starting from and including the dying process). Perhaps we might, for the sake of this discussion, make the assumption that we do survive. We already know that skeptics don't believe that so they may like to sit this one out or read it and scoff privately. What I would prefer to see is not only a description of what is to come but how we came to form that picture of the afterlife. If through books, articles, mediums, etc., then some references, quotes and links would be much appreciated. Nevertheless, the thread will go its own way as always so these are just suggestions.

I'm due at my bowling club shortly but I'll try to cobble something of a story together later.

Sorry, Dave, I've diverted from your intended direction. If there's any part of that post (or all of it) you want me to take down, no worries ! I'll also be happy to
give you my ideas about what awaits us although I usually avoid that for obvious reasons.

Sorry, Dave, I've diverted from your intended direction. If there's any part of that post (or all of it) you want me to take down, no worries ! I'll also be happy to
give you my ideas about what awaits us although I usually avoid that for obvious reasons.

No - of course your post should stand as is. I was just offering some direction for the thread but these are only suggestions.

Ok, the rain put paid to my bowling today so I'll have a crack at this subject.

First a bit of personal history. My father died when I was 16 and, although I already had an interest in anything to do with the paranormal, his death really concentrated my attention on survival. Seeing him in his coffin in our front room left me with an unshakeable feeling that whatever it was that made my father who he was, it was most certainly not that carcass I saw in front of me. Call it vitalism or whatever you like but I knew that "he" had gone yet I also had an eerie feeling that he hadn't gone far.

Shortly thereafter I visited the local library looking for books on death and survival. I found two, one being "Post-Mortem Journal" by Jane Sherwood and the other was "Life in the World Unseen" by Anthony Borgia. The Sherwood book was interesting as it was purportedly narrated by T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and described his feelings about the life he led and the mistakes he made, viewed from his perspective in the afterlife. The second book was more of a description of the afterlife environment - a bit of a tour guide if you like. Descriptions of scenery, centres of learning, the absolute lack of judgement (this from a deceased church minister, Monsignor Hugh Benson) and details of how one could think about someone and find yourself with them, how you can eat if you like but don't need to eat and the same goes for sleep. I was pretty excited by all this but my rational, scientific leanings provided some much needed caution. I wondered how to determine whether this was all someone's fantasy or whether such communications from the afterlife are indeed possible. I guess it is fair to say that those issues have still not been resolved for me some half a century later but it is significant to me that I have come to find the evidence for survival more and more convincing over the years.

Throughout my twenties I led the life of a typical young man of my time: my mind was more concerned with girls, beer and football than with weighty matters of the soul. Also, my life at that time revolved around our small group of friends all of whom were decided and fervent atheists while I described myself at the time as being agnostic. I did, however, come in for some harsh ridicule should I mention my interest in the afterlife so it tended to remain in the background for years.

Another book kick-started my interest again in my early thirties. This was "Seth Speaks - The Eternal Validity of the Soul" by Jane Roberts. If ever a book crystallised my thinking, this one did. I went on to read several more Seth books and, while I had reservations about some of the material (and about the nature of the Seth personality), I found that much of the philosophy behind the writing was completely in line with how my own thinking had developed. I later found that this philosophy was also in line with idealism and also with a great deal of what we might term ancient or perennial wisdom. Seth not only confirmed some of the descriptions that I had first encountered in "Life in the World Unseen" but also expanded on those accounts, describing how we create the environment we find ourselves inhabiting from our own deepest beliefs and desires. Thus another soul might experience a different afterlife from the somewhat idyllic one described in "World Unseen". Some might even find themselves in a self-created "hell" or perhaps tether themselves so closely to the physical world that they don't move on to the next stage for a considerable time, in earthly terms.

All in all, my impressions of the afterlife developed to the point that I decided that there is no definitive description. Some accounts will concentrate on the preparation for the next incarnation, for example, with life reviews, lessons, explanations of karmic ties and soul groups reincarnating together. Others, like communications purportedly from the late, famed psychic investigator, Frederick Myers, cast the question of reincarnation in a somewhat different light.

The group-soul concept had earlier been advanced by the discarnate Frederic Myers through the mediumship of Geraldine Cummins.  “When I was on earth, I belonged to a group-soul, but its branches and the spirit – which might be compared to the roots – were in the invisible,” Myers, one of the pioneers of psychical research before his death in 1901, communicated.  “Now, if you would understand psychic evolution, this group-soul must be studied and understood.  For instance, it explains many of the difficulties that people will assure you can be removed only by the doctrine of reincarnation. You may think my statement frivolous, but the fact that we do appear on earth to be paying for the sins of another life is, in a certain sense, true.  It is our life and yet not our life.  In other words, a soul belonging to the group of which I am a part lived that previous life which built up for me the framework of my earthly life, lived it before I had passed through the gates of birth.”

Myers further explained that the group soul might contain twenty souls, a hundred, or a thousand. “The number varies,” he said. “It is different for each man.  But what the Buddhist would call the karma I had brought with me from a previous life is, very frequently, not that of my life, but of the life of a soul that preceded me by many years on earth and left for me the pattern which made my life.  I, too, wove a pattern for another of my group during my earthly career.

Myers added that the Buddhist’s idea of rebirth, of man’s continual return to earth, is but a half-truth.  “And often half a truth is more inaccurate than an entire misstatement. I shall not live again on earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern or karma I have woven for him on earth.”

I tend to agree with the way Myers explains this reincarnation enigma (noting the difference between the "soul group" I had already mentioned and Myers' concept of a "group-soul") but I know that others here will disagree. I'll probably have more to add as (or if) this thread develops but I'll leave it at that for now.

These quotes summarize my beliefs:

My own conceptualisation of reincarnation is personalistic. I hold that the mind is not some impersonal or collective category, but the life of a constant, substantial self.

[/url]AMNESIA: The universality of reincarnation and the preservation of psychological structure

An individualist spirituality is not about collective entities, but about the interests of individuals and their relations with other individuals. Therefore it concentrates on spiritual concepts that put individuals first. Examples of such concepts are personal immortality, personal growth and personal love.

[url=http://txtxs.nl/artikel.asp?artid=629]Libertarian Spirituality

Any philosophy that advocates blending, merging, submitting, or surrendering our sense of self is anathema to the spiritual truths of our European ancestors.

McNallen, S. (2015). Asatru. Runestone Press.

We are not a great melting pot, a collective. We are individuals, and always have been and always will be, for infinity.

If one person on the other side of infinity knows the answer, then so do you, but we are not ‘all one.’

Each of us is unique. Without this uniqueness , there would not be any reason whatsoever for there being more than one being. Thus, each and every unique being, from our sentient race, to the slightest bug, is important. There is no regard, there, for what we consider physical reality.

William Bray NDE

I have little or nothing to say about what happens when we die. We have plenty of insights from NDE reports, as detailed in the example from Tim, of the initial stages. But what happens next? That to me is somewhat of a blank page. A bit like when one wakes in the morning, well refreshed after a good night's sleep, but have no recall of anything from the previous eight hours or so.

One thing I do have a view on is reincarnation. The direction from which I approached this was never really about that subject directly. My only interest was in this present life, and first how to live it, second how to understand or explain it. It was here, without any wild or outlandish speculations, but right here in this everyday, mundane ordinary existence that I had the greatest difficulty. Nothing made any sense. Everything I'd learned in school, whether on topics such as physics and chemistry, or in areas such as history or economics or politics, all of it was founded on a common theme. That is: one thing follows from another. In the field of politics or history or economics, actions have consequences. In our attempts to understand a particular historical event, or a movement, we look at causes. Similarly in chemistry and physics, we look at how things behave, we heat something, in physics it expands, in chemistry it reacts to either combine or decompose. This is such a long-winded explanation, but it is necessary in order to explain my point of view.

The problem I had was, I couldn't explain myself. It's one thing to be interrogated by another, such as a parent or a schoolteacher, asking "why did you do this?" or "whatever were you thinking?". One may not be obliged to say anything, one may remain silent. But what about when we question ourselves? Here I found it necessary to come up with answers. Not just out of idle curiosity, but to even move. I could neither get out of bed in the morning, nor go to bed in the evening while my questions remained unanswered. My life came to a halt.

Perhaps echoing the Buddha, I could not move until I found answers. One of them came in a dream. It was love. To give love, to receive love, that was what it was about. But that still wasn't complete. There was more. I had effects without causes. I needed to understand the causes. This is not a simple matter, it involved mental upheavals and emotional turmoil. I deliberately decline to give any detail. Eventually, and to my utter surprise I understood that reincarnation was real. There were causes after all. This was no small matter. The relief was immense, within a short while I came back to life as it were, able to continue.

My conclusion, not that survival is some vague promise, on the contrary, that we are here at all is already evidence of survival. I don't know what comes next, but it seems like it or not, there is no option but to survive. Survival, like taxes, is inevitable, something we cannot avoid.