Why do I feel threatened?

For me that isn't really the way I see things. I see death as something gentler, and also something joyful to look forward to. It isn't that I'm in any hurry, I'm happy where I am now, thank you very much. But I think it's just a gradual loosening of the vice-like grip in which the physical body holds us, a letting go and an expansion into great freedom. An uplifting process.

As for preparation, I see that only in terms of weighing what in my current here-and-now existence is really of value, and what can I let go of. That may be material things, or activities which take time which might be better spent doing something else. There are plenty of positives in this world, and a lot I'm still looking forward to. It's a matter of considering every moment to be of value in its own way.

The only real difficulties are attachments to other people, we know separation and bereavement can be painful, but this takes place throughout life as we lose one person or another. To counterbalance that, the potential for new meetings and possibly reunions which are so much talked about in NDEs.

Thanks Typoz


It’s good that you’ve reached that point.

I was more thinking about Kamarling’s fear and suggesting that whilst continuing to consider  the subject thoughtfully might not resolve their fear, it may ease it.

You don’t sound like you have a fear of death particularly. It maybe simply that your mind doesn’t work that way and you’re not prone to it but for those who are, as I know you appreciate,  it can be difficult to adjust that thinking and so be at peace with the inevitable.

If I may quote from Life Before Life by Helen Wambach.

Here the author is describing a group regression session she was just carrying out, and the participants had just emerged from a several-hour-long process and were about to record on paper the details  of their experiences.

Interestingly perhaps, there is quite a bit of evidence from mediumship too that birth is not seen as a joyous occasion from a discarnate perspective. As you might expect,  the sadness we experience when we lose someone we love, is seen as a joyful event to those who have been separated by preceding them, and who are now reunited.

But from the perspective of someone who hasn’t reached personal conviction of survival, these are just words aren’t they?

Interestingly perhaps, there is quite a bit of evidence from mediumship too that birth is not seen as a joyous occasion from a discarnate perspective. As you might expect,  the sadness we experience when we lose someone we love, is seen as a joyful event to those who have been separated by preceding them, and who are now reunited.

So it seems that, yet again, we’d be ‘wrong’ in our conventional ideas.

That’s may be why I’m sort of saying ‘let go and let God’. It’s not that easy when your ego is still ‘lovin it’!

OK, just to clarify what I mean by personality: it is the way we think, behave and interact with those around us and the world in general. I might be described as generally cheerful or grumpy, abrasive or accommodating, generous or miserly, arrogant or humble. These, for me, are personality (or character) traits.

You might be some or all of those things sometimes, and other times not so much or not at all. I'm not so sure about the reliability of people's on show personalities including my own of course. I think we're all very good at presenting a face to the world but in secret, what are we really like? Who are we really ? 

Whilst my basic sense of "me" is still the same as it always was, I'm quite sure I could have adopted many more ways of presenting myself to the world (personas) and still retain the conviction that underneath all that, I'm still "me". 

Ultimately (at the end of the game?) I suspect we are all the same; bits of the whole (God?) broken up so that the bits can experience life and all the many aspects of it, but why this needs to be done or to what end or ultimate purpose, we're never going to know.

So it seems that, yet again, we’d be ‘wrong’ in our conventional ideas.

That’s may be why I’m sort of saying ‘let go and let God’. It’s not that easy when your ego is still ‘lovin it’!

That’s true Stan but in the face of the starkness of bereavement it’s sometime hard to be philosophical isn’t it?

That’s true Stan but in the face of the starkness of bereavement it’s sometime hard to be philosophical isn’t it?

I think it’s quite acceptable to be both very sad, and fully retain ones philosophy, even though what you say may be true.

NDE’er Mary Neal might be equipped with an interesting answer to this?

I think it’s quite acceptable to be both very sad, and fully retain ones philosophy, even though what you say may be true.

NDE’er Mary Neal might be equipped with an interesting answer to this?

Acceptable I agree Stan. For most not easy and even for those who manage it, not always possible. Of course there’s a huge difference between being very sad and bereavement/grief for many of us isn’t there?

You’re reference to NDEs is interesting as that’s about gathering evidence and doing research isn’t it? It may comfort people but actually the lasting benefit is in properly understanding things like that in context imho.

Or perhaps it is the consensus? For me the only consensus that matters is the one held by people who think about their beliefs rather than just accept them as a matter of faith. And yet the consensus among rational, thinking people is atheism and materialism. This consensus is so heavily linked to science that to hold a different view has become heresy. I'm not anti-science yet I feel like an outcast among the people I would normally identify with.

It would be normative for science's structured information to create the framework for public opinion.  In my humble mind, the forward-looking strategy would be to exploit the link and address a means for recording phenomenonal aspects of Psi -- in terms of data and analysis.  Surely, this community does promote and defend such.

I am as intimidated by personal attacks as anyone, but am not threaten by any current anti-Psi opinions.  

It's data points that count, not the current "old-thinking" about what patterns are at their root cause.  Information transfer has emerged as an engineering problem.  That anomalous information transfer is the hallmark of Psi, so its existence is already being recorded.  This is not the time to be defensive, but time to watch closely as the data leads to better and better scientific understanding of the root causes.

Fear of death seems to me to be a perfectly natural thing. Fear of the unknown - what will happen, will it hurt, is there anything else or is that it etc? I suspect that most people rarely think too much about it and then only when they have to through bereavement and then they usually revert to their original mindset unless something triggers deeper consideration.

Perhaps it’s a bit like physical training: being conditioned to pain isn’t going to happen through one occasional punch. It’s a continuous process of lower level discomfort and pain that in the end can make us more resilient to the real thing. In some ways perhaps death is like that - the long term consideration  of it or even just dwelling on it can force us to adapt or condition ourselves in some ways, but it does come with the burden of living with conscious awareness and potentially therefore fear.

How we deal with it probably varies from person to person but I do think knowledge is to some extent power. Even then fear may not be eliminated. Although I know everyone survives a rollercoaster ride (more or less), it does not remove the fear for me.

It’s unlikely that you’ll get an experience in this life that removes all fear but not impossible. 

Just a few thoughts.

I have just downloaded and started the new Bruce Greyson book, "After". I doubt that there will be much in there that I don't know already but reading these accounts seems to provide some comfort for me. I also watched the (long) video webcast which is linked in the recent Bruce Greyson thread here and he (Greyson) talked about his initial concerns that NDE survivors might be drawn to suicide in order to get back to that lovely, peaceful place. He explained that their response was that suicide is hardly ever a consideration because, without that fear of death, life becomes the adventure it is supposed to be. They can take risks and live life without worrying about consequences because the "worst" that can happen holds no fear for them.

He also answers questions about those who use other methods to imitate the NDE with the hope of achieving the same kind of profound release from fear. He says that these methods, while they may produce similar experiences such as Out-of-Body travel, do not have the same impact on the personality. Nor do people who regularly but spontaneously have OBEs report such effects. He surmises that it is the sudden and unexpected nature of the NDE which provides the necessary personality jolt and the dramatic loss of previous fears. I think that it is probably the absolute conviction that they were granted a genuine glimpse of the hereafter and came away with a new perspective on the meaning of life and death.

It would be normative for science's structured information to create the framework for public opinion.  In my humble mind, the forward-looking strategy would be to exploit the link and address a means for recording phenomenonal aspects of Psi -- in terms of data and analysis.  Surely, this community does promote and defend such.

I am as intimidated by personal attacks as anyone, but am not threaten by any current anti-Psi opinions.  

It's data points that count, not the current "old-thinking" about what patterns are at their root cause.  Information transfer has emerged as an engineering problem.  That anomalous information transfer is the hallmark of Psi, so its existence is already being recorded.  This is not the time to be defensive, but time to watch closely as the data leads to better and better scientific understanding of the root causes.

In the Greyson webcast that I mentioned in my previous post, he is asked about how to answer sceptics who would dismiss NDE evidence. Ever the scientist, he says to point them to the data.