Have you seen the the Netflix series, “The OA”? It’s been a number of years now and it was cancelled two seasons into its planned five, but the first season in particular remains a compelling take on NDEs, the people who have them, how they are changed by them, and the obsession to prove that they are real.
It dramatizes how trying to apply the scientific method to something that is ill-suited for it can lead to barbaric cruelty, especially when performed by someone painfully desperate for an answer.
I won’t say too much else about it so as not to spoil it. I do highly recommend it to anyone who has struggled with the maddening disconnect between what is undeniably experienced by those who’ve had an NDE and the lack of any sound, verifiable proof that they are real.
2) Someone I know had an NDE and told me about it and it was typical. When this same person did die, he actually said "I'm dead" about a minute before.
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3) NDE's were at their height at the same time as Satanic rituals in the woods. It seemed like a lot of people had them, but did they?
That's nuts about proclaiming that he was dead about a minute before, although I think people usually have a pretty good sense when they're going. As for NDEs being at their height during the Satanic panic, I don't know about that; I know that they continue to be a frequent occurrence and continue to be investigated.
I don't really *know* about that either. It just felt like that at the time. I haven't heard as much lately and am heartened to know it's still a frequent occurrence.
Thanks for pointing me to your lovely, and well-written, essay. I did have a couple questions. The first comes from this section:
"Our imaginary time-train, however, does make it here, and, in fact stops in what is known as the present, or the now. This clearly reveals a stopping point and demonstrates that the universe is finite and limited."
When you say that time "stops" in the present, what do you mean? To me, the "present" is merely a term of convenience, a way of acknowledging that we are discussing (or experiencing) a rough approximation of a time frame rather than an actual moment of stoppage; my sense is that there is no present because isolating any moment is impossible. We can never say that THIS is the present because, as soon as we do - as soon as the thought even registers - the moment is no more. Can you explain that a little more?
Then you say "At this point, many are quick to affirm something like the Big Bang that got it all started (recently shown to be unwarranted and untenable speculation)."
As much as I want to believe that the Big Bang is wrong (for not other reason than it would be fun to watch the entire cosmological field have a freak-out), my reading of the early galaxy conundrum recently revealed by the James Webb telescope, does not rule out the Big Bang, but merely calls into doubt several of our assumptions about it.
When discussing the "suspicious leap" you take from an ordered universe to a purposeful creator, you write "As you can see, the existence of anything, regardless of what it is, requires mind and purpose and creative power. These transcendent necessities are inescapable."
This feels less than self-evident to me. However much I would like to, I do not agree with the argument that because there is something, it follows that the something we have is the result of purposeful construction. The rock you discuss is formed by well-understood conditions that arise from, in this case, the Big Bang. Of course your argument still holds water if we merely backtrace those conditions as the purposeful creation of a god, but I don't see how it follows that God is NECESSARY for those conditions to arise.
Then you get into the section of the Christian God being the "right" god? You write: "Miracles were used by Jesus and His apostles to certify the message they proclaimed and the authority they were given to proclaim it. This confirmed they were messengers of God and no one else."
Unfortunately for me (unfortunate because I wish I had your assurance), this sends me back to my original point about Christianity using only its own source material as the proof of itself. I could get on board with you if Jesus's miracles were confirmed by some outside source, some Roman or whoever who witnessed the water into wine, or the fishes and loaves feast, and wrote home about it - I mean these events surely would have made the news, I think - but we don't have any independent accounts of any such miracles so we're left with the Bible as the only source that they happened.
Even if I disagree with your conclusions, thank you again for pointing me to your work. I enjoyed reading it very much.
Have you seen the the Netflix series, “The OA”? It’s been a number of years now and it was cancelled two seasons into its planned five, but the first season in particular remains a compelling take on NDEs, the people who have them, how they are changed by them, and the obsession to prove that they are real.
It dramatizes how trying to apply the scientific method to something that is ill-suited for it can lead to barbaric cruelty, especially when performed by someone painfully desperate for an answer.
I won’t say too much else about it so as not to spoil it. I do highly recommend it to anyone who has struggled with the maddening disconnect between what is undeniably experienced by those who’ve had an NDE and the lack of any sound, verifiable proof that they are real.
Haven’t seen it but Ill check it out - thanks for the recco (recommendation)
The Smartless episode with Sam Harris has some good stuff about NDE's.
I find the subject of NDEs so fascinating! Any link or article you’ve read you can recommend?
1) I "sense" I have a soul.
2) Someone I know had an NDE and told me about it and it was typical. When this same person did die, he actually said "I'm dead" about a minute before.
---
3) NDE's were at their height at the same time as Satanic rituals in the woods. It seemed like a lot of people had them, but did they?
That's nuts about proclaiming that he was dead about a minute before, although I think people usually have a pretty good sense when they're going. As for NDEs being at their height during the Satanic panic, I don't know about that; I know that they continue to be a frequent occurrence and continue to be investigated.
I don't really *know* about that either. It just felt like that at the time. I haven't heard as much lately and am heartened to know it's still a frequent occurrence.
Hey. You left the word sense out of the Robert Spira paragraph. It would go before thusly.
Corrected. You are now co-author.
*Rupert
Hi Roger,
Thanks for pointing me to your lovely, and well-written, essay. I did have a couple questions. The first comes from this section:
"Our imaginary time-train, however, does make it here, and, in fact stops in what is known as the present, or the now. This clearly reveals a stopping point and demonstrates that the universe is finite and limited."
When you say that time "stops" in the present, what do you mean? To me, the "present" is merely a term of convenience, a way of acknowledging that we are discussing (or experiencing) a rough approximation of a time frame rather than an actual moment of stoppage; my sense is that there is no present because isolating any moment is impossible. We can never say that THIS is the present because, as soon as we do - as soon as the thought even registers - the moment is no more. Can you explain that a little more?
Then you say "At this point, many are quick to affirm something like the Big Bang that got it all started (recently shown to be unwarranted and untenable speculation)."
As much as I want to believe that the Big Bang is wrong (for not other reason than it would be fun to watch the entire cosmological field have a freak-out), my reading of the early galaxy conundrum recently revealed by the James Webb telescope, does not rule out the Big Bang, but merely calls into doubt several of our assumptions about it.
When discussing the "suspicious leap" you take from an ordered universe to a purposeful creator, you write "As you can see, the existence of anything, regardless of what it is, requires mind and purpose and creative power. These transcendent necessities are inescapable."
This feels less than self-evident to me. However much I would like to, I do not agree with the argument that because there is something, it follows that the something we have is the result of purposeful construction. The rock you discuss is formed by well-understood conditions that arise from, in this case, the Big Bang. Of course your argument still holds water if we merely backtrace those conditions as the purposeful creation of a god, but I don't see how it follows that God is NECESSARY for those conditions to arise.
Then you get into the section of the Christian God being the "right" god? You write: "Miracles were used by Jesus and His apostles to certify the message they proclaimed and the authority they were given to proclaim it. This confirmed they were messengers of God and no one else."
Unfortunately for me (unfortunate because I wish I had your assurance), this sends me back to my original point about Christianity using only its own source material as the proof of itself. I could get on board with you if Jesus's miracles were confirmed by some outside source, some Roman or whoever who witnessed the water into wine, or the fishes and loaves feast, and wrote home about it - I mean these events surely would have made the news, I think - but we don't have any independent accounts of any such miracles so we're left with the Bible as the only source that they happened.
Even if I disagree with your conclusions, thank you again for pointing me to your work. I enjoyed reading it very much.