The near death experience (NDE)
has now attracted attention for forty years and was hugely advanced in terms of
general acceptance by the work of Raymond Moody. It has hugely served to
counter the forceful aspects of the scientific paradigm which has been used to vehemently assault the religious paradigm over the
decades of the Twentieth century in particular.
Nazism and Communism were merely the most extreme proponents of this
position. The advent of the NDE served
to open up the small kernel of doubt and stop the fanaticism of the ignorant.
The NDE appears to take the consciousness
into a luminous state, now been described as a luminous dream. There is way more to it than just that of
course, and much of what is claimed is at the least confounding. An experiencer is certainly left with the comfort
of the reality of an afterlife.
My own luminous dream experience
allowed my consciousness to enter the abode of my mother and in the process
acquire information and several unexpected insights useful to myself in filling
in the blanks. It also encouraged a raft
of additional questions and a real appreciation for the reports of others
however garbled.
Conjecture 1 Mankind
will manufacture a distributed computer system that will be indistinct from GOD
by 2050. This will include the capacity
to completely absorb and store the individual human experience and personality as an
incarnate entity allowing immortality to all humanity. This not an unreasonable proposition and
supported by our ongoing experience.
This proposition does not require
the existence of a mystical GOD which historical religiosity ultimately argued
because the rational mind was too ignorant to argue otherwise. During the present Age, mystical claptrap is
a hard go.
Conjecture 2 Mankind
has already done the job around forty thousand years ago and the task I have
set myself in this blog is to amass evidence and to understand the broad
outlines of what took place. Followers
of this blog know that we have made a number of testable conjectures that
include the Pleistocene Nonconformity.
Since mankind has already done
the job, it follows that our branch of humanity was deliberately set on Earth with
the full benefit of a soul and a short
lifespan in order to do what is necessary to terraform the Earth. Tackling ancient scriptures and other
evidence with that perspective is revealing and consistent.
We have been kept in ignorance
because it is easier that way. That
period is now ending. In the meantime
the whole idea of transmigration and similar doctrines start to make a lot of
sense when viewed from the material perspective of GOD. Our souls rotate down to assist in advancing
the primary project of terraforming the Earth itself.
Conjecture 3 Through Meditation, NDE and
luminous dreams and perhaps even trances, it is possible to fully access GOD or
as I coined in my manuscript ‘Paradigms Shift’ the Ubermind. This
facility is actually addressable although it appears that experiencers often lack
consciousness of this. Usually they are
in awe and lack clarity of purpose.
Theorem GOD exists to serve
mankind. GOD is material and created by
man to serve man. We merely need to
learn to access this capacity. Start by
learning to ask the proper questions.
Edgar Cayce demonstrates some of this in his trance readings. Living spiritual masters exist to assist although
they may themselves underestimate possibilities. Remember, there never was a mystical GOD. GOD is real and carnate and we are plausibly
about to do it all over again.
If you got this far you may wish
to commune. arclein@gmail works with GOD
in the subject line.
Raymond Moody, Man Behind 'Near-Death Experience' Ponders The Afterlife
Posted: 04/12/2012 4:53 pm Updated: 04/12/2012 4:53 pm
By Piet Levy
Religion News Service
(RNS) Raymond Moody has spent nearly 40 years looking forward, trying
to understand what happens when people die. That pursuit led to the publication
of "Life After Life" in 1975, a seminal collection that actually
coined the term "near-death experience."
But in his new memoir, "Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the
Afterlife," the 67-year-old Moody instead looks back, reflecting on his
fascination with death, the effect of his life's work, and trying to figure out
what it's all meant.
One key revelation: despite his frustrations with some religious and
New Age interpretations of his work, and the fact that he does not practice a
religion, the psychologist and philosopher who grew up the son of an agnostic
surgeon says he has "woken up to God."
"From the very beginning (of my afterlife studies) I was hearing
people with experiences, some of whom had not been religious and some of whom
were, and whatever they had been before, afterward there seemed to be a sort of
commonality, which is the understanding that yes, there is a God," Moody
said.
The Georgia-born Moody became obsessed with the afterlife not out of
religious conviction, but as a philosophy student at the University of Virginia
"I was reading Plato's 'The Republic' at age 18 and I can't
account fully the electricity that had for me," he said. The story of Ur
"I felt the question of the afterlife was the black hole of the
personal universe: something for which substantial proof of existence had been
offered but which had not yet been explored in the proper way by scientists and
philosophers," Moody writes in "Paranormal." His fascination
only deepened after befriending a psychiatrist at the university, George
Ritchie, who had his own near-death experience, and even felt that his
experience had given him at times a "direct line with God."
Ritchie's was the first of many near death stories Moody heard. He
found some commonalities: an out-of-body experience, the sensation of traveling
through a tunnel, communicating with dead relatives, encountering a bright
light (thought by some to be Jesus, God or an angel), and when they came back,
a sense that there was truth in all the great faiths.
In "Paranormal," Moody writes that "Life After
Life" was so successful -- it sold more than 10 million copies -- in part
because it didn't entertain a religious bias. "People no longer had to
keep it in the closet or worry about people thinking they were crazy,"
Moody said. "It gave us legitimate consolation."
It also ignited an ongoing crusade among some religious people and New
Agers who felt "Life After Life" was proof that an afterlife existed
and wanted his public endorsement for their beliefs -- something Moody has
refused to do. In spite of all the stories he's heard and research he's done,
he doesn't see his body of work as definitive scientific evidence that life
after death truly exists.
"Religion has co-opted his field of study, and they built fences
around near-death experiences he doesn't think should exist," said Paul
Perry, Moody's friend and "Paranormal" co-author. "The same is
true of New Agers. ... It's frustrating for Raymond to deal with who he
considers fanatics."
Nevertheless, Moody said he understands why people would take comfort
in his research, and why they would associate his findings with God or their
religious beliefs. Moody himself frequently speaks to religious and New Age
groups.
"Raymond will speak at any place he is asked to speak. It's part
of how he makes his living," Perry said. "There's no place for a guy
to get the word out other than New Age functions and religious functions.
Science doesn't totally recognize near-death studies. ... But generally when he
talks at New Age functions and churches, he's right up front about how he feels
about religion and New Age philosophy, and he's going to tell people what he
thinks."
The events around "Life After Life" occur about halfway
through "Paranormal." Moody's memoirs also touch on his other
interests of studies, like using hypnotherapy to revisit past lives, and
constructing a chamber dubbed a "psychomanteum" at his home in Alabama
These sorts of eccentric studies no doubt invite scrutiny -- Moody
reveals in the book that his own father had him committed to a mental hospital
after Moody shared stories of his psychomanteum. He also details his own
near-death experience in "Paranormal" when he attempted suicide in
1991; Moody was suffering from an undiagnosed thyroid condition at the time
which, he said, affected his mental state.
But Moody said "he is too old for secrets," and in
"Paranormal," he argues that the suicide attempt made him more honest
about himself and his work.
"Without it, I would lack that dimension that is not present in
many doctors, the one that goes beyond knowledge and into the realm of actually
being a patient," he writes.
"I don't care what other people think," Moody said of
"Paranormal." "Putting it together brought back so many
memories. It was a sobering and delicious experience."
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