Mapping the Afterlife What NDEs tell us about the terrain

Rhonda Riachi Quaker Fellowship for Afterlife Studies Conference, April 2012

What was lost shall be returned to you

David Fontana 1934 – 2010

Author of

Is There An Afterlife?: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence (2005)

Life Beyond Death: What Should We Expect? (2009)

• Insert picture here

Source: http://daubmir.blogspot.com/

Birth

Life

Death

Heaven

Hell Judgement

• Robert Monroe – see Mike Pettigrew

http://mikepettigrew.com/afterlife/html/

map_of_afterlife.html

• Steve Beckow (aka Brother Anonymous)

http://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/nmh/

nmh-index1.html

Map of the world , 1689 – source: www.mappery.com

• Near-Death experiences (NDEs)

• Out-of-the-Body Experiences (OBEs)

• Channelled communications and instrumental transcommunication (ITC)

• Reincarnation memories

• Hauntings, apparitions

• Communications received in our sleep from people who have died containing veridical information (i.e. things which could not have been known by the person previously and which are subsequently verified)

(Fontana 2005)

NDEs provide the clearest evidence for me because they:

• occur to people of all cultures, races, ages

• often contain veridical information

• tend to profoundly change the person (including loss of fear of death)

• are the subject of many research projects which continue to reproduce the core findings

• 19th Century - e.g. Frances P Cobbe: The Peak in Darien (1882)

• Raymond Moody: Life After Life (1975)

• Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross: Death Does Not Exist. CoEvolution Quarterly (1977)

• Kenneth Ring: Life at Death (1980)

• Bruce Greyson & Ian Stevenson: Phenomenology of NDEs. American Journal of Psychiatry (1980)

• Michael Sabom: Recollections of Death (1982)

• Margot Grey: Return from Death (1985)

• PMH Atwater: Coming Back to Life (1988)

• Melvin Morse & Paul Perry: Closer to the Light (1990)

• Peter & Elizabeth Fenwick: The Truth in The Light (1995)

• Kenneth Ring & Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino: Lessons from the Light (1998)

• Pim van Lommel et al: NDE in survivors of cardiac arrest. Lancet (2001)

• Sam Parnia: What Happens When We Die (2006)

• Peter & Elizabeth Fenwick: The Art of Dying (2008)

• Janice M Holden et al: The Handbook of NDEs (2009)

Kenneth Ring (1980) outlined the core NDE: • Peace and a sense of well-being • Separation from the body • Entering darkness (tunnel) • Seeing the light • Entering the light

Which might also include: • Meeting dead relatives/friends • Encountering a border • Life review • Being given information about the future

• A S Wiltse (1889) – approx 30 minutes (Holden 2009) • George Ritchie (1943) – nine minutes (Ritchie 1978) • Mellen-Thomas Benedict (1982) – 90 minutes (Ring

1998, Rankin 2008) • Pam Reynolds (1991) – 35 minutes under clinically-

induced death (Holden 2009)

See also Anita Moorjani (2006): www.anitamoorjani.com IANDS: www.iands.org NDERF: www.nderf.org Horizon Foundation: www.horizonresearch.org

• Hypoxia, hypercarbia, drug-induced states: all such physical explanations (e.g. by Susan Blackmore) have been refuted as the cause of NDEs by van Lommel (2010), Fenwick (1995) and others.

• The brain is not functioning in the NDE state (in many cases the person is “brain-dead”), yet the near-death experience displays more coherence and meaning than day-to-day consciousness.

• For a good argument against these pseudo-scientific explanations see J Denosky’s web page: http://www.spiritualtravel.org/OBE/ nde_arguments.html

• Our bodies die, we do not

• We influence our own reality

• We judge our own lives

• What we do with our lives here has consequences in the afterlife

• We take our love and knowledge with us

• Consciousness is even more complex than we think

• Preparation for death is important

Birth

Life

Death

Hell states

Life Review

Purgatorial states

Heaven states

• Reincarnation – why, how and when?

• Our own role in changing the environs

• How many places can one be at any one time?

• God…

Fenwick P and Fenwick E (1995) The Truth in the Light: an investigation of over 300 NDEs.

Fontana D (2005) Is There an Afterlife?

Holden JM, Greyson B & James D (Eds) (2009) The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences.

van Lommel P (2010) Consciousness Beyond Life. See http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/?Reviews

Rankin M (2008) An Introduction to Religious and Spiritual Experience.

Ring K (1980) Life at Death.

Ring K & Valarino EE (2006) Lessons from the light: what we can learn from the near-death experience.

Ritchie G (1978) Return from Tomorrow.