The question of the existence of life after death has always worried people. No wonder the ancient Egyptians put weapons, food, treasures in the tombs of their pharaohs - they believed that all this would be very useful to their departed rulers in the afterlife. What do modern, pragmatic and cynical people think about this? How many of us now believe that death is just a part of life? And is there any way to find out?
It turns out that you don't have to die to be convinced of the existence of life after death.
Out-of-body experience
The famous researcher of life after death, American resuscitator Raymond Moody, proposes to limit the concept of “death experience” to conscious sensory experiences that arise when faced with death or with the threat of it, as a result of trauma, illness, or, finally, with subjective confidence in the inevitability of death.
Other scientists, for example the American philosopher R. Elmeder, do not consider it expedient to separate the experience of death from other types of similar experiences and propose to combine them all under the general name of out-of-body experience. After all, the main thing here is that any of them demonstrates the possibilities and reality of the existence of consciousness or soul outside the body.
A person may experience a way out of their own body
In Beyond Death: Testimonies of Life After Death, Elmeder provides a number of interesting examples that show that not all out-of-body experiences are associated with severe trauma and clinical death. Often people experience it in a dream or in any stressful situations. Suddenly they gain the ability to see their body from the side (usually from above) and subsequently accurately describe everything that happened in the room during their stay outside the body - who entered, what they said, etc. “This happened for the first time in a dentist's chair, - told one man. - Under the anesthesia, I had the feeling that I woke up and found myself floating under the ceiling, from where I was watching with great amazement the dentist bending over my body and the anesthesiologist standing next to me.
Promotional video:
I saw my lifeless body as clearly as any other object in the room … The second time I was in a hotel in London. In the morning I woke up feeling unwell (I have a weak heart) and soon passed out. To my great amazement, I found myself at the top of the room and from there contemplating with fear my lifeless body, lying with closed eyes in bed. I tried to return to my body and decided that I was dead. At the same time, I have not lost either memory or consciousness. I could not leave the room: I felt as if tied in the corner where I was. An hour or two later, I heard a knock on the locked door several times, but could not answer. Soon a hotel worker appeared at the door of the fire escape. I saw him, listening to my heart, shake his head and then put a spoon in my mouth. After that, I lost consciousness and woke up in bed."
Astral projection
In addition to such incidents that occur unexpectedly, unpredictably, there are cases when the separation of consciousness from the body is done intentionally. They are called "conscious astral projection." Laboratory studies of this phenomenon are described in the book "The Source of Consciousness" by the American scientist J. Mishlav. They were conducted by the Psychological Research Association (IPA) in Durham, North Carolina. In addition to studying changes in body functions in a state of conscious astral projection, scientists decided to find out whether any living creature can feel the presence of a soul separated from the body in a pre-assigned room.
As it turned out, various animals sense her closeness. A cat placed in a container installed in a designated place changed its behavior abruptly when an IPA officer B. Harari supposedly visited the room in the form of an astral body. At first, the animal meowed, restlessly rushed around the box, tried to break free, then suddenly it calmed down and calmed down. The experiment was repeated four times, and each time the behavior of the cat was the same. The reaction of the snake turned out to be exactly the opposite: calm before the beginning of the experiment, it began to rush to the front transparent wall of the box in which it was, trying to bite into it with its teeth.
Hypnosis
There is another category of out-of-body experience, close to conscious astral projection, when the separation of the soul from the body occurs under the influence of hypnosis. Experiments of this type are described by H. Hart, professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham. He calls them examples of psychic travel. Here are some of them, which, according to Hart, have detailed, sensibly compiled eyewitness accounts.
The separation of the soul from the body occurs under the influence of hypnosis
Back in 1850, a certain John Park was hypnotized in Peterhead (Scotland) by William Reid, who ordered him to visit two whaling ships - "Ross" and "Eclipse", which left the port in early spring.
Park obeyed the order and, returning, said that at the moment the surgeon and the captain of the "Ross" were bandaging the hand of the ship's second mate Cardno, who had several phalanxes of his fingers torn off during the hunt.
The next evening, Park returned to the Ross and was present at the conversation between the captains of both ships. The bottom line was that "Ross" would soon have to return to Peterhead, as he had already filled the holds with more than 100 tons of fat. The captain of the Ross subsequently confirmed the fact of a conversation with his colleague from the Elkips on 23 April. The Ross did indeed return first, carrying 159 tons of whale oil in her holds. It is noteworthy that in the previous year he was able to save only 19 tons. Another incontrovertible fact about Park's veracity was Cardno's mutilated brush.
In 1912-1915. Pierre Cornilier conducted a series of experiments in Paris with a young woman named Rain. During one of them, he sent her to a completely unfamiliar apartment. Under hypnosis, Raine said that she found an apartment and entered the room, a detailed description of which she immediately gave. Similar experiments were repeated twice more. After the sessions, Cornillera asked the inhabitants of houses and apartments whether the information received was reliable. In all cases, they confirmed every word of the woman.
Hope at the end of the tunnel
Whether there is light at the end of the tunnel, whether there is light at the end of the tunnel, is unknown to science. So you can paraphrase the words that have become winged words from the movie "Carnival Night" by Eldar Ryazanov. Indeed, Moody and other scholars place a great deal of emphasis on analyzing the criticisms raised against what out-of-body experience researchers write about. After all, its existence, notes Elmeder, is one of the most serious evidence in favor of the possibility of life after death. To doctors, he explains, the sensation of being out of the body is known as "autoscopic hallucinations." They arise in the case of drug abuse, epilepsy, severe liver disease, traumatic brain injury, brain tumors, alcoholism, etc.suffering from certain types of mental or physical disorders.
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel …
Could all out-of-body experiences be explained in this way? Of course not, Elmeder writes. Because quite often the person who survived him talks about the events that took place at that time at a sufficiently large distance from the place where his body was. He reports on facts that really took place, and not on visions of a sick consciousness. Hallucinations cannot explain real events. The cases with B. Harari, D. Park, Rein are especially indicative. The experiments were carried out in such a way that these people did not know the places in which they were supposed to find themselves. Nevertheless, they subsequently described them in detail, the people who were there, and even retells the essence of the conversations they heard.
Prokopenko Sergey