A spontaneous remission? Or a miracle?

Dr. Larry Dossey relates this story to illustrate the scientific mystery of consciousness. “Mellen-Thomas Benedict, a young stained-glass artist, experienced near-death in 1982. Benedict was dying from an inoperable brain tumor. He was offered chemotherapy but declined, wanting to maintain as high a quality of life as possible in the time he had left. Having no health insurance, he entered hospice care, which lasted for about 18 months. He woke up one morning at around 4:30 and knew this was the day he would die. He told his hospice nurse, and they agreed that she would leave his dead body undisturbed for at least six hours, because he had read that ‘all kinds of interesting things happen when you die.’ Soon he experienced being outside his body. He had a sense of panoramic vision and saw a magnificent shining light, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It seemed to be a conduit to the Source of the Higher Self. ‘I just went into it,’ he said later, ‘and it was just overwhelming. It was like all the love you’ve ever wanted, and it was the kind of love that cures, heals, regenerates.’ Then the light turned into an exquisitely gorgeous mandala of human souls.

“Benedict felt all his negative judgments and cynical attitudes about his fellow human beings giving way toward a view that was equally hopeful and positive. He conversed with the Great Light. He rode a stream of consciousness through the galaxy and glimpsed the entire universe. He felt he was in precreation before the Big Bang. His consciousness expanded to infinity. It was revealed to him that there is no death, only immortality. With this assurance, the entire process then reversed itself, and he returned to his body.

“His hospice nurse found him without vital signs. She could not detect any blood pressure or heart sounds, even with an amplified stethoscope. His cardiac monitor was flat-lined. She honored his agreement and left his body alone. It began to stiffen. Then he suddenly awakened. On seeing the light outside, he tried to get up and go to it, falling out of bed. The nurse heard a clunk and found him on the floor.

“Within three days he was feeling normal, yet different than he had every felt. He was discharged from hospice. Three months later, a friend suggested he return to his physician to be tested again. Follow-up brain scans were done. As his physician looked at the before-and-after scans, he said, ‘Well, there is nothing here now.’ Benedict responded happily, ‘Really, it must be a miracle?’ ‘No,’ the unimpressed doctor said, ‘these things happen. They are called spontaneous remission.’ ‘But there was a miracle,’ Benedict said, ‘and I was impressed, even if no one else was'."

 

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Larry Dossey, One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters (2013), 87-88.