See for more cases.
The Mays write: The evidence from these three cases—and many additional cases of veridical NDEr perceptions—support the idea that some part of the human being—the mind or spirit—has actually separated from the physical body and has perceived events in the physical realm from a vantage point outside the body while the brain was fully anesthetized or was completely inactive. The perceptions occur in real time and are completely accurate. In these cases, no physical explanations hold up to scrutiny.
The experiences in the NDE—the perceptions of the physical realm—are real—for the following reasons:
The perceptions of the physical realm are veridical, that is, they are accurate and have been verified by a credible third party.
The veridical perceptions occur from the NDEr’s reported vantage point outside the physical body, generally from above, near or bobbing against the ceiling. The NDEr can be distant from the NDEr’s body: down the hall, on a different floor, or many miles away:
During emergency open heart surgery while out of town some 1,250 miles from his home, Tony Meo’s heart stopped for 30 minutes. During his OBE NDE, he thought about his wife and found himself in the surgical waiting room and saw her on the phone crying. Then “he thought he ‘just wanted to go home to Florida’ and suddenly he was there! While home in Florida he ‘saw’ all of the mail which had been taken in by the housesitter, strewn all over the dining room table.” He saw a Danish office supply catalog lying there. In the transcendental part of his NDE, Tony had a life review and was asked if he wanted to go back. Tony said yes because his wife, Pat, and his family needed him. After he had recovered, Tony and Pat returned home. They found that Tony had “accurately described all of the letters, bills, junk mail, and magazines,” including the Danish catalog, which they had never written away for.
The objects or events accurately perceived are unusual or idiosyncratic—Al Sullivan’s doctor flapping his arms; Lloyd Rudy’s patient seeing the two surgeons in their short sleeves in the OR doorway and the chain of Post It notes; Howard examining the nurse-training center. The NDEr’s description is frequently of a detailed, purely visual event or an unusual object. The events or objects are unfamiliar to the NDEr and are unlikely to be guessed or inferred from the circumstances.
These purely visual perceptions could not have occurred by physical sight—they were beyond the reach of physical senses, either because physical sight was blocked (Al Sullivan’s and Rudy’s patient’s eyes were taped shut; and Howard’s training center was on the floor above), or the unusual events occurred while brain function had stopped (Rudy’s patient and Howard were both in cardiac arrest).
Often the veridical perceptions are immediately disclosed by the NDEr, such that they could not have been told to the NDEr by someone else or a memory that the NDEr subconsciously fabricated from information acquired later.
The timing of specific idiosyncratic events reported by the NDEr can establish what the NDEr’s level of brain function was. In some cases, it is clear—beyond reasonable doubt—that the perceptions could not have been produced by the brain, yet the NDEr correctly identified the sequence and details of the unfolding event. For example, several NDErs have been able accurately to describe the start of their resuscitation procedure after cardiac arrest; Lloyd Rudy’s patient accurately described the two doctors standing in the OR doorway after he had been declared dead for at least 20 minutes and before his resuscitation had started.
Because the NDEr’s perceptions are verified as accurate, the NDEr’s experiences in the physical realm are real. The fact that the NDEr’s perceptual viewpoint—the line of sight—is reported outside the physical body strongly suggests that the NDEr’s mind or consciousness has somehow separated from the body during the NDE and is in a different location. The fact that NDErs have accurate perceptions without the mediation of the brain suggests that the mind operates independent of the body.
Robert G. Mays, BSc and Suzanne B. Mays, AA, “There is no death: Near-death experience evidence for survival after permanent bodily death.” An essay written for the 2021 Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies addressing the question: “What Is The Best Available Evidence For The Survival Of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death?” Footnotes are omitted from these excerpts but are in the full text available from the Bigelow website at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.
No comments:
Post a Comment