What Do You Make Of Nde’S?

[katherine the great]

There is no such thing. You're either alive or dead. A body sustained through tubes and pumps is dead. The brain is dead but the blood functions can be maintained indefinitely.

 

Those who think that a person dies, wanders around and then comes back to life are merely superimposing their concepts onto a list of events. None of which prove anything.

Maybe that's why they are called "near" death experiences.

[rodheadlee]

I don't take NDEs seriously. They seem in general to confirm the faith of the believer whether agnostic or whatever. I am not convinced the spirit left the body at all.

Well I can confirm the spirit leaves the body when you die. I just think they don't tell about the bad episodes. I didn't see anybody, I thought i was going to be all alone for all eternity.

[SunshineInMySoul]

I think some are real revelatory experiences, meaning that God reveals spiritual things to people.  I think others are dreams that may be based on emotions and are not necessarily true.  I think others are made up to sell books.  The hard part is that each person must rely on the Spirit to know what is true.  In regard to selling books, I find it strange that one of the popular books in this genre, Visions of Glory, is based on experiences of an anonymous person.  It is interesting that FairMormon (http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/publications/spencers-visions-of-glory) and Kelly Ogden have found doctrinal problems with some of the revelations in the book.  I think published accounts sometimes violate the principle in D&C 43:  "2 For behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye have received a commandment for a law unto my church, through him whom I have appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations fro my hand. 3 And this ye shall know assuredly—that there is none other appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until he be taken, if he abide in me."  

 

BTW, numerous people have published the audio file of Visions of Glory's "Spencer" interview with John Pontius (e.g., http://unblogvisionsofglory.wordpress.com/the-spencer-audio/ , http://hughvail.com/john-pontius-interview-with-spencer/).  The voice sounds eerily familiar: 

[Tacenda]

Did you mean to post this video SunshineinMySoul? This guy is talking about CFS, or Fibromyalgia. But I learned a lot anyway! Or are you saying this is the anonymous person?

[SunshineInMySoul]

Tacenda, I did mean to post this video.  Have you heard the audio of "Spencer"?  

[Calm]

Ah the Internet where nothing ever really disappears except the stuff I want to find. Sigh.....

Are you the detective who tracked the video down?

Edited December 15, 2014 by calmoriah

[Kevin Christensen]

The D&C urges us to seek our of the best books words of wisdom.  It doesn't say seek out of the most popular or most controversial books, words of wisdom.  Some NDE books are much better than others.  I don't dismiss the best in light of the weakest.  Quite the reverse.  I recommend Zaleski's Otherworld Journeys, which I found the most interesting and challenging in that it attempted a cross cultural look at NDE accounts.  It also changed the my perception of Lehi's vision.  Zaleski agrees with the Book of Mormon that things can be both spiritual and temporal. literal and symbolic, both real and culturally influenced.  After, Joseph Smith explained that God adapts himself to our capacity to understand.  The alternative, of course, is a God who doesn't, which would not provide much help.

 

My JBMS essay showed that Alma's conversion closely fits the pattern of an NDE, and that both Alma and the resurrected Jesus display all of the aftereffects that modern experiencers demonstrate. Indeed, in listening to Howard Storm speak about his NDE, I noticed how much he talks like Alma, not just about the experience, but many other things.  Writing the essay today, I would also emphasize that Brigham Young's extensive teachings about that afterlife appear to draw on his personal experience at Winter Quarters.  Both the Book of Mormon and Brigham Young (see the Spirit World chapter of the Brigham Young Manual, for starters) are notable for providing far more information than appears in the Bible, which has remarkably little.

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[juliann]

Sunshine, my understanding is that it was the NDE community that discovered Spencer's identity. This is the name that I have heard.  I'm agnostic when it comes to NDE, I want to believe them so I lean that way. I think that Visions of Glory is the worst thing to happen to NDEs because, as has happened here, Spencer will be exposed and his real life will not match his claims in the book.  

Edited December 15, 2014 by juliann

[Tacenda]

Tacenda, I did mean to post this video. Have you heard the audio of "Spencer"?

No, I guess not.

[Stargazer]

You might find Kevin Christensen's paper interesting:

 

http//:publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1382&index=2

 

(Don't know why I couldn't past the URL - I had to key it in - how do you like my excellent keyboarding skills?  )

I couldn't get to it using your url -- then I saw the problem: the colon is AFTER the slashes instead of before:

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1382&index=2

[Nofear]

I know of no research which indicates this.  Could you both CFR, please?

From what I have read, even very divergent cultures seem to have pretty much the same NDE sequence, and it seems unrelated to norms of belief or culture of the person having the experience.

I've read some number of NDE accounts though I've specifically mostly avoided books or other things that are for profit. Often those books will cherry pick accounts that conform to their preconceptions -- whether they are LDS or Protestant sources. For example some speak about physical bodies, others speak about disembodied energy forms and what not. Some have telepathy, others have vocal communication. There are some significant and not quite compatible variations among the various accounts.

That doesn't mean NDE's aren't "real" in the sense that the individual actually experienced something. Some maybe be mental delusions. Some may have been actual visitations to the Spirit World. But I'm mostly convinced that the vast majority indicate that upon death we do not immediately acquire sensory awareness of the spirit world or move to it. Instead, there seems to be some kind of transitory scenario set up to help ease us into post-mortality. Consistent with ERayR's idea, that transitory state can easily be tailored to the individual, probably to ease the transition among other practical necessities*. Also our memories are very much malleable and so accounts can and do adjust according to some preconceptions of the teller.

 

 

* Some reasoning behind the idea that upon death we experience a transitory and preparatory state before moving into the spirit world:

• Brigham Young asserted that the Spirit World is co-local with the earth. That is the spirits there are pretty much going about their business all around us. If upon death we immediately enter the spirit world then we would simply pop into existence there, as it were.
• Yet there is not a single account of an individual, upon their death, surprising a group of spirit world people just going about their business. Indeed, upon first arrival it is almost always empty of others and a specific messenger is sent to fetch them.
• It would also be bad if when we died, we just happened to be under a spirit world hill or something.
• Another reasoning is clothes. My spirit body, I believe is co-local with my physical body. I also suspect my spirit body is naked. Yet I did not find accounts indicating such. The vast majority do not mention clothing and we'd expect the absence of clothing to be something noticed. Those that do often portray themselves in their death clothing or some other period appropriate clothing.

 

 

PS: I personally place Visions of Glory on the altar of a few "truths" heavily mixed with apostasy inducing false doctrines.