John Cox posted a blog post
How Carl Sagan's explanation for the Near Death Experience relates to True Fringe-ology
This is a very interesting read. The primary treatise is that we human beings tend to think what's true goes along with what we want to be true or what we sense is true. An example is atheist Carl Sagan saying he doesn't think NDEs are true because he doesn't think they are true! The final person writes, at the end of the comments, a very long list of reasons why he thinks NDEs are true. He writes a laundry list as to why he thinks that NDEs are true experiences and are not hallucinations.(This link takes you to the article- http://www.dailygrail.com/blogs/Steve-Volk/2011/7/How-Carl-Sagans-explanation-the-Near-Death-Experience-relates-True-Fringe.) Here's the copied and pasted article, followed by reader comments:Posted by Steve Volk at 05:38, 13 Jul 2011Hi to all at The Daily Grail. My name is Steve Volk, and I've just had my first book, Fringe-ology - which covers all manner of Daily Grail-type subjects - published by HarperOne. I wrote Fringe-ology with the aim of being equally skeptical of both paranormal claims and skeptical explanations for them. In other words, I think it is incumbent upon believers in the paranormal to present evidence for the phenomena they describe. But I think there comes a point in the debate where the burden of proof shifts. In practice this means anyone touting the Near Death Experience as evidence of an afterlife needs to bring something to the party. A “hit” in the Aware study, for instance, would be fabulous. That would mean one of the patients in Dr. Sam Parnia's vast pool of candidates would have to be able to name the random, controlled target that had been present when they were resuscitated and “out of body.” Failing that, I do find Janice Miner Holden's research paper, “Veridical Perception in Near-Death Experiences,” which documents the accuracy of reported out of body perceptions, compelling enough that all but the most die-hard skeptics should be convinced to do more than simply keep an open mind. They should, in fact, be convinced that it is time for them to do a better job of explaining the NDE than they have to date.After all, at this stage, no one disputes that the Near Death Experience is a real phenomenon. The data pile for the NDE is robust enough that we can even make testable predictions based off the accumulated literature: Conservatively, five-percent or more of resuscitated patients will remember an NDE. And in each case, the NDE will contain similar content. A majority of experiencers will report feelings of peace and joy, an out of body experience, a perception of white light and reports of visiting another world. Further, of those people, the vast majority will take the experience to be objectively real. They will also change for the better as a result. The prospect of death, for instance, will hold considerably less sting.In light of this, it seems plain to me that the NDE is well founded enough that it deserves a similarly well-founded explanation. This means any claimed explanation for it should face some scientific scrutiny. Problem is, it is precisely when the current skeptical model(s) for NDEs are subjected to questioning that they most readily fall apart.I write a far longer argument about this in Fringe-ology. But in short, brain-based explanations require skeptics to develop a working model explaining how the different circumstances NDErs find themselves in at the time of their experience produce predictable changes in the content and character of what they report. People lacking oxygen should report something different than people who had plenty of oxygen and people under anesthesia should describe something different than people under the influence of no narcotics at all. The current lack of such a model for how Near Death Experiences are produced doesn't mean no such explanation or combination of explanations will emerge. But because skeptics have thus far failed to make a convincing case the NDE continues to represent a real mystery.The problem is, we human beings don’t seem to like mystery very much. So where mystery exists we often force the data at hand toward some conclusion. Because the NDE and the afterlife are so tied up in claims about religion and heaven and hell this tendency is further exacerbated by all the emotion involved. The NDE is unwanted by a lot of fundamentalist believers in religion, while others of a mystical bent are likely to embrace the NDE as slam dunk evidence of an afterlife. Further, to materialists who believe that in the end, there’s nothing—that the brain, as Stephen Hawking recently put it, is a kind of computer and there’s no afterlife for computers—the NDE is an affront to their worldview.We all know what happens next: People tend to look at the data that confirms their point of view, but not the data that doesn’t. And in this sense, the NDE becomes a kind of wishing pool: We stare into it and resolve its mystery by perceiving in it a reflection of the world we most expect or wish to see.This line of argument is usually directed solely at believers. But in researching and writing Fringe-ology I found numerous examples of skeptics engaged in prolonged and public bouts of self-deceit.The late great Carl Sagan, for instance, proposed an explanation for Near Death Experiences that never had a chance. Just a few years after the phrase Near Death Experience was coined by Raymond Moody, Sagan proposed that the source of tunnel reports in NDE stories was a replay of the birth experience. At the time of our death, he wrote, a repressed memory of the birth experience may surface. The sensation of passing through a tunnel and floating into another world and a mystical white light is a mirror of the experience of passing through the birth canal and emerging into a bright delivery room and the waiting hands of doctors and nurses.From the beginning, this idea (to be clear, Sagan picked it up from another researcher—and ran with it) worked solely in a poetic sense. Our medical understanding at the time of Sagan’s writing suggested an infant’s visual system and memory aren’t capable of registering the birth experience in the manner necessary for this explanation to be viable. And of course, the experiences don’t really match up.Is being smashed and struggling inside the birth canal anything like the peaceful, floating tunnel experience people describe in their NDEs? In fact, said baby is usually delivered with the crown of its head emerging first while its eyes remain closed and mashed against the vaginal wall.In short, Sagan's favored theory never had anything to support it beyond his famous name. Others before me have soundly refuted it. (Most damningly, if Sagan's idea was right we'd expect people born by caesarean to report far fewer, if any, tunnel experiences. But people removed from the womb surgically are as likely to report tunnels as those born by vaginal delivery.) We’re well past the point, though, where simply knocking Sagan’s argument down is enough. I think we need to ask ourselves a further question:Namely, why did Sagan ever propose such an obvious nonstarter of an idea?My proposed answer is at once simple and surely incendiary for those who revere Sagan as a scientist, thinker and skeptic.You ready?He liked it.In fact, Sagan liked the idea so much he wrote an entire essay, “The amniotic universe,” describing how “birth trauma” and repressed memories thereof might influence us in various ways throughout our lives. More to the point, as a committed skeptic and non-theist he was so predisposed to dismiss the prospect of life after death that he was willing, even eager, to subject the NDE to the rigorous critical thinking skeptics like to proclaim. Problem is, once he had an “explanation” he liked he clearly shut his own critical faculties off.This is how the human machine often works, leading us to commit to the answers that best fit our worldview. And this state of affairs makes true Fringe-ology—determining what we really know about the subjects we push to the fringe—tremendously difficult at best. Of course, being aware that we have a problem here is half the battle. And the Sagan example strikes me as foundational in understanding that in discussions of the paranormal, we—believers and unbelievers alike—are up against ourselves, our common humanity, our inclination to support our pre-existing beliefs.What we might do about this is a subject for a later time…What I'd Like#1Member since: 16 August 2006Last activity: 2 weeks 4 daysPosted by RealityTest on 15 Jul 2011 at about 03:53.Although I've had one lone and somewhat frightening OOBE and found myself lucidly dreaming on rare occasions, I've never had an NDE. It's entirely possibly that the closest I'll ever come to having such an experience will be my DE (Near Death Experience with the 'Near' deleted).I believe the DE is inextricably bound with the BE (Birth Experience) but can't prove it.I've yet to read of NBEs, but then I suppose it's possible that they exist, too; meanwhile, in line with my beliefs, I would not be surprised were studies to firmly demonstrate that those who have BEs inevitably have DEs, without exception.I'd like to see a theory of NDEs created by someone who has actually had such an experience, not someone who merely observes the experience of others and records their impressions and beliefs.Perhaps such versions already exist, but were they created by anyone of Carl Sagan's stature? Were any of the theorists well versed in the methods and analyses of science?What if Sagan had had an NDE, then theorized about it?Bill I.Bienvenido#2Member since: 12 April 2007Last activity: 40 min 21 secPosted by red pill junkie on 16 Jul 2011 at about 00:18.Hello Steve-o! Welcome to the Grail :)I listened to the the interview you had at the Mysterious Universe podcast, and I highly recommend it to all members of the TDG community (click here to listen). It definitely picked my interest concerning your latest book, since you adopt the very same 'excluded middle' approach to Fortean phenomena that we favor on this site.I agree with you that the problem with all these head-scratching phenomena is that we all want to get some easy answers that will satisfy our preconceived worldview. IMO the moment we reach a point when we believe we know a certain subject, that's the moment we stop to think, and we diligently add that 'knowledge' into our personal Credo.I began to think in this manner thanks to this wonderful movie, a must-see in the list of any Grailer worth his salt ;)(The whole clip is awesome, but the juicy part begins at 8:46)PS: Don't y'all wish you've had that lovely lady as your Physics teacher in High school? :P—It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me... It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!Red Pill Junkie _______________ @red_pill_junkieThis guy is a breath of fresh#3Member since: 18 July 2011Last activity: 2 years 4 weeksPosted by Tim on 18 Jul 2011 at about 13:17.This guy is a breath of fresh air. Perfect to deal with these issues and I will be definitely buying his book.I know two people who#4Member since: 18 September 2007Last activity: 15 hours 56 minPosted by emlong on 19 Jul 2011 at about 17:17.I know two people who experienced vividly recalled NDE's. Both of them say that they no longer doubt that death is but a change of state and that something continues on uninterruptedly. Both of them are fairly free with story, have told it a lot and therefore have often been confronted with the allegation that they were just experiencing an hallucination. Both them reply that it did indeed have the feeling of having been an hallucination but that they also came away from the experience with the feeling that waking life was also an halluncination, and that what is most durable about both life pre and post death is the most hallucinatory aspects. In other words, it is the hallucination that continues on after death.from the National-Notions-Dept.#5Member since: 14 April 2009Last activity: 17 weeks 1 dayPosted by Inannawhimsey on 19 Jul 2011 at about 19:55.Something I'll take away from this is that it reads like those 2 people found MEANING in their experience and that, to sustain that meaning, they feel the need to make the experience 'continue on after death'?Just like the notion that organized religion's "G_d" being personal and somewhere 'out there' making it easier for the believer to maintain the MEANING and belief.Just some mental riffing out loud, here.—--------- All that lives is holy, life delights in life.--William BlakeLife is the hallucination#6Member since: 12 June 2009Last activity: 9 hours 15 minPosted by Greg H. on 26 Jul 2011 at about 06:41.Emlong wrote, "two people who experienced vividly recalled NDE's...came away from the experience with the feeling that waking life was also an halluncination, and that what is most durable about both life pre and post death is the most hallucinatory aspects."This would be expected if consciousness survives physical death. Once freed from the constraints of our physical senses and 3 dimensional restrictions, time and space become limitless to us as anecdotally evidenced by testimonials from near death experiencers. While consciously aware and existing within this new reality, the old reality of physical life must fade to a dream-like quality - i.e. hallucination, exactly like awakening from a dream to realize that your vivid experiences occurred in your sleep, hence were hallucinations of the mind.Pity the poor skeptics who are trapped into abandoning critical thinking since there is no testable way to disprove the realities of conscious experience. Skeptical open-mindedness - the middle ground is the only reasonable ground to occupy and while the extremists at the ends consider the middle the easiest path, in reality it is the most uncertain and bravest path to occupy since its travelers must admit their ignorance, their uncertainty and their entertaining both possibilities - the one they prefer and the one they fear. Believers and skeptics alike find comfort and safety in their hardlines and justify the absence of critical thinking because the they just aren't up to the alternative...—Greg H.Steve on Skeptiko#7Member since: 26 June 2005Last activity: 1 week 1 hourPosted by kamarling on 19 Jul 2011 at about 18:31.Today I listened to the podcast of Steve's interview with Debotah Blum, author of Ghost Hunters. What a pleasure to find two journalist/authors willing to risk their reputations by venturing into the "Tin Hat" zone of the paranormal.Dave.Reputation??? Tin#8Member since: 18 September 2007Last activity: 15 hours 56 minPosted by emlong on 20 Jul 2011 at about 05:03.Reputation??? Tin Hat????This subject has progessed beyond such stigmas in general.I bow ...#9Member since: 26 June 2005Last activity: 1 week 1 hourPosted by kamarling on 20 Jul 2011 at about 06:43.emlong wrote:Reputation??? Tin Hat????This subject has progessed beyond such stigmas in general.I bow to your obviously superior assessment of the current situation - who could dispute such a bold statement of fact? Nevertheless, if you were to listen to the podcast I was describing, it might be clear as to why I used those words.In support of your point, however, Deborah does say that her reputation probably has not suffered unduly because of writing Ghost Hunters. Conversely, she also makes the point that colleagues and scientists who had a paranormal experience to relate to her would do so in private - they don't dare do so in public. Sheldrake has said the same about friends and colleagues in the "establishment".Dave.The "second head" look#10Member since: 13 July 2011Last activity: 1 year 16 weeksPosted by Steve Volk on 20 Jul 2011 at about 11:22.Hi everyone,Thanks for all of these thoughtful responses.I think, unfortunately, the tin hat thing still applies. There are lots of examples of this in the book. But for one, I submitted a survey to the members of the parapsychological association in which they reported being discriminated against on their university campuses for studying psi. And on a personal note, for the last few years, ever since I began telling friends and colleagues about writing my plan to write Fringe-ology, I have received what I call the "second head look." In other words, people react as if I had just grown a second head. They even look me up and down and reappraise me. I've also gotten wind of conversations going on behind my back, ever since the book was released in June. What gets said? In short people who have given the book a chance have advised colleagues who thought I'd lost the plot to take a look at the finished product. They like it and feel it was responsibly done, etc. But you can see that these sorts of conversations would not happen at all unless there is some risk involved in a journalist reporting on paranormal topics. Deborah also had an advantage over me, securing a Pulitzer for science reporting long before she ever wrote Ghost Hunters.Will the tin hat thing change or has it already changed somewhat?Well, if it has changed it hasn't changed enough.That's a big part of why I went ahead and wrote the book. The stigma associated with these topics is itself silly. Too many people report these odd happenings for the rest of us to not take them seriously. Whether we develop mundane explanations of what they saw or ultimately land on more exotic, "paranormal" causes is, in this sense, beside the point.I believe skeptics themselves say this to justify all the books they have published over the years through Paul Kurtz. But if they really acted on it I think they would approach the topic very differently. I think ridicule would be replaced by compassion. In reporting Fringe-ology, I discovered a great many people who I think had fooled themselves into thinking they had experienced something strange when they hadn't; and I met a bunch who I believe really had been confronted by something odd and as yet unexplained. I felt for them both. Part of that is the nature of being a reporter, at least for me. I insist on empathizing with the people I write about as part of the exercise, and in both instances I saw people just doing the best they could to deal with their experience.Thanks again for the responses. And of course feel free to keep the conversation going. I hope to send in part II to the Grail next week.—Best, Steve V.In the staid world of tenure#11Member since: 18 September 2007Last activity: 15 hours 56 minPosted by emlong on 21 Jul 2011 at about 22:53.In the staid world of tenure and the groves of Academe it may be that discussion of such things is considered to be "tin foil hat," but in the wider world it has not. I suppose my real point was that academic and research cliques no longer represent some ultimate reality in the minds of most of us.Thanks for that article! 'But#12Member since: 17 July 2011Last activity: 37 weeks 4 daysPosted by Spid0r on 22 Jul 2011 at about 15:57.Thanks for that article!'But in short, brain-based explanations require skeptics to develop a working model explaining how the different circumstances NDErs find themselves in at the time of their experience produce predictable changes in the content and character of what they report.'The biggest problem with that approach is that it first would have to prove that consciousness is indeed bound to neural-/brain-activity which is far from having happened. The opposite is clearly indicated by such cases in which there was a clinical observance of no brain activity at all - with a simultaneously occurring OBE. These cases exist and are solid proof against any of the brain-based explanations for NDEs and consciousness.Another phenomenon that is very revealing in this regard is spoken about in Dr. Moody's book, Glimpses of Eternity. I was not yet able to read it but it contains research about 'shared' NDEs - people who are physically present at the moment of death of someone also experience strange things such as lights... etc..Hi Steve, I'm in the middle#13Member since: 22 July 2011Last activity: 2 years 4 weeksPosted by ewargo on 22 Jul 2011 at about 20:40.Hi Steve,I'm in the middle of your book right now, and enjoying it immensely. And this is a great article!I made a similar argument recently about Sagan's rejection of the UFO evidence -- basically, that a world full of flying saucers simply went against his cosmic aesthetic (what I called "the scientific sublime"), and didn't really have to do with any serious consideration of the evidence. I still can't help revering the man for instilling in me his awe at the immensity of things, but as you might say, when it came to UFOs, he just didn't like it.The article is here, if you are interested: http://thenightshirt.com/?p=988Cheers! EricHG Live! (The H.G. Wells Talk Show)#14Member since: 16 August 2006Last activity: 2 weeks 4 daysPosted by RealityTest on 27 Jul 2011 at about 02:11.There is no HG Live! featuring talk show host H.G. Wells interviewing folks like Lord Beaverbrook and C.P. Scott on, say, the News of the World/Rupert Murdoch situation; no one has yet found a way to enable non-physical personalities to transmit data to our Internet such that such a show might be seen on YouTube, not yet, anyway, as far as I know. Who knows if anything like this shall ever appear? (I am discounting very brief "EVP" snippets discovered after listening to hours and hours of mostly hiss on antique tape recorders.)On the other hand, we still have traditional forms of mediumship, and the newer style of trance writing using a computer keyboards.It strikes me that even if there is no Wells show, with the shade of Carl Sagan responding to Wells' questions regarding the nature of NDEs, someone _might_ attempt to access Sagan and inquire of his current views on this subject...This might prove to be very interesting.Bill I.Proving the NDE#15Member since: 28 July 2011Last activity: 2 years 3 weeksPosted by lostsole on 28 Jul 2011 at about 21:33.To Steve:I left religion due to studying literally thousands of NDE’s over the last decade. It shifted everything about my life dramatically and how I view the very strong possibility of the after life. I felt over time of reading so many I had some interesting views that helped to verify the NDE as a legitimate experience beyond earth. Thus, I sent them to Jeff Long who had a NYT best seller on NDE’s. He agreed my thoughts were unique and was going to put the concept into his next book.Here is another version summary of my observations I recently sent to a doubting friend below. I personally feel it verifies the NDE as legitimate more so then just the OBE initially in the recovery room and people seeing they saw and/or heard something.I put together some of the usual NDE material initially in this essay below and then move into my observations towards the end.My summary sent to a friend:Looking in depth at Near Death Experiences we have the following attributes:Millions world wide have had them, “According to a Gallup poll, approximately eight million Americans claim to have had a near-death experience.”The NDE is not prone to one group, it is diverse and happens to all races, all ages and all belief groups with very similar general aspects of the experience being shared between these diverse groups, why? The skeptic would have you believe that it is caused by hallucinations caused by an oxygen starved brain or other “meatless” theories. No, sorry, I don’t buy it and we will cover more about that later.Many NDE’s occur in a verifiable environment, i.e. Doctor is performing surgery, heart beat and/or brain waves are absent, there are no medically verifiable degrees of consciousness, yet, the individual by some method, gains a perspective from outside of their un-conscious body, and hears things they should not be able to hear, sees things they should not be able to see and quite often this can even be in a completely different room or area. In each case their out of body observation is accurate, why?There are literally thousands of such cases, both historically and currently. More are happening all the time, why?Let us break down the primary aspects that occur in the deeper NDE’s, where the person goes out beyond the local out of body experience to have additional experiences.Common Aspects of Deeper NDE’s- A light being is usually present, either mentally or in actual view. The light being typically represents a figure head that is most prominent in their belief system, i.e. Jesus, Budah, etc.- The light being is typically the “director” or “guide” of their experience.- They are often shown a summary of their entire life, dubbed the “life review.” This aspect is important so we will cover more on this later.- Telepathy is always the means of communication in the thousands of NDE’s I read personally. (There could be an exception out there?)- There is a sense that time does not exist, that where they are at is an eternal “now” moment, or that time is simply frames like on a movie reel that give the illusion of moving through something but are actually just still shots collected together, in a sense. New Quantum physics theories are coming closer to possibly proving this to be true. (See “Through the Wormhole Is Time an Illusion? TV series”)- They often are able to see in 360 degree views.- They are often told the quote “it is not your time, you must go back.”- They see colors and hear music that is not identifiable on earth and thus cannot describe it to us.- They learn, typically, that God does not judge them, they judge themselves.- There is no hell or devil, save that which they create themselves.- They at times learn, that just like on earth, there are many aspects, communities, social groups, layers, etc. to “heaven” so to speak. It is diverse like earth, there is NOT “one group” that is the master group of truth. There are, rather, countless groups! THUS, in a sense, everyone is right and gravitates “post life” to those groups that most strongly resonate with HOW they choose to believe. BUT, if they want to explore other belief systems, just like here on earth, they can. Thus, all religion or whatever belief system, is true within various dimensions until there is nobody left believing it.- Overwhelming love and peace that cannot be described in earthly terms by them upon return.- A blinding white light that is brighter than the sun yet does not hurt their eyes.- A tunnel of light.- Access to unlimited knowledge- In some cases, seeing the future and it is accurate later on- Meeting deceased relatives, or in the case of children’s NDE’s meeting deceased relatives whom they have never met, yet accuratley describing them upon return.Here is a statistics list of percentage of occurances of NDE elements that one website put together per the 50 analysed.NDE and Afterlife Statistics (50 NDEs) Overwhelming love (69%) Mental telepathy (65%) Life review (62%) God (56%) Tremendous ecstasy (56%) Unlimited knowledge (46%) Afterlife levels (46%) Told not ready (46%) Shown the future (44%) Tunnel (42%) Jesus (37%) Forgotten knowledge (31%) Fear (27%) Homecoming (21%) Told of past lives (21%) Hell (19%) City of light (17%) Temple of Knowledge (13%) Spirits among the living (10%) Suicide (6%) Devil (0%) http://www.near-death.com/experiences/ev...Regarding the life review, I found it the most amazing of all. When I read the first few back in the day, they brought me to tears, because it was how I had always wanted to believe heaven was, versus how I was taught heaven was. (Granted now, I don’t believe in a “heaven” per-say, it is far more grand than the standard “heaven.”)The typical life review has the following components:You are shown your entire life, every nano second of it, frame by frame all at once. You are multi-dimensional, thus you can view it all at once.Typically, a light being is with you during the process, they DO NOT judge you, you judge yourself. (Although my current beliefs from my studies, are that you only think you have to judge yourself.)You are shown how you impacted every form of life, most of all your human brothers and sisters. When you are shown your interactions with others, you are both simultaneously inside your own body AND inside their body, experiencing what you feel and what you are causing them to feel be it good or bad. Thus you come away with knowing the true impact of every action you ever took in your life… BUT, it gets better..Not only do you step inside their experience you caused, but, you see how what you started causes a chain reaction that moves out in an energetic wave throughout society. If you kicked your dog, then the dog is mad, who then bites the postman, who now is mad and goes home and yells at his wife, who then yells at the kids, you are shown how that initial impact you made, went out and impacted so many. You feel your actions of all your started, good and bad, sort of like the old movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”Think of Hitler’s life review. Pretty much everyone wants this guy in the worst of hells! To me, he would have gone through hell, BECAUSE, in his life review, he would have had to step into the millions of people he killed and felt every ounce of their pain, both physical and emotional. He then would have had to step into their lineage and everyone else on earth impacted by such soulless devastation, which would be just about everyone on earth that was hurt by him.Putting a positive spin on it, Mother Theresa or Princess Diana, etc. likely would have had a very pleasant life review as they saw their positive actions and felt them literally, ripple out in waves across the world.The life review puts the focus on when you showed unconditional genuine love in your life. In most people’s review, this is not very often. One man speaks of how he was shown, the only time in his life he showed genuine unconditional love is when he watered a small flower growing in the crack of his side walk for no particular reason, other then to just let it grow.And just think, all of the above going on in your biologically dead brain! All of this strange and utterly bizarre (yet cool as hell) review of our lives that no average person ever thought of or was taught in any Sunday School class, ever! Yet, these normal folks all come up with this similar concept? WHY?Almost all folks that go through a NDE and life review come back to earth fundamentally changed. Quite often they drop religion and take on more general spiritual views that are non-denominational. They lose all fear of death.Atheists have had NDE’s and theirs are quite often the most interesting to read.I have read just about every skeptical argument of why the NDE is a process of a dying brain according to materialists, etc. None of them hold water. Occam’s razor says to lean towards the more simple logic. I think the simple logic is that they are real.Jeffrey Long is an avid M.D., NDE researcher whom is well renowned. His book, “Evidence of The Afterlife” is a New York Times best seller.I felt I had studied enough NDE’s to write Jeffrey a letter a year or so ago. I wanted to share with him some of my observations to see if he had the same ideas. Oddly enough he had never put together what I had and was excited to put it into his next book. This made me feel good.I’ll share with you what I shared with Jeffrey.As stated, the skeptics believe that these incredibly consistent and amazing experiences that completely change people’s lives are merely an illusion of a dying brain. Okay, then explain the following:Most NDE’s are typical people with typical religious beliefs. We have already shown that indeed they often feel they meet Jesus, or angels they believe in, etc.Most folks, particularly the older NDE’s back in the 70′s or 80′s are like me, in that they had NEVER been exposed to any sort of New Age type spirituality or Eastern religious type ideologies. Before the internet, typical folks did not hear a lot about metaphysical types of beliefs, save little dabbles of it in Hollywood movies.Having said that, not only do we have these very similar elements that link all NDE’s as described above, BUT, we also have people learning “metaphysical” types of beliefs, consistently, of which THEIR BRAINS have never been exposed to! THUS, how do the dying brains of all these people, including children just make this stuff up, consistently as a group??If you were blind for life and have never seen the color red, you don’t die and then suddenly your brain knows what it is from a materialistic point of view.Thus, for most people and again, particularly children, why do their dying brains suddenly seem to learn new knowledge without previously being exposed to such knowledge on a mass scale of NDE’s that have been examined:1. Living in the “now”moment, there is no time. (Metaphysics – no regular person thinks in these terms, only quantum physicists.) 2. Layers of heaven, vibrational group frequencies, and even numerology in some cases (Metaphysics and very opposite all western religion.) 3. Speaking in telepathy (Metaphysics, why would the dying brain not show the illusion in typical speaking language we use ever day with our mouths?) 4. God does not judge us (Metaphysics, also opposite of all western religion.) 5. There is no devil or hell except that which you create for yourself. (Metaphysics, apposite again of religion. What is with the opposite beliefs in these experiences??) 6. Relatives they meet are always deceased, not living relatives (Why would the dying brain illusion not show living relatives as well if it is only an illusion from a biological brain?) 7. Unconditional love when you get “there” is not what people think it to be. Thus, why is the brain making up what it does not know in regards to love? 8. Introductions to reincarnation when they have no compulsion to believe in reincarnation. 9. Universal “oneness” of all life, spirit, universe, etc. (Metaphysical) 10. The LIFE REVIEW is mind blowing and simply is not a concept in any avg Joe or Sally’s brain. Why are people who have deeper NDE’s have this experience, with very common elements of the life review? It is not taught anywhere on earth that I am aware of, except the NDE. Sure, the modern folks with the internet may have heard of it, but even then, you really have to study them to get the finer points. Dying brains simply don’t make this stuff up between diverse groups of people, sorry.. 11. Colors and sounds you cannot describe here. Why would many people describe this collectively?Taking all of the above and considering them as a group with many people having quite a few of the above elements, it is simply stunning to think someone says this is a bunch of meat brains making stuff up.. Crazy talk!!There are more, but you get the gist.Overall, the NDE is quite decidedly NON Christian or any other religion, despite that many see “Jesus. (There is a good bit of Eastern spirituality based concepts however.) thus it goes to follow, why is almost everyone who has a deeper NDE, having the opposite experience of what their life long conditioning is, if this is JUST a matter of their dying biological brain according to skeptics? Occam’s razor would lead us to, many brains don’t just suddenly, consistently make up such a sheer number of contrary, opposite or even non-existent beliefs to the brains experiences, sorry..Then you have children, who have not been pre-disposed to many religious concepts and most likely have never in their life heard of metaphysical concepts far more so than adults. Even the kids are having metaphysical types of revelations or which they have no exposure.The modern death and revival of tens of thousands of my every day common citizens and other world people’s from all walks of life, who COLLECTIVELY, without their realization, without agenda, particularly children, whom have not even begun “the conditioning” they have a message, or puzzle to piece together, from the “great beyond” that with enough study, it quite absolutely shows, that there is something past this life, but it is not what we thought it to be, it is actually a lot better and makes a “hell” of a lot more sense then what religion has told us for thousands of years via archaic books that are unsubstantiated.And the skeptics, well, their explanations are embarrassing, for them..See More