Dancing Past the Dark ~ distressing near-death experiences

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What is the function of a distressing NDE, #3

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Over-commitment is not a wise choice when beginning a conversation that requires focus and time. That said by way of an apology, let me get back to my question about the function of distressing near-death experience.

Two emails have arrived in my in-box almost simultaneously, both bearing on this question. In one of them, a friend says:

“Some of the gold that has settled to the bottom of the pan for me, is the idea that faith is simultaneously a duality of two very strongly opposed forces that tear at our existence in exactly the same way it does in nature. And it is this duality that creates the tragic, joyful, soul-saving tension that is both our salvation and our damnation.

“It is critically important to understand that this duality is not, in totality, a blessing or a curse. In physics, light has the duality of being simultaneous both wave and particle. In the cat in the box example, the cat may be considered to be simultaneously alive and dead. Since in both cases, the duality is simultaneous and co-existent, it is indeterminate; it cannot be thought of as one state vs. another. The two states are not only coexistent, they are mutually dependent and mutually exclusive. Each state exists only because the other exists and at the same time, it exists in concert and opposition to its other. Every decision we make, no matter how large or how small is our own. And no matter which side of the duality we choose, there is immediate tension and conflict from the other side.”

The other email is from another friend, NDE researcher Jim McCartney. From a context quite different than that of my friend quoted above, he comments on “an intimately entangled universe pointing toward consciousness as the basis of all, a picture increasingly shared by scientists and mystics.”

He points to the well documented fact that, in contrast to the assumptions of conventional thinking, “Some people who have NDEs or undergo extreme trauma, over time exhibit not only resiliency, but significant growth, even though they may remain physically, mentally or circumstantially compromised. In fact, people transforming their life through crisis can be readily identified:

  • “Greater compassion and empathy for others
  • “New and greater strength (psychological toughness/resilience)
  • “Greater psychological/emotional maturity
  • “A recognition of vulnerability and struggle, and a deeper appreciation of life
  • “New values and life priorities (less materialistic, heightened intimacy in relationships)
  • “Greater existential or spiritual clarity”

Notice that he does not say whether the trigger will be pleasant or negative; in fact, it may be either. The key element in this is crisis. The precipitating event could be any revolutionizing situation—NDE, divorce, terrible medical procedure (especially in children), combat incident, spontaneous spiritual experience, natural disaster—any event that is presents as a crisis, a point of disjuncture. In NDE terms, crisis is the situation itself, whether it involves a blasting away of previous assumptions by way of a trip to what might be heaven or the destruction of assumptions about the reality of existence by way of a distressing NDE.

The crisis, which may be either joyful or anguished, precipitates movement toward the integration that  is described in my other friend’s comments —“the tragic, joyful, soul-saving tension that is both our salvation and our damnation.” It is, indeed, the “intimately entangled universe.”

My friend concludes:

“But do not be deceived about one thing. This shadow thru which we must pass is not a twilight, it is an absolute darkness, a total lack of light. And what is more significant, once one has entered this darkness, and we all must, it is impossible to go back out the way you came in. Either you wander forever in perfect perpetual darkness, that has the dualistic appearance of light, or you move toward the inevitable reality. It is inevitable because, in the end of all things, it will be resolved. You cannot see where you are going, yet you must try to go. You must ask questions that you do not understand and accept answers that are an enigma. In a metaphysical sense, we must render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.
“As Rabbi Gellman wrote, the only resolution will come when our souls stand before God in judgment after death. Only then will we understand. Only then will the materialistic physical be melted away, the darkness abolished, and the only reality left will be true, eternal light. The duality will be gone.”
I couldn’t have said it as well. In the meantime, there is the tension, and the work of integrating it.

What is the function of a distressing NDE, 2

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It finally dawned on me that I was going to have to say something intelligible in response to my own question, which caught me under-prepared, just when life itself got over-busy. Therefore, my apologies for the delay in posting part two of this topic. Excuses! Many thanks for your thoughtful and interesting comments. Feel free (as some of you surely will) to help me sort through my own thinking.

The question was/is: What is the function of a distressing near-death experience? The honest answer, of course, is rather like the answer to “Is there a God?” because none of us, now or ever, has had a provable reply. What is the function? I don’t know. However, that is not quite the same as saying, “I haven’t a clue”; and as four thousand years or so of theological debate have neither definitively answered the question about God nor exhausted the conversation, I figure we can at least take a crack at the NDE question.

It seems to me that even before approaching an answer, we have to recognize three preliminary factors: first, antiquity; second, conventional wisdom; third, the power of emotion;

Antiquity.  I am convinced that it was experiences like the most deeply torment-filled NDEs that supported, ages ago, the development of doctrines of hell. The mistake that was made, and it is entirely understandable and is still made, is that, because the event is experienced as so phenomenally real, it was and is also interpreted as literally, materially real. Add to this the empirical reality of volcanoes, demonstrating to the ancients that there really is fire underground. The perceived reality of the story-told events, coupled with the empirical reality of molten fires, became and becomes a matter of geography rather than experience, which leaves us with the Hell of legend, which is how it wound up in Holy Writ. If that is the way you choose to interpret this whole question, you will recognize that I am about to take a road less traveled.

Whether one believes or dismisses the traditional idea, humanity is now by and large pinned against the wall of its own consciousness by the millennia-old and nearly universal conception that there is a more or less tangible place or condition of hideous torments waiting after death as punishment for whatever we have done wrong in life. Even when arguing rationally or even atheistically against the concept, the very existence of the argument acknowledges it as a living idea; believed or not, the concept sits like a scowling potential somewhere in our mental set.

The second preliminary observation is about the conventional wisdom, thoroughly entrenched in human consciousness by the time the story of Job was written. The conventional wisdom says that good people get good experiences, and bad people get bad ones. If you have fortune, health, people who love you, a good job, an iPad, you must be a deserving person; and if you’re broke, sick, alone, unemployed, and non-digitized, you must be a no-good, lazy bum. If you’re happy, you’re on the good side of the universe/God; if you’re suffering, you must deserve it. Right? Hah. That’s the problem with the conventional wisdom: that it’s wrong as often as it’s right. Maybe oftener. Having a distressing NDE says absolutely nothing in that sense about the person who has it. Oh, yes, it’s about the person, but not in the judgmental sense implied by reward-punishment thinking. More on this in the next post.

Third preliminary observation: What keeps the concept, like the events themselves, pinned so strongly in us is the same aspect of consciousness that keeps any near-death experience stable and lifelong in memory—the power of the emotional charge. A genuine, transcendent, full-blown spiritual and/or near-death experience carries an earthquake’s worth of emotional charge. When distressing NDEs are the topic, the sheer dread (terror, fear, angst, whatever) of our death anxiety, which is the terror of annihilation of our personal self, is augmented by the awe-full guilt we felt when our parents caught us in the wrong, when we think (if we do) of Original Sin, when we were called to the principal’s office, when our boss calls us on the carpet, when our superego growls to us, “I’ve been telling you, bad, bad, bad.”

When this powerful charge is joined with preliminary observations #1 and #2, the stage is set for a catastrophic interpretation, an identification of hell, that spans cultures. Like looking at a tree limb overhead on a wilderness trail and seeing a mountain lion poised to spring, civilization itself can be held motionless by contemplation of the traditional hell. We are paralyzed by an ontological fear, unable to think straight.

Lousy. Terror and guilt are a toxic combination; yet this is so wired into our systems, it is almost impossible to escape. It is crippling. The remedy, I believe, is to learn that there actually are other ways of thinking—and then to think them.  [To be continued]

What is the function of a distressing NDE?

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What is the function of a distressing near-death experience? The function of a distressing near-death experience is to deliver:

A)   A foretaste of punishment after death

B)    (related to A) An external judgment on the quality of one’s life

C)    A subconscious judgment by oneself on the quality of one’s life

D)   Neither a prediction nor judgment but a symbolically coded message about something of importance to one’s life

E)    [Other. Your suggestion]

Think about this a bit; please feel free to comment with your ideas. Within a few days I’ll post more about the question. It would be good to have your thoughts in the mix.

Please note: In the interest of not wasting anyone’s time, “A meaningless hallucination” is not included in that list.

 

 

Is Atheism the New Normal?

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Is Atheism the New Normal?.

Mind you, I am not claiming this, merely sharing an intriguing post that I just stumbled upon in another blog. (Click the link above to go there.) Developmental psychologists, take note. Also interesting, of course, relative to the interpretation of near-death experiences, whether glorious or horrendous. How much of our interpretation of NDEs is rooted in assumptions about divine reward and punishment, and what different understandings might arise from an atheistic perspective? What would be gained? What lost?  And for those of us who are not atheist, what is our response to this prospect of, say, 5,000 years of humanity without God?

A take on life school

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Dave has sent a comment to the post about Osama Bin Laden’s death, saying in part:

…Therefor, why not take it that this [life and death] is an intended process that we, and all other living things are subjected to. If this truly is the case, stop judging this process that forges on ahead whether we like it, agree with it, or not. Instead, accept it as it is, study it, and learn from it. This means dump all the religious dogma that we’ve been hampered with, albeit that some truth is contained within. However, real truth cannot be fully convayed by mere words, it’s something you feel, and enables you to act accordingly.

The real truth we seek is found through sensing the creative force within us (God), and from that perspective, experiencing this process (school) that we’re all involved in…

Every one of the enduring religious traditions has originated not in the intellectualized rules of a religious dogma but in the personal experiences of a single individual. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism–all began with an individual who so powerfully felt and studied his own encounters with that creative force that other people were drawn to hear and then follow, from which sprang teachings–which, because human beings love to keep memorabilia so they won’t forget, became formalized into dogma.

Always, at the center, is the clear spring of encounter. It is our task to remember that doctrine is simply the clothing of direct and intensely personal experience, and to apply to our own experiences the same careful study and discernment  that will prove them worth keeping. Really knowing a religious tradition and understanding deeply how it works can be a big help with this. (It’s more than being bossed around!)