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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:

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.

This is for those of you who missed RabbitDawg’s response to “Is Atheism the New Normal?” I’ll have a post of my own shortly.

RabbitDawg said, “Then again, there’s always ‘Paranormal is the New Normal’…”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-volk/paranormal-is-the-new-nor_1_b_872677.html

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?

There’s been such a mix of responses to the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death, and now a couple of people have asked me whether I think he had a hellish NDE.

First,  belief in “God-as-karma,” otherwise known as “People get what they deserve,” points to our looking for a sense of justice. Where does it come from? It seems to be part of the intrinsic human makeup, at least after a rudimentary developmental level. In individual terms, developmental psychology indicates that somewhere between the ages of 3 and 8, kids just naturally develop a sense of fairness, whether in cookie distribution, levels of discipline, or a myriad of other situations. In species developmental terms, the first known, written legal code (Hammurabi, c. 1750 BCE), defined an elemental sense of justice almost 4,000 years ago. It shows up in the Torah (Ten Commandments and assorted elements of law in Deuteronomy and Leviticus), and in worldwide oral traditions.

In fact, the instinct for justice is universal, even across some species. Interestingly enough, I read a review recently of the book Wild Justice, a study showing that mammals have a moral sense. One study has shown that laboratory animals also react negatively to unfairness in the distribution of rewards. So, a sense of justice clearly seems to be part of our wiring and no doubt serves a vital role in the survival of relationships in social groups. On the larger scale, then, in order to maintain civilization, we need there to be fairness, justice. People should get what they have coming, good or bad.

But does wanting the world to be just make it so? No. What works well in building social relationships breaks down in the reality of circumstances in the physical world. Here, Joplin, Missouri and Tuscaloosa, Alabama are torn apart, babies and all. Some people spend decades imprisoned for acts they did not commit. Innocent people suffer anguish at the whim of Osama Bin Laden, who winds up in a million-dollar villa. Considering everything he’s done to other people, shouldn’t we want him to suffer, even to suffer forever?

It seems to me helpful to hear what so many people who have had an affirmative near-death experience say about judgment. What they report defies easy description. Tens of thousands of accounts have been reported in the past three decades, many of them including portrayal of a life-review, a nearly instantaneous run-through and evaluation of everything they had done in their life that had hurt or benefitted other living beings. The key is that in the life review they not only witnessed their actions but experienced their effects. In short, the pain and joy a person had given over the years was the cumulative pain and joy experienced in the review—what goes around, comes around. God-as-karma? And if the experience of review/judgment can be that powerful for ordinary people, what would it be for a Bin Laden? Think of all that pain, that grief and torment! Yeah, he gets hell.

But…

Although the experiencers report how vividly they felt the pain they had inflicted, and their regret for it, rarely do they explain it as punishment; rather, it was more a balancing. The most common response over the years has been a feeling of being overwhelmed by understanding—a life-changing “Oh, now I get it,” “I see how it all works, how I could have done things differently.” Yes, they feel the pain and their own guilt, but it is less significant than the enormity of the revelation of what life could be—could have been—when lived out of compassion and love.

I have never heard one of these life-review accounts described in terms of a place of fearful judgment, nor of a time sequence of punitively imposed eternal suffering (and in a timeless afterlife, what would be “everlasting,” anyway?) What matters is that shattering understanding, far from vengeance, that is typically a stunning experience of comprehension—pain, regret, “getting it,” and an understanding turned on its head.

To my mind, this can certainly be understood as both the wrath and the love of God, as psychologist Richard Beck keeps pointing out in his blog Experimental Theology.  To quote his “Wrath of God” post last week, “[T]he accounting books of justice are not ‘balanced’ through a just world, God-as-karma mechanism. Rather, the ‘balancing’ comes through God absorbing the wound of sin, dissipating it in the Divine love… The residual of evil isn’t balanced out via karma and just deserts. Rather, it is soaked up in the love of God.”

Overwhelmingly, the great majority of near-death experiencers have maintained that what they discovered in their NDE was a compassion beyond our understanding and a love that can transform all hatreds. Of course it exceeds our human comprehension, and our egos’ greedy passion for retribution, and our insistence that God share our characteristics; but surely the Mind of God must have room for more than vindictiveness. More and more, it seems to me that we are asked not for vengeance but for transformation.

Maybe Bin Laden had a punitively hellish experience, not the life review described by so many NDErs, though I am unsure what of value that would achieve. But I am left wondering, what could be more terrible than to revisit himself and discover so directly the results of his misunderstanding?