For several months now, these blog posts have been steps on a journey which I described as “to get down underneath all the preconceptions and assumptions, all the theories and doctrines, and ask, ‘What is bedrock?’ Is it possible to get beyond overlays of supposition to something so simple I am able to trust it? Can we begin to see near-death experiences through lenses other than doctrinal or disbelieving?”
Since then, I have largely been exploring the concept of hell, which, at least in the widespread Western Christian version, looks like Dante’s Inferno. This version has been described with various degrees of sadistic theological relish since roughly the second century CE, culminating in the sixteenth century with Dante’s depiction, and is still terrorizing the millions of people who believe it represents the biblical view of God’s wrath as hell in an afterlife.
My view is that as an actual place, the infernalist hell does not exist. (Neither, I believe, does that kind of wrath exist, but that’s for a different day.) Poll after poll now shows that the majority of Westerners agree, most of them assuming that hell is merely a misguided Christian notion. However, we cannot so easily dismiss the entire concept, particularly in an age of global awareness. Eastern cultures, as well as the Christian West, share similar descriptions of afterlife judgment. A Tibetan tradition is that of the delogs.
In the words of Elizabeth Johnson, writing for Columbia University’s Asian Highlands Project, “A phenomenon known for centuries throughout Tibet and the Himalaya, “delog” refers to a man or woman who has died, traveled through the various realms between life and rebirth and then reawakens to tell the tale.” Some delogs make the journey not only once but repeatedly.
…if you look inside yourselves there are demons.
Ithaca College professor Lee Bailey, PhD, writing for the Journal of Near-Death Studies in 2001, pointed out that the descriptions of after-death delights and trials which make up the work we know as The Tibetan Book of the Dead (or Bardo Thodol) are also catalogued in the personal histories of the remarkable delogs, contemporary and historical:
“Seemingly dead for several hours or days, these people revive spontaneously and tell detailed accounts of otherworldly journeys, describing elaborate versions of Buddhist otherworldly landscapes and characters and emphasizing the moral and spiritual teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. These delogs are a bridge between contemporary near-death experiences and ancient shamanic practices.”
The delog’s journeys, like NDEs, typically include inexpressibly beautiful landscapes of flowers, sweet fragrances, spiritual masters, and at least one report of a luminous mansion of light. Unlike contemporary NDEs, they invariably also have a distressing aspect. As Bailey reports,
“In typical accounts of delogs, as young persons they have been gravely ill and seem to be dead to those grieving around them. But instead, they later report, they had risen up above their bodies, which then they did not recognize as their own. Next these persons’ dazed souls enter into a raucous hereafter, guided by their personal deity. They are taken to meet the horrifying Lord of Death himself. They are led on a shocking tour of Hell, where they see numerous condemned souls miserably suffering punishments befitting their sins, such as the nun who hears the unending cries of her own baby whom she murdered. The anguished sinners send urgent messages back to the living, begging family to do rituals to aid in their salvation and exhorting others to live an ethical life. The astonished travelers meet deceased parents and travel to paradise. Returning to the throne of the Lord of Death, they observe the dreadful judgment of souls with a bridge, a scale, or a mirror. They themselves are judged and given a message to send back. Their consciousnesses return to their bodies on earth. They deliver the various messages and exhort all to practice their Tibetan Buddhist religion faithfully.”
One delog account from the 17th century included descriptions of terrifying divinities of yellow, red, and green, a bridge over an ocean of fire, and tied-up victims being beaten for having eaten meat. Then she was taken to meet Yama, the terrible Lord of Death.
“Protected by her personal divinity, she entered his palace and trembled as she saw his ugly, red face, wide-eyed and fanged. Wearing a tiger skin, skulls, and flames, he held the fateful mirror of existence, a sword, and water. His frightening voice rumbled like a thousand dragons. He was attended by numerous ugly, animal-headed acolytes and a nasty, little, black demon holding black pebbles signifying the sinful deeds of each poor person to be judged. But a white deity held white pebbles that would weigh against the black deeds. This vast army of beasts was chanting “execute! execute!” or whacking off the heads of the weeping victims.”
Just as today’s experiencers return with a mission, and the NDErs of Plato’s Er and the Venerable Bede bring back cautionary messages for the living, so also the delogs come back to transmit moral lessons. From a long list of Yama’s instructions to a young delog come the following, reported by Bailey:
Transmit this message to lamas: Let them attempt to be perfect guides for human beings. …Transmit this message to government functionaries: do not give without reason illegal punishments, for it is a reason to fall into hell. …Transmit this message to nuns: renounce domestic tasks and force yourselves to practice religion. …Transmit this message to the mani pa of the world: convert the royalty to Buddhism but do not exaggerate your stories. …Transmit this message to the laity: respect your parents, offer food, be sincere, do not beat animals; if you look inside yourselves there are demons. Live so that you will have no shame in my presence.
It all sounds remarkably medieval European, as Kenneth Ring noted some years back. However, whereas in the Western, Augustinian view, hell is eternal physical torment without hope of release, and the Tibetan accounts describe hellish horrors, the delog accounts reflect the Hindu and Buddhist doctrines that retributive punishment may be cumulative, but it is temporary, and rebirth is certain.
[To be continued]
I have a very hard time with this stuff. I have to admit that I resent its threatening intimidation. I don’t care which religion it comes from. It’s still one bunch of people trying to coerce another bunch of people through intimidation. This is a power play for control. and to me, nothing more. When my Wife gets mad at me and says “GO TO HELL!!, I answer…Yuh mean this isn’t it?
I practiced Tibetan Buddhism for many years, and still do, but as far less of a ‘bible-thumper’. I was amazed at how many modern, sophisticated and educated Americans took the Buddhist teachings on the Bardo literally- doing practices on the 49th day after a death (the day the dead would be reborn in a gross body of some kind).
It just seems to me that we as individuals and members of cultures condition the experience we have after physical death to some extent, but I’m interested in the commonalities. Is there a really good book on NDEs around the world? There must be people studying this very topic! Thanks
Our fascination with scientific method has led us to forgetting pretty much anything except literal interpretations. I do see this as a real problem.
The only book I’m aware of on NDEs around the world is Allan Kellehear’s “Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion.” I recommend it highly. One of my favorites.
Jeez, does it have to be continued? It is no mystery to me that this hell and judgment story is globally reported. It stems from common human experience. People want to manipulate others. People want to control the beliefs and behaviors of others. People want their ideas and opinions accepted as truth and adhered to as law. The fact that people-are-people and practice the same boorish and controlling behavior regardless of where they exist on the planet doesn’t make it spiritually insightful, it just makes it disgracefully human. For instance, the fact that there isn’t a place on the planet where women have not been, and continue to be, oppressed, subordinated and forced to exist with various forms and degrees of sexual violence and tyranny does not equate to some spiritual and universal truth about the quality, competence and autonomy of the life-giving gender. It does, however, speak to another aspect, equally despicable, of the experience of being human. Both universally human states may be overcome, but can we please stop treating them as worthy of anything but criticism and denunciation?
Yes, hellish and divine experiences exist, they happen and they should inform us — but, more often than not, gods and divinities in both religions and personal experiences are all too human and all too temporal/dated. Devils and tormentors in our religions and personal experiences are all too human and all too temporal/dated as well. We are a cat chasing its tail. Can we examine these non-ordinary experiences with surgical precision and extract from them what is not all-so-human and all-so temporal? Can we find what it is about the experience that does not pertain to human ness and temporal ness? It is akin to the “still small voice” aspect. There are hints within the experience but we cannot detect them when we are distracted by the gross and pedestrian clatter.
Kathy, you can skip reading the next post. You’re ahead of the game. Lots of folks aren’t there yet, and lots of us are still working our way through. Good points in your comment, so keep talking, please.
[To be continued]
Yama is waiting…
😀
There are good books about cross-cultural NDEs and other spiritually transformative experiences. My personal Resource Guide to current books and websites on the topic can be found at the website above. I especially want to highlight Gregory Shushan’s CONCEPTIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE IN EARLY CIVILIZATIONS; he makes the case that the NDE is the basis for belief in afterlife in early civilizations. Jeff Long’s book EVIDENCE OF THE AFTERLIFE has an excellent chapter on the consistency of NDEs world-wide.
Hi
I have just returned to this subject; my last look was in the 70s. The “bad” NDE trips are odd to say the least. This is just my 2 cents worth.
Kathy said:
People want to manipulate others. People want to control the beliefs and behaviors of others.
While the “want to” aspect is there, truth of the matter is that people like criminal narcissists and sociopaths only “want to” because of a brain malfunction. They see us – they know we are emotional – but, they aren’t because the area of the brain needed to generate that aspect of the personality, simply – doesn’t – work. Not all sociopaths are “bad” as has been shown by neuroscientist Dr James Fallon. Not only is he a full blown sociopath, he has all the genetic markers to be a killer – but he isn’t. Why? Upbringing seems to be the dividing line that makes some – go over the top.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12H7khht7o
Just taking “the afterlife” into account here, if a criminal sociopath dies, logic would dictate a criminal sociopath has appeared “on the other side.” What do they do with that?
A better example is Hitler. Hitler was a horror show, but Hitlers brain malfunctions were the real cause of his approach, finally leading to suicide.
Is he “to blame” for what he did? His inability to care about human life wasn’t a “free will” act – it was caused by a malfunctioning brain.
Psychosis, schizophrenia, depression … the list goes on and on. Are these people to be “punished” for something they had no control over if they “blow it” and do “bad” things to people?
It’s like me, I seemingly have low levels of latent inhibition, which means I think continually, and am hit with EVERYTHING I see, hear, feel, smell, and touch. Normally people block out the “unnecessary” data, but I can’t. The only thing that saves me from “going off the deep end” is that I’m self-aware. As long as I use the incoming data wisely and constructively, I’m fine. “Logic” rules my world to prevent calamity. But what if I lose the battle? Is that MY fault? No. So – if I did “bad things” after going over the top – what happens to me when I die?
Logically, I CAN SEE a “teaching period” existing, and a permanent holding for those who don’t “get it.” I can’t say – I have never “died” and have had only one OBE – that I proved with logic was “just a dream.”
All I’m saying is that brain malfunction is NOT cause for a “hell”-type life after death. Logically, it makes no sense. These people, as bad as they were, are NOT responsible for their actions. If WE (the “children” in this picture) can see that, then “higher beings” MUST know it’s true. So what’s going on?
As I commented in my email to you, and as you’ll see elsewhere in these blog posts, I believe there is more going on with the dNDEs than punishment. Glad you found your way to the blog.
I hope so … even the western religious bits that deal with the “positive” aspect that I have looked at so far are historically wrong. The only thing I can come up with is that it’s better to leave sleeping dogs lie; the error is too ingrained.
Like some others have commented it seems like we are being treated like slaves of masters who threaten us with punishment so we will be good little boys and girls. The problem being what they call being “good” seems a little fake and even evil to me. We are being blamed for who we are even though we wouldn’t be who we are without the programming we got at birth through parental and cultural abuse. Now I don’t get to know what is true but my heart tells me it’s wrong to punish someone for things they have little to any control over. That’s certainly the path of the Christian God who in the Old Testament did horrific things to innocent women and children through his “chosen” people and then tells us how to behave. And I don’t hear guys like the Dali Lama addressing the problems of pedophilia etc. within the Buddhist ranks in the same way it is hidden and denied among Catholic priests, yet he’s supposed to be an enlightened justice seeking leader we should listen to. What’s exactly going on here? Why should I believe these people? What makes them “spiritual”? Why should a good hearted compassionate lay person follow these kinds of teachers? I tend to trust my heart and it doesn’t agree with these clowns. Why was I given an inner voice/heart and then be expected not to follow it? If I go to hell I go for doing what I believe to be compassionate and just and I do that imperfectly because of how I was programmed by life. I’m amazed I’m compassionate or good at all considering what my parents did to me and what I was taught in school and what my country/culture is really about. I look on this world as being filled with serious evil doers who are all going to heaven while the average guy who refused to believe in their lies goes to hell. As one guy commented above. “Isn’t this place hell” Sure seems like it to me. Yet supposedly more punishment awaits. We sure have a nice creation to be trapped in. If there is a creator where is it’s justice? Non existent as far as I can tell and the average person who wants to tell me the “truth” seems like a sleeping sheeple to me. And often because of what they’ve been taught but god and country.
So I guess I’m doomed but I’m doomed because of what is best in me. The real evil gets a free ride IMO. As above so below.
Sorry I don’t have time right now to do this comment justice, but let me say quickly that I do not believe any of us is doomed for doing what is best in us, according to our understanding. Nor do I believe that real evil gets a free ride. Too much to discuss now. Will try to get back to this. Hope some of the rest of our stalwarts will speak up!
It is difficult work to liberate oneself from an early indoctrination that was woven into the fabric of our Being before we were able to understand, weigh, discern, contemplate, argue, explore, examine contrary evidence, and create our own stance. Children simply accept indoctrinations as true, real, and subsequently the indoctrinations operate, without scrutiny/questioning, as matter-of-fact core programming. Unless and until we arrive at “huh?”
In response to some questions you posted: you should not believe “these people” nothing makes them “spiritual” or “teachers” or correct, and I would suggest further that the narrative that you are working/fighting against is false. Imagine that… It’s just a story.
Do your own work, decide for yourself what this life is about based on your own search, research, experience, resonance, and evidences. Decide for yourself what is truth, what is meaningful, what is moral/ethical, why you are here and what purpose this experience in time serves. These questions and answers are too important not to be examined and decided by you, yourself.
With regard to J Miller’s post and Nan’s reply, our problem regarding an understanding of life’s picture has to do with a more correct look at history. This would tap the quote below by Carl Jung: “Enlightenment consists not merely in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible.”
While archeological information is important, we need to take the picture presented by this information and define it better.
We already know about “the world around us” … we complain about it every day. The question is – how far back in time can we go before this picture disappears entirely? The answer (in rounded numbers) is 12,000 years. We can get a good picture of the last 5000 rounded years because of writing – but what kind of picture does it hold? Basically, the same as today … it was all control oriented with a focus on a topic we call “religion” and an attitude that said “don’t think – just listen to what we say and follow us.”
We can look at the religions of Egypt and Sumer and dismiss them as nothing. Unfortunately, as these stories continued, and changed over time, we can’t seem to see that what WE believe is also concocted fiction built to control.
The question to ask is: What KIND of people do this? Who lives “the good life” while the “followers” live in the dirt?
Enter the interpretational approach add-on here called psychology. In essence, the term is “antisocial” and can break down into subheadings like sociopathy / narcissism / pathological liars … all who have NO EMPATHY for the common people whatsoever. They have taught people “not to think – just to follow” and today we are lost. Next question is – can we fix the picture?
If we break down this “spiritual” picture to a basic foundational approach, information suggests that when we die, we are supposed to “go somewhere.” If you lived your life like a moron, and caused trouble and grief … simply put, you “can’t go anywhere” – and you remain “here” … hence the topic we know as the “paranormal.” (And there are TONS of “first person” attacks – including little children.)
This isn’t “punishment” … this is “we don’t want you.” It’s possible that if these people ever “get it” and straighten themselves out, they could be accepted … there’s just no information to verify that.
The idea is, these people have a biologically malfunctioning brain, and “technically” are the end result of this bio-mechanical glitch. They aren’t “sent to hell” … they just aren’t wanted and are left here.
Any new and verifiable information that pops up to add to the above foundational idea is always welcomed.
The idea is, we let them in, they got REALLY bad early on and the people shut them down C 7200 BC … but “shut down” was not “eliminated” and we are where we are today because they “came back” and began what I call phase 2 … Egypt and Sumer. Over time, religious control divided between religion and what we call government. Millennia have gone by and welcome to the world we live in.
Thanks, Jim. Interesting.