The comments from Jim and Laurie, arriving chronologically close together, got me thinking about similarities in the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish scientist and philosopher, 1688-1722) and Carl Jung (Swiss psychologist and philosopher, 1875-1961). Both were strongly influenced by their Christian upbringings, and Swedenborg’s visions and writings were directed toward interpreting the Bible in what he believed to be a more correct way than that offered by tradition. (It’s continually fascinating to me to realize how much one can discover in the process, not of throwing out one’s tradition, but of challenging it at more than the level of adolescent rebellion.)
I wholeheartedly agree with Jim that anyone with an interest in distressing near-death experiences—any NDEs, actually—really ought to read Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell. It is available in online versions, handily divided into paragraph-sized readings; a big plus is that many of today’s writers might wish to write so readably.
The similarities between Swedenborg’s many visions and NDEs are so strong that Raymond Moody devoted a section of Life After Life to them, saying in part:
“Each person…shapes their own eternity to correspond with their real inner nature. Some people become irrational, driven by fear and greed. Such people are in the spiritual condition which Swedenborg called hell…a psychological condition which corresponds to the suffering we experience on Earth when we allow ourselves to be driven by the blind greed of our own egos. There are no devils in hell to inflict punishments because in the hellish spiritual state each person acts out their own malice by tormenting others.”
If it seems that, without devils, Swedenborg’s describes a tame sort of hell, go look at any list of the 50 scariest movies. Or consider the work of any organization dealing with torture. Oh, the kinds of things our minds can generate entirely on their own, no devils required!
This ties neatly but perplexingly with Laurie’s comment about the Jungian Shadow: “It’s the duality of the good we think we are vs. the bad we believe we are NOT—opposites. But it could also go the other way—our Shadow can be something GOOD in us that we are not aware of… Maybe the painful, terrifying NDE is also showing something about us we are not aware of, but need to be. Maybe the positive NDE is too, in some way. Too simplistic or mechanistic a notion perhaps; nevertheless…this experience may not be punishment or reward, but simply a fact of nature.”
Very interesting- thank you. In some ways it sheds new meaning on what Jesus said (however you understand him) that the Truth shall set you free. It seems that fear and greed are symptoms of blinding ignorance about our true nature (or fear to live it) which is rooted in universal consciousness and profound love. It seems once a personunderstands and embraces their true shelves they are free. Free from the enslaving shackles of ego and fear.
Thanks for letting me vent. As a philopher at heart it’s refreshing to read your thought-provoking article. Thanks again.
Nancy,
I’ve been waiting until you to place a post detailing your own distressing NDE before I brought the following situation/question up, but then, your blog is shaping up to be a serious discussion about distressing NDE’s, as opposed to being concerned with self promotion. In other words, to your credit, it’s about the subject instead of being all about you. My problem is that this may never come up in one of your posts, so please allow me to tuck it in here:
In Chris Carter’s book Science and the Near Death Experience, he lists three types of ‘disturbing’ NDE’s. 1.) The Meaningless Void, 2.) Inverted Near Death Experiences and 3.) Hellish NDE’s.
When describing the Meaningless Void type of experience (pages 130 and 131) he writes:
The Meaningless Void
An example of this type of experience involved a woman giving birth to her second child. She described her state of mind after several hours of labor as “fearful, depressed and panicky”, and finally she was given nitrous oxide.’ She struggled against the mask but was restrained and eventually went under. She recalled traveling rapidly upward into darkness and then seeing a small group of black and white circles, clicking and alternating in color. In a mocking and mechanistic fashion, they jeered at her, ” Your life never existed. Your family never existed. You were allowed to imagine it…It was never there… That’s the joke – it was all a joke.”
At first, I thought that this was describing your own unique near death experience without using your name, but then, after describing another case involving a nearly identical experience, Carter goes on to write:
Greyson and Bush noted that “The majority of our cases…occurred during childbirth under anesthesia”. Ring has reviewed a collection of similar cases and concluded that the experience “is fairly typical of those reported by women in childbirth who have also been given nitrous oxide for anesthetic purposes.” These existential nightmares resemble the ‘bad trips” sometimes experienced under hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and mescaline, and so there seems to be little reason to regard them as anything but the unpleasant side effects of anesthetic or recreational drugs.
Hmmm… Maybe I’m misunderstanding the results of the study, but it seems like Chris Carter is saying that Bruce Greyson, Ken Ring and you conducted a study and concluded that your NDE was a fairly common “type” of NDE that can be brought on by nitrous oxide, when given to women undergoing a difficult child birth. In other words, the specifics of what is experienced during this type of NDE is governed by the anesthesia. It also seems to imply that this type of NDE is not a ‘true’ Near Death Experience, and is little more than “a bad trip”. 😮
I figure that if anyone really knows what this study meant, it would be you. So… wuzzup?
Wuzzup, indeed. You do make me laugh! Thanks. You’ve hit an important topic, I think (not to mention a sore spot, but that’s not the issue). I’m going to make my response a post rather than a comment. Such a treat, your comments!
N.
Thanx Nancy, I look forward to reading what you have to say about it. I kinda thought I smelled a mouse buried somewhere in that woodpile.
According to my exhaustive one person survey, BunnyCat (my wife) says that she had a terribly complicated birth with her second child while jacked up on nitrous oxide. Funny thing is, she doesn’t remember anything Yin-Yang about it. 🙂
I haven’t seen a lot of activity in this blog lately, and I hope it’s still alive. I don’t even know whether I’m even interjecting this comment in the right place, but here goes. I’ve read about all the negative trates a persons character can contain that could trigger a negative NDE.
How bout’ this possibility as well. Having had four life threatening operations I say this.
What if a person is scared to death befor an operation on the begins.? What if just after a accident, and they’re afraid they’re going to die? etc.
This possibility, Justifiable fear in a crucial moment could be a cause. It dosen’t have to include buried spiritual character falts and other such faults.
Dave Woods
Dave, it’s still very much alive, just having a bit of quiet. Will respond to your comment in a post.