People from other cultures have different NDEs.

Any linguist can tell the approximate native language of someone speaking in tongues, so there is nothing mystical to it.

I read an NDE of three people in a car accident (all three had an NDE) and all three saw the god/s from their culture. The gods meet us where we are. It was on this board, but no link to the actual NDE. http://www.nderf.org/

I've read through thousands of these, there are definite patterns.

As you say, the gods, angels, etc are usually representative of the culture. I read an article about NDE in Japan, and they often saw venerated ancestors. They frequently saw themselves floating in a boat, drifting down a river through groves of cherry blossoms.

The significant thing about these variations is that they "prove" there is no deity that runs the whole world. If there were, Japanese people would see Jesus, or we would drift through cherry orchards, etc. An NDE is not a reliable indicator of anything but religious tradition and cultural influences. Books about kids dying and visiting heaven, then coming back to talk about it on TV, might have entertainment value, but that's about it.

What it "proves" to me is that the deities who are billions, trillions, or zillions of years old meet us where we are in our cultural and spiritual perspective, they are very kind, understanding, and loving, unlike the abrahamic gods our current culture is infested with. There may not be 'one' deity that runs everything, as a polytheist I assume there isn't but who knows, there may be in fact a boss man or woman at the top. I had one of the worst 'trips' of my life shortly after sharing my belief that the sun deity of ancient culture is currently disguised by the abrahamists as jesus christ to an orthodox catholic; it was made VERY clear to me that it is taboo in the spirit world to cause people to doubt their spiritual foundations when this is all they have, apparently this person was on rocky ground anyway and they (the spirits) acquainted me with what it would feel like to me if my blurtings caused this person to further decompensate to where they hurt themselves, they actually put me in the paradigm of this having happened and made me feel it as if it were a fact, which was a horrifying thing to experience.

It honestly makes me sad that you'd see it through this lens than what I have experienced, which is that an infinitely old supernatural intelligence would rather present itself through the lens of someone who believes in, say, a shepherd from a knuckle-dragging monotheistic stone age goat-herding cult, so as not to cause complete decompensation in someone for whom this may be the only thing they have to lean on (their religious faith). Of all the NDE's I've read on the NDERF site, the only one I've seen that crossed faith was when a muslim saw crosses on graves in his NDE...other than that they all stay true to culture & religion. This intelligence is everything good about what is said about deities in current faiths but none of the bad; well intelligenceS, I have experienced three, the sun god deity who is pure love, the Zeus/Jupiter/God father type who is also love but also a disciplinarian and will put you in check in a heartbeat and uses lightning the way he is fabled to in many religions, and the great mother/ancient goddess deity that was worshipped in many cultures before the advent of violent monotheism that we are still stuck in (but thankfully coming to the end of) today. It is understandable though with what religion has done to spirituality that many people want zero to do with either; nevertheless, it moves.

editing to add: I was also asked to meet the consciousness of the earth one time and unfortunately I chickened out because it was too overwhelming, I hope I will have another opportunity some day and won't flinch. So that would have made four; in classical antiquity apparently they were aware the gods that they worshipped were stars and planets and even though we are currently in the Piscean astrological age, hence Pisces being associated with Jesus, the abrahamics have been pretty successful at casting out or hiding most of the ancient associations of astrology/astronomy and religion.

That it may be a natural response response of the brain that evolution has built into us.
Occam's Razor would support this explanation.

though I am not sure why evolution would have 'built this into us'...really don't see the need to bring evolution into it. I honestly don't think 'science' is a conscious being, and therefore 'science' can't be said to have an opinion.

No one knows and anyone who says they 'know' whether this is brain activity or experience in the spirit world/afterlife, is full of it, that is why both Carl Sagan, and Ann Druyan (who wrote all of the groovy things that Neil Degrasse Tyson says on the tv show Cosmos) both called/call themselves agnostic, because they were educated enough not to confuse science with opinion.

For your genes to pass to the next generation you only need to live long enough to have offspring who live long enough to have offspring.

There doesn't have to be a purpose........

Evolution may very well be a stretch, but "good" traits tend to have better chance of being passed on, and a benign death, or near death, sounds like a good default mechanism.
Not willing to argue this point strongly, but some natural explanation makes more sense to me than either God or the billions of gods that have ever existed. I'm not offended being an accident of the universe.

by the NDE many of us had on Jan. 20?

Our country will be having many of them. Have to keep it from actual death, and that will only happen if we RESIST.

Good thread though - NDEs interest me.

I lost my mind and cursed out a bunch of people on twitter. Lost. My. Mind. Not Trump voters, but Sanders 'told you so' people and Stein supporters.

..to think about saying "I told you so." My mind was all on how could Trump voters vote for that idiot.

the light was some kind of neurobiochemical thing, because it seems rather widespread. I always thought, and maybe they have done this already, they should study some not-quite-so-near death experiences and see what they are like.

iirc, there is a theory about what happens in the brain that causes the light effect.
astronauts used to be (still are?) spun in a high tech carnival ride until they lost consciousness. testing what might happen under the high gravity of a space launch. they reported very similar experiences to near death. it is about what happens in the brain when the oxygen is all gone.

which I believe is the sun, others believe is heaven etc. Of course atheists believe it is all happening in the brain.

If indentured servitude to Sallie Mae doesn't qualify as eternal damnation, I'd like to know what does.

to attempt to document.

i would also like to add that i am a survivor of sallie mae

and recalled absolutely nothing from that.

NDERF was founded by Jeffrey Long M.D.

If you go to the "About Us" section of thei NDERF website, you'll find that Jeffrey Long proudly lists "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Fox News Houston" as "appearances on national media"

Meanwhile, his wife, Jody, besides helping her husband write "Evidence of the Afterlife" a book about NDEs, also has written "Repeal Obamacare; A Critical Look at Why it Isn't Fixable"

Why would someone supposedly doing research on NDEs, write a book bashing Obamacare?

What has Obamacare to do with NDEs?

O'Reilly Factor, Fox News Houston, "Repeal Obamacare"?

Wait, there's more.

Under "Recommended Books" the Longs list some 120 books that are available from Amazon.com, including:
- "Insiders Reveal Secret Space Programs & Extraterrestrial Alliances"
- "Anna, Grandmother of Jesus"
- "The Ra Material"
- "Remembering The Light Through Prosetry"

and my favorite
- We Do Not Die Alone: "Jesus Is Coming To Get Me in a White Pickup Truck"

There are some 120 recommended books...all supposedly related to near death experiences
but mysteriously missing is Dr Raymond Moody's 1975 best selling book about NDEs titled
"Life After Life"..perhaps the most well-known book about NDEs ever written.
(It was Raymond Moody who coined the term "near death experience&quot

Also absent from the NDERF's Recommended Book List are the following best selling books about NDEs:
- "To Heaven and Back" by Mary C. Neal M.D.
- "Embraced By the Light" by Betty Eadie
- "Saved By the Light" by Dannion Brinkley
- "Transformed By The Light" by Melvin Morse M.D.
- "The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences" by Dr Penny Sartori

I could go on; but I won't.

Just the fact that they don't list ANY of Dr Raymond Moody's books is suspicious enough for me.

Also, the "3,000 NDEs" that the NDERF study refers to are not "3,000 clinical case histories" but rather are "3,000 descriptions of near-death experiences that were posted on the Near Death Experience Research Foundation's website."

For those who are interested in the truth about NDEs, my recommendation is to read books by Raymond Moody, Melvin Morse, Betty Eadie or Dannion Brinkley.

it is just common people submitting their NDE's, period. Many different variations, cultures, experiences and causation varies from assault to medical conditions. I love that link, no one is a professional writer looking to garner profit, everyone is just submitting their own little NDE or OBO. There is NO reason to cast suspicion on that link based on a book list, no one person is an expert on anyone's NDE but their own. Betty Eadie for instance in my opinion is a hack as her experience is very different from what I have read that many other writers share in common. I would recommend this source (nderf) to people before any of the books you mentioned because they are submitted by individuals, they are multi-cultural, multi-spiritual, etc, the questionnaires are extremely detailed, and it really helped me find NDE's by people in many different cultures who had no experience of abrahamic spirituality. Everything should not be reduced to politics and please don't dismiss the thousands of individual experiences catalogued on this site. I just found Dannion Brinkley and I really love his teachings because he is busting his behind to bring true spirituality to people (which presumably is why the Zeus/Jupiter/God deity zapped him, this thunder lightning god really does exist and he has knocked out my internet several times when I had a very important decision to make and made me pass the weekend w/ no internet or cable tv...ugh). I would MUCH rather read through the questionnaires from those individuals who are not writing for profit than read something in book form by one individual out to make some $$, doctor or not. One recent book I read by a doctor (Lerma) was the biggest collection of fiction I've read yet in that genre.

"no one person is an expert on anyone's NDE but their own"?

Dr Raymond Moody IS an expert on NDEs; in fact, he's the pioneer of research into NDEs; and his book "Life After Life" published in 1975, was the first book ever written about NDEs.
It was Dr Moody who coined the term "near-death experience"

He donates a portion of the proceeds from all his books to the "Life After Life Institute," which "is a gathering place that welcomes everyone interested in exploring the question of existence beyond the grave.
It is a repository of information and a refuge for those who are seeking answers."
http://lifeafterlife.com

As far as Dannion Brinkley, he has started two non-profit organizations:
- "Compassion In Action" (C.I.A.)..which trains volunteers to work in hospices & other facilities
"Compassion In Action is committed to raising society's consciousness about the needs of the dying through community and professional education, advocacy, and service to the terminally ill and their loved ones so that no one need die alone."
- "The Twilight Brigade" is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1997...We recruit, train and place volunteers at the bedside of people with terminal illness."
http://www.thetwilightbrigade.com
(The Twilight Brigade is one of the largest end-of-life care communities operating within VA hospitals and hospices across America)

More about Dannion Brinkley:
http://dannionandkathryn.com


By the way, I didn't mean to suggest that all of the 120 books recommended by the Near Death Experience Research Foundation are BS.
In fact, some of them are books that I myself would be interested in reading.
However, the fact that books like "Insiders Reveal Secret Space Program & Extraterrestrial Alliances" ARE on the recommended book list while "Life After Life" and "Saved By The Light" are not is a little perplexing to me.
Also, why would a "real" NDE researcher write a book called "Repeal Obamacare"?

You are entitled to your opinion, as am I.

I think one can compile research, and that is it, and the NDERF site does a great job of that. I have read scores of NDE's on that site and they are exactly what they are presented to be, NDE's from many individuals from different circumstances and cultures. I have never searched anything on that site beyond reading hundreds and hundreds of NDE's that people have related and looking for parallels and drawing MY OWN conclusions so I am incredibly grateful to the owners of the site for making it available. When it comes to spirituality I never trust any scholars because research is always tainted by the lens through which it comes, ALWAYS...

I honestly think it is really sad that you are dismissing and disregarding this compilation of personal experiences with NDE's of people worldwide from myriad countries and walks of life based on one of the site owners opinions on US politics. Too bad, I hope not everyone will be as knee-jerk when it comes to people who have done us the service of putting thousands of NDE's online and letting us judge for ourselves and draw our own conclusions. There are not any and never will be any "NDE scholars".

... usually natural adrenaline, on a few occasions injected by emergency medical technicians and doctors.

My life is an adventure and I always walk away with stories.

Sad to say, the near-death stories all boil down to two things: I can be a reckless idiot and I've suffered some unexpectedly extreme allergic reactions to ordinary things.

There's not much in these stories that resonates with my spiritual self.