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Saturday, 17 September 2016

More Evidence for Reincarnation

Mental Clarity During Near-Death Experiences Suggests Mind Exists Apart From Brain

(iLexx/iStock)

If the mind is just a function of the brain, it stands to reason that the worse the brain is injured, the worse the mind would function. While this is what much of current brain research is finding, a body of evidence exists suggesting otherwise: under extreme circumstances, such as close to death, the mind may function well—or even better than usual—when the brain is impaired.

This suggests the mind may function independently of the brain.

One of the researchers who has been studying such cases is Dr. Alexander Batthyany, a professor of theoretical psychology and the philosophy of psychology in Liechtenstein and at the cognitive science department at the University of Vienna.

In his most recent study, published this month in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Batthyany and his colleagues reviewed thousands of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) to determine the quality of vision and cognition.

He reported: “The more severe the physiological crisis, the more likely NDEers are to report having experienced clear and complex cognitive and sensory functioning.”

Part of Batthyany’s goal was to replicate earlier studies, few as they are, that have looked at the quality of vision and cognition during NDEs.

In a 2007 study by researchers at the University of Virginia, titled “Unusual Experiences: Near Death and Related Phenomena,” 52.2 percent of NDEers reported clearer vision. Jeffrey Long, M.D., founder of the Near Death Experiences Research Foundation (NDERF), found in a survey of 1,122 NDEers, that about 74 percent reported “more consciousness and alertness.”

“I felt extremely aware, totally present, sharp, and focused. In hindsight, it’s like being half asleep when I was alive, and totally awake after I was pronounced dead,” said one experiencer, as noted in Batthyany’s study.

“It’s like being half asleep when I was alive, and totally awake after I was pronounced dead.”

— NDEer

“My mind felt
cleared and my thoughts seemed quick and decisive. I felt a great sense of freedom and was quite content to be rid of my body. I felt a connection with everything around me in a way that I cannot describe. I felt as if I was thinking faster or that time had slowed down considerably,” said another.

While Batthyany’s study confirmed, to a certain extent, the results of the previous studies that had shown an increase in cognitive and sensory functioning during NDEs, his methodology had some limitations. He said these limitations may have led to lower estimates for the percentage of NDEers who have heightened cognition.

Methodology Limitations

He compiled thousands of written accounts from online repositories of experiences, such as the NDERF website, and ran them through a computer program, which identified words related to vision or cognition (such as “saw” or “thought”).

He and his colleagues then rated the quality of vision or cognition described in this smaller sample on a scale from -2 to +2. They further narrowed their study to experiences that included detailed explanations of the medical conditions that accompanied the NDEs. Only patients with cardiac and/or respiratory arrest were included in this study.

Previous studies had asked NDEers directly about the quality of their vision and cognition. Batthyany’s study, however, could only analyze the information given in general NDE accounts. So, for example, when he decided that there was “no change” in cognition or vision in some accounts, it may have been that there was indeed a change but that the NDEer hadn’t described it specifically enough to be counted.

Of the NDEers who mentioned visual perception, about 47 percent said they had enhanced vision. And 41 percent had unchanged vision, “which in itself is quite remarkable, given that these patients were in a severe medical crisis, and often unconscious,” Batthyany said in an email to Epoch Times.

Of the NDEers who made explicit references to awareness and mentation, about 35 percent said they had increased awareness and mentation. And about 61 percent reported normal everyday awareness during cardiac and respiratory arrest.

Given the implications of his study, Batthyany was careful to note other shortcomings in his methodology, including the fact that online NDE descriptions may include some fraudulent reports. But, he also noted reasons that these methodological shortcomings do not likely impact his overall finding that NDEs, by and large, include improved vision and cognition.

For example, concerning the risk of including fraudulent accounts, he wrote: “On NDERF, the largest contributor of NDEs studied here, less than 1 percent of posted NDEs have been removed due to concerns about their validity. Additionally, given the sheer number of accounts, it is unlikely that fake reports have significantly biased our results in one or the other direction. One would expect fake accounts … to be prototypical of the popular NDE narrative.”

Patients who have been completely incoherent for many years seem to suddenly return to their senses shortly before death.

In addition to these NDE studies, studies on the phenomena of terminal lucidity and mindsight also support the conclusion that the mind may engage in complex conscious activity even as brain functioning severely deteriorates, Batthyany said.

Terminal Lucidity, Mindsight

He has studied terminal lucidity in Alzheimer’s patients. This is a phenomenon in which patients who have been completely incoherent for many years seem to suddenly return to their senses shortly before death.

When the brain is at the furthest stage of degeneration, the expectation would be that the ability to make coherent connections between memories and various thoughts and emotions would be so far gone that a “whole” person could no longer emerge. Yet at this time, the whole mind seems to flash through, with all its connections intact.

“Mindsight” refers to the phenomenon in which blind people report being able to see during NDEs. This has been studied, for example, by Kenneth Ring at the University of Connecticut. Ring found that 15 out of 21 blind participants reported some kind of sight during NDEs.

Hallucinations?

Batthyany noted that some scientists consider NDEs to be hallucinations produced by neurophysiological processes.

“The findings reported in this paper and cases of terminal lucidity and mindsight, however, appear to suggest otherwise in that they indicate the presence of complex and structured conscious experience during decline, breakdown, or absence of the neurobiological correlates commonly held to be causative factors of NDEs—and of conscious experience in general,” he said.

He concluded that consciousness—including a sense of selfhood, complex visual imagery, and mental clarity—can sometimes outlive altered brain functioning, including even a flatline of electrical activity in the brain.

Terminal lucidity and mindsight are very rare phenomena, but NDEs are more numerous and “our results suggest that the continuity of visual imagery, mentation, and sense of selfhood is the rule rather than the exception during NDEs.”

Batthyany wrote: “It remains for future researchers to confirm or disconfirm our informal observation through formal analysis.”

His study, “Complex Visual Imagery and Cognition During Near-Death Experiences,” can be found in Volume 34, No. 2, of the Journal of Near-Death Studies.

Follow @TaraMacIsaac on Twitter

From Epoch Times @ http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2133232-increased-mental-clarity-in-near-death-experiences-suggests-mind-exists-separately-from-brain-study/

One Man’s Tale of Dying—And Then Waking Up

Atria Books

by Paul Perry

Dr. Parti was literally transformed by the light'

Near-death experiences are extraordinary. The idea of leaving one’s body at the point of death, traveling to a heavenly realm and seeing beloved relatives who have passed is truly a hero’s journey.

I have written a dozen books on the subject, and I am constantly in contact with near-death experience researchers as well as those who have had the experience. Their stories may eventually answer mankind’s greatest question: What happens when we die?

Which brings us to Dr. Rajiv Parti, former chief of anesthesiology at Bakersfield Heart Hospital. His is most likely the best near-death experience I have ever heard, not just for the experience itself, but for the transformation it led to.

In 2008 Dr. Parti was Chief of Anesthesiology at Bakersfield Heart Hospital in California. He derived his identity and happiness from the incredible wealth and prestige his job gave him. He lived in a mansion, had several luxury cars and was able to purchase most any material goods he wanted.

For some reason this made him feel invincible.

In August of that year everything changed. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer. A routine surgery eradicated the cancer, but led to complications that left him incontinent and in excruciating pain. He was prescribed pain meds that he soon became addicted to, and within time he was diagnosed with depression, too.

On Dec. 14, 2010, he went to UCLA Medical Center for the surgical placement of an artificial urinary sphincter. In the days after this surgery he began running a fever of 104 to 105 degrees. Heavy antibiotics were prescribed, but he was not getting better.

On Christmas Eve 2010, Dr. Parti underwent emergency surgery to drain the pelvic region of infection and remove the artificial sphincter.

It was here, dying and heavily anesthetized, that he “woke up.”

Although deeply asleep from anesthesia, he was very aware that his consciousness had separated from his body. From a vantage point near the ceiling he said he could see the surgeon cut him, and then all of the operating room personnel react as the odor of the pus from his infected abdomen seeped throughout the room. He saw a nurse apply eucalyptus-scented water to everyone’s surgical masks. He even heard the anesthesiologist tell a joke so dirty that he blushed when he later told it to the anesthesiologist in the recovery room.

Dr. Parti then left the operating room and began to drift toward familiar voices in India, where he could hear his mother and sister talking about dinner preparations, deciding on rice, vegetables, yogurt and legumes. He could see they were bundled up to protect themselves from the foggy, frigid air that night. A small electric heater glowed, helping to take the chill out of the room.

Dr. Parti became euphoric. “People are never far away,” he thought. He said he had the sense of his presence spreading around the world, a feeling of oneness with the world and everyone in it.

Then fear overcame him when his awareness drifted to a place where a great, wild fire was raging. He could see lightning in dark clouds and smell the odor of burning meat. He said he realized that an unseen force was pulling him into Hell, leaving him “in the midst of souls who were screaming and suffering.”

“What is my Karma,” he wondered. “What did I do in my life or past life to deserve this punishment?”

In the middle of this horror, Dr. Parti began to have the strong awareness that the life he was living was very materialistic. His life was always about him. So much so, in fact, that when he met new people Dr. Parti asked himself: “What can I get from this person?”

The truth dawned on him there in Hell: the life he was living on earth was without love. He was not practicing compassion or forgiveness toward himself or others. He also had an unsavory tendency to be harsh toward people he perceived to be lower than him in status. He felt deeply sorry for his lack of kindness, wishing he could have done certain things in his life differently. As soon as he had that realization, Hell faded away.

Transcendence and transformation are what interest me most in near-death experiences. In my research, I rarely meet a person who hasn’t been transformed by their experience. These people become kinder, gentler versions of the person they were before. Sometimes this change is so complete that they are no longer recognizable. That was the case with Dr. Parti. His brush with death opened an entirely new world to him—an otherworld if you will—that replaced the materialistic world he had so carefully constructed.

Dr. Parti was literally transformed by the light.

Perry is the co-author Dying to Wake Up

From Time @ http://time.com/4446877/near-death-experience/

For more information about reincarnation see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/reincarnation

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Tuesday, 5 July 2016

A Great Initiation Called Death

by Julian Rose

There’s no point in pretending it’s something not to think about. We do anyway don’t we? But it’s how we think about it that matters – and how we feel about it, even more so.

Carlos Castaneda rivets our attention on the ever imminent reality in proclaiming the Shaman’s rule:

…that unless one can stand face to face with the unflinching reality of death – one is unsuited to the role of warrior traveler.

Now some might retort, “We are not aspiring to be warriors anyway, so why make a big deal out of it?” OK, but let’s not confuse the more standard war-like connotation of that word ‘warrior’ with its further meaning as: warrior traveler.

You see the ‘traveler’ factor is very significant; it means something that moves, that is not static. It suggests a continuing exploration, a voyage, change an unfolding event, doesn’t it? Many reading this are no doubt warrior travelers in the making; brave explorers within the divine drama of life.

But many more might wish to be, yet feel a little fearful of the many unknowns that face the would be initiate. I suggest that we all recognize this dilemma and share the insecurities and questions it raises within us.

So, just like any of life’s innumerable hurdles, we can start by looking at ‘passing’ as a creative challenge. There is clearly an art to dying just as there is an art to living. The question is, what might that art be … and will we be lucky enough to have a generous and largely pain-free space of quietude in which to perform it? That would indeed be a blessing.

I’ll have a stab at answering these rhetorical questions, but please bear in mind that they are my particular take on this – and I don’t pretend to suggest otherwise. This is a flight of the intuitive led imagination.

If dying is an art, then the first thing is to recognize is that it is ‘art in progress’, as it were.

We are talking about ‘transition’ are we not? We are talking about moving through different states of existence. And so as to make as smooth a transition as possible, we can benefit from preparing ourselves in certain ways.

All artists have to embrace the discipline of practicing and developing their skills, otherwise their talents are wasted. So we too can benefit from some discipline as our prelude to the act of passing.

Thus the art of dying may be enhanced by arranging a few practice sessions before finding ourselves (our souls) on this journey – whether we like it or not.

I have explored the possible nature of this transition as an extension of the discipline known as Hatha Yoga – and have gradually come to sense what it could be like.

This comes through the widely practiced discipline of ‘complete relaxation’ which is performed at the completion of the various stretches that comprise the majority of Hatha Yoga techniques. Many, I’m sure, will already know about this relaxation technique.

‘Complete relaxation’ is about letting go. So, I believe, is transitioning. Lying on one’s back with arms out to the side, one let’s all the stuff of daily life fall away, to be pulled down to the centre of the Earth; using a type of downward gravity that applies itself to the abstract thought process.

These largely useless thoughts are then consumed by a fire at the Earth’s core; and the pure energy, stripped of its burdensome weight, floats upwards into the cosmos. The trick to releasing this energy is to abandon one’s self completely to Source; Divine, Supreme Creator – or whatever force one feels brought one into this cycle of existence in the first place. For it is that same force that will take us home.

While spreadeagled on one’s back one gives one’s self over to benign universal powers and requests to be cleansed and healed: to loose one’s “I – dentity”; the dispensing of ego. So as to let all the ‘I’ centred thoughts fall away, until a deep calm and lightness of being prevails and a subtle sense of becoming spirit gradually takes over. One might then experience a subtle sense of floating upwards, just as the weight of the physical body falls away.

It is here, at this gentle point of separation between material physicality and spirit ether that we get something akin to a memory of transitioning into the vastness of the infinite. Infinite love. A dimension state named ‘heaven’ in the texts of old.

On the first part of this journey the presence of brilliant rays of light become manifest. Soon those photons are experienced as a state of being. Light as a state of being. Soul and light conjoined as one; expanding in intensity on the vibratory notes of a swelling symphonic resonance.

The speed of ascent may then quicken as ‘spirit I’ is pulled rapidly towards a magnetic point of great radiant power. It is here where a profound cleansing is initiated, causing our soul seed to merge into a great pool of highly energetic fecund plasma; freed of all molecular Earth bound energies that were a requirement of dealing with third density worldly existence. It is here where the soul seed (what remains of ‘us’) is melded into the vibratory expression of Essence itself.

Essence, vibrating at such a high velocity that it forms an oasis of profound stillness. The omnipotent melding of the dual. That which encompasses both Alpha and Omega points as One. The One.

That is the culmination of the outward journey. And also the culmination of an inward journey.

The inward and outward journeys arrive at the same source point they started from.

From here is fired the ecstatic ‘birthing cosmos’ double spiral. The re-beginning. Blasting the seed of fresh awakening life, back out into the next great unfolding cycle: a further phase of the adventure of ‘our’ purified spirit. Either re-experiencing life on Earth as the baby emerging from the womb of woman; or proceeding on another journey, guided by Source, to perform a role which gives further service to universal awakening.

As regards our individual journeys; well, they will be determined by our karma. Each journey is unique, yet in many other respects, similar. But the transition from ‘material’ life to ‘spirit after-life’ and onward into higher densities – or back to third density material existence once again – has one thing in common for all of us: its astounding mystery!

An intriguing part of this mystery surrounds the question: who decides if we return again to planet Earth?

It is my belief that we decide. But only if and when we have achieved (or maintained) a state of conscious awareness during the majority of our time on Earth.

Anyhow, a joyful embracing of ‘the great mystery’ is itself a vital factor in moving outward, onward and upward. In saying this, I’m not advocating a denial of true scientific exploration. When genuine and passionate, this complements our intuitive awareness.

Not so long ago, such a sense of mystery echoed out from the well-thumbed pages of little books of fairy stories. Our eager young minds were opened as were our eyes, by the sense of wonder and anticipation which these tales invoked in us. That sense of mystery needs to prevail throughout our lives and into our passing; in spite of the ultra crude attempts being made to flatten, denigrate and ultimately destroy the living joy which is our birthright and cause to be.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/2419808549_541ea4332c_o.jpg

After all, is it possible to observe sparkling water, swooping birds and gleaming forests – in fact any facet of the bounty of nature – without a sense of wonder?

Where are we if we can no longer innerly rejoice at the miraculous emanations of the great cycle of life and death? Where are we if we cannot be overcome, from time to time, by the astounding wealth of diversity and mystery that underscores the unfathomable journey which we are all on.

Where are we if we see in all this simply the ordinary, the inert and the functional? Where are we if it all comes down to just some sort of routine mediocrity; some soulless daily ordeal?

As the epitaph on the tombstone in an English graveyard declares “Here lies John Adams. The fact that he died does not guarantee that he lived.”

And that’s just it. To die well we have to live well. That means fully and generously; seizing every chance we have to fully utilize our potentiality, imagination and creative aspirations. Using them to bring justice to an unjust world. To boldly confront deceit with truth.

That is the prerogative attached to being ‘human’, and that which makes us proud of being human. A state we cannot accomplish when cut off from our fellow earthlings or when seeking solely to secure our own self interests or narcissistic ambitions. That is a road which runs counter to our deepest callings.

It results in the fact that death becomes a much feared event. Feared because death most assuredly terminates the willful cravings of the ego. Most surely shreds the puffed-up vanities of narcissism; and most surely confers upon its carrier further cycles of atonement, before ‘the passing’ is able to bring about a true freedom of spirit and an onward journey of joyous exaltation.

Yes, to die well – we must live well; in which we include giving others a leg-up on the road of life wherever possible – so that they may have the chance to shine and find the divine in themselves. Giving a lift to those who can benefit from our help, whatever their walk of life, whatever their failings or seeming faults – that is a fundamental expression of service to humanity which we are bound to put into action.

For in the end that person and us are unified in our struggle, sharing the same emotional pulls, needs and internal and external agonies and ecstasies.

Is there not one great pool of consciousness in which all we ‘human’ beings find shared commonality? And isn’t it imperceptibly rising at this very time? Are not the walls of ‘difference’ steadily breaking down?

For, at the centre of this pool of consciousness, is the cyclic mysterious ferment which has no observable life or death, but just an ever-expanding IS. And that is where we are heading at the completion of our temporal physical existence on planet Earth. And that is where we all came from ‘once upon a time’.

That eternal, supreme and boundless state; at once all time and at once no time. That is what death has in store for us. Rejoice in this, a great initiation indeed!

About the Author

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, international activist and author. Contact Julian at www.julianrose.info to find out more.

Via Waking Times @ http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/06/11/great-initiation-called-death/

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8517/8530079177_f6b78774f4_k.jpg

For more information about death see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/death