Dentures Man returns!

Rudolf Smit has posted his response (PDF) to Gerald Woerlee's critique of the "dentures man" case. Both papers - the one by Dr. Woerlee and the reply by Rudolf Smit and Titus Rivas - are published in the current issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies.

As far as I know, Dr. Woerlee's JNDS paper is not online, at least not yet. However, his overall assessment of the case can be found on his website.

[Update, Nov. 24: Dr. Woerlee's paper can now be downloaded as a PDF.]

Thanks to Rudolf for directing me to his paper. You can find other papers posted in English by the Merkawah Foundation, the Dutch branch of IANDS, by clicking here.

Comments

[Kris]

I honestly think Dr Woerlee cannot get the brutal explanation for why other NDE researchers and educated laymen such as those of us who post here do not use his arguments. We are familiar with NDE research and know how screwy his arguments really are.

[Rudolf Smit]

Kris, I have read your comments on Woerlee on the Amazon-site, and I must admire you! Your argumentation is as sound as it can be - yet, Woerlee goes on thinking that he is the only person in the world who truly understands the NDE. Apparently, all other NDE-researchers are plain stupid... yeah yeah.

One thing, also I would like to know when and where Keith Augustine distances himself from Woerlee's absurd opinions.

Regards - Rudolf

[Kris]

Hey read my latest response to Woerlee.

Keith ditched the earplug on this blog actually

[Kris]

And thanks for your kind words! I am just an educated laymen on this subject and I honestly feel like I went against one of the truly big guns and won. Honestly I was afraid of screwing up and making all separation hypothesis supporters look bad, but I think I won that one.

[a]

Rudolf/ Kris, what's the url for the amazon discussion?

[Kris]

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2PDWUDNGPXJT3/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0061777250&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful

I think I won this one simply cause Woerlee defends the impossible

[Rudolf Smit]

I have looked again at the amazon blog! Truly, Kris, you are doing a formidable job!
Woerlee is clearly on the defense.
Thumbs up!

Regards
Rudolf

[Gerry]

Kris is indeed doing a formidable job, but unfortunately it is one of ignoring the evidence in favour of his, and others belief system.

Kris and his followers seem to accept the statements of others rather than view the evidence for themselves.

Curious that none of these people seems inclined to examine the evidence step by step for either the Pam Reynolds or the Dentures cases.

In the case of Pam Reynolds, the evidence is clearly demonstrated in the chapter on this matter in the book by Sabom called Light & Death.

In the case of the man with the dentures, the evidence is listed piece by piece on my website together with PDFs of the published transcripts. These are in Dutch, but Google Translate is very useful. See:

www.unholylegacy.woerlee.org/man-with-the-dentures.org

When you read the evidence on the man with the dentures case, you cannot but be surprised how different people come with different explanations. Very curious. Stranger yet, all scientific articles in my JNDS article that explain the phenomena observed in the man with the dentures case are ignored and dismissed by Smit and Rivas with the explanation that they are too detailed and boring. This qualifies as strange science when scientific arguments are dismissed and replaced with a "God of the Gaps" belief system employed in the article of Smit.

Moreover, the character of the article published by Smit and Rivas is of such a nature as to be potentially damaging to the academic reputation of the JNDS.

I weary of the arguments of Smit, Key, and Wood, for they also demonstrate little understanding of the physiological facts about which they speak. True, my views are not those of most of the NDE community. They are those of a physiologist and physician with years of experience dealing with unconscious people. The sad truth for most NDE believers is that most of my colleagues and other scientists simply dismiss NDEs and OBEs as hallucinations. I do not. I study them seriously because they enable fascinating philosophical questions to be answered.

So study the facts if you dare.

I will not react to comments on this piece, as I have a busy schedule.

[Gerry]

Excuses, I made a slight mistake in the web address. It should be:

www.unholylegacy.woerlee.org/man-with-the-dentures.php

Gerry

[Kris]

I plan to chill from the argument a little but in a day or two I will simply put Woerlee in checkmate.

I will simply let people read the discussion between myself and Woerlee and come to their own conclusions.

[Michael Prescott]

In a comment appended to his online discussion of the dentures case (which can be accessed at the bottom of the page linked to "found on his website" in the main post), Dr. Woerlee responds to the article by Smit and Rivas. He writes in part:

"Aside from the question of whether Smit and Rivas had permission from the IANDS to post their article on the internet, serious readers will notice that this article fails to address any of the points I raised in my article in the JNDS or on this website. Instead their article, which took a year to write, contains little information except for scurrilous ad hominem commentary which can only succeed in diminishing any academic respect the JNDS may enjoy. I am happy with criticism, but then let it be based upon the facts and not a personal vendetta. This is not science."

First, Rudolf Smit tells me he obtained permission to post the article online.

Second, I've read the article three times, and I don't see any "scurrilous ad hominem commentary." I do see several points where the authors express surprise or disappointment that Dr. Woerlee allegedly overlooked some crucial details of the nurse TG's testimony, but this hardly qualifies as a "personal vendetta." And when they suggest that Dr. Woerlee is driven by a desire to defend a materialist worldview - well, I think that's patently obvious. Just look at his website. (There's nothing wrong with having an agenda, but at least own up to it.)

Third, the paper by Smit and Rivas does respond forcefully to Dr. Woerlee's main contentions. I found their replies to points 2 and 3 extremely cogent and persuasive. (On point 4, they admit they are not sure how to explain the patient's experience, and on point 1, I felt they could have gone into more medical detail.) The paper includes lengthy excerpts from TG's testimony that directly addresses Dr. Woerlee's conjectures. Given these long and highly relevant quotations from the original source, it's simply not correct to say that the paper contains "little information."

I don't think anyone can determine exactly what happened in that emergency room back in 1979. But when I look at the dentures case in combination with scores of other NDEs in which veridical information was obtained, I find the strictly physiological-psychological explanation unsatisfactory.

[Michael Prescott]

I should add that I've used Google Translate to obtain a (very imperfect) English translation of TG's remarks, as Dr. Woerlee suggests, and I'd advise others who are interested in this case to do the same. Go to Dr. Woerlee's web page (linked in main post and in his comment), download the two PDFs, then use Google Translate in its "translate document" mode.

The links to the PDFs are found under the heading "The basic articles" just above "References," near the bottom of the page.

[Michael Prescott]

Gotta say I'm not too impressed with Google Translate. Here's a representative section of TG's interview, as translated by computer from Dutch to English.

[begin quote]
"And so he sets out his teeth that I rnond get and put on a shelf of a cart with all bottle- s it. And he still hears the clink of the bottles.
Interviewer: Did he say that he could see? TG: He said he saw it. He beschreefdat I on a salad made. He thought it was a drawer, it was a tableautje pull, but as a salad beschreefhet really. I had indeed filed his false teeth, it lay between various syringes we had finished lie, we needed for resuscitation. And on that shelf that Karre- tje lay his teeth and beschreefhij so. And then I go by asking "Yes, but have you seen?" "Yes, yes, I h £ b I've seen it and felt it, because it was very much pain! And then I had something to cut it, because you reminds me very much pain, I live hear. Something like that."
[end quote]

Pretty unintelligible. Some parts are better, but overall I'm not gleaning much from this material. As the saying goes, it loses something in translation ...

[Art]

"They are those of a physiologist and physician with years of experience dealing with unconscious people. The sad truth for most NDE believers is that most of my colleagues and other scientists simply dismiss NDEs and OBEs as hallucinations. I do not." - Gerry
--------------------------------------------

Gerry, I'm curious. Have you studied or noticed the connection between near death experiences and the holographic universe theory? How people who have NDE's oftentimes describe them in terms that seem to be very "holographic?" A guy named Dr. Oswald Harding wrote a book about it, Dr. Ken Ring wrote a chapter about it in his book, Life At Death, and Dr. Melvin Morse devoted several pages to it in his book Where God Lives. I seem to recall that Michael Talbot also mentioned the connection in The Holographic Universe (book).

Anyway, I've always found it strange that regular normal people, many who have never heard or read about the holographic universe theory, come back after their experiences and say things that have a very holographic flavor to them?

People who have NDE's routinely talk about overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness, feeling like they are everywhere in the universe at once, time and space not existing, buildings that are "made out of knowledge", 360 degree vision, seeing colors they've never seen before, hearing sounds that they haven't heard in this physical universe, and during the life review seeing their whole lives flash by in an instant (bolus of information)and feeling the emotions and feelings of the people they interacted with (the life review is a holographic experience par excellence), and how the other side will feel even more real to us than this side does, and feeling the feelings and hearing the thoughts of the people they interacted with. A couple of NDE's that I've read Kelly K's and Victor Solow even mentioned that they saw or came upon a large net like structure that connected everything - which brought to mind the inside of the holodeck in Star Trek The Next Generation.

Anyway, I was just curious if you had ever heard about or studied the connection between NDEs and the holographic universe theory?

[Art]

This is a "for instance" from a brand new NDE just posted on the NDERF.org site. The guy's name is Mike Illitch JR. It was just posted today. Here is an excerpt from his NDE that I believe has a "holographic" flavor...

"I had a knowledge or oneness with everything it seemed...everything connected...a oneness I had never known. Also colors were brighter and more distinct, vivid and enriched...some were colors we don't have on Earth or I've never seen before."
http://www.nderf.org/mike_i_jr_nde.htm

It's interesting he says it was MORE distinct because just recently there have been some articles in New Scientist and other science journals or magazines about the holographic universe and the director of the lab, a guy named Hogan, says that in a holographic projection (our universe) there would be a certain inherent blurriness - but in the original hologram this blurriness wouldn't exist! I believe what people are experiencing when they are out of their bodies is the original "implicate" universe that our universe is projected from.

"Hogan realized that in order to have the same number of bits inside the universe as on the boundary, the world inside must be made up of grains bigger than the Planck length. ‘Or, to put it another way, a holographic universe is blurry,’ says Hogan."
http://blogs.monografias.com/sistema-limbico-neurociencias/2010/02/19/the-holographic-universe-when-it-pays-to-be-first/

I never could figure out why so many near death experiencers said that it seemed even more real and that they had even more consciousness than here and that it was "clearer" than what we experience here.... Until I read that New Scientist article and Hogan talked about the blurriness in a holographic projection! All of a sudden I had an "Ah-Ha!" moment and all the pieces of the puzzle fit into place.

[Art]

Oh yeah, the "more colors thing?" That's because without the limitations of the physical body we will be able to see the ENTIRE light spectrum instead of just a small part of it. Many near death experiencers have remarked on the "more colors" and it didn't take me long to figure out that they are seeing the entire spectrum of light instead of just a small portion of it.

I find all this very evidential by the way. Even more so than the OBE stuff that people are constantly arguing about.

[Michael Prescott]

Art, I don't think Gerald Woerlee is planning to post another comment on this thread. He ended his first comment by saying that his schedule is too busy (which I can certainly understand).

[Rudolf Smit]

From Rudolf Smit

Quote from Michael:
Third, the paper by Smit and Rivas does respond forcefully to Dr. Woerlee's main contentions. I found their replies to points 2 and 3 extremely cogent and persuasive. (On point 4, they admit they are not sure how to explain the patient's experience, and on point 1, I felt they could have gone into more medical detail.)

As a matter of fact, Michael, in a draft version of the paper we did go into greater detail as regards point 1. But the reviewers and the editor thought it became too technical and lengthy, which is why a much more concise version was adopted. However, further on in the paper we say: "We could have said much more about Woerlee’s opinions regarding the dentures anecdote, and we particularly invite inquiries from any readers interested in a more detailed discussion of the matter of Mr. B’s condition while he lay in the field."

Quote from Michael:
The paper includes lengthy excerpts from TG's testimony that directly addresses Dr. Woerlee's conjectures. Given these long and highly relevant quotations from the original source, it's simply not correct to say that the paper contains "little information."

How right you are, Michael! Why have we included these excerpts? Quite simply because Woerlee grossly misrepresents the statements from nurse TG. I do not need to repeat them, because just read the paper and you will see what I mean. But a little bit of history may be in order. True, in the first transcript TG's statements as for the moment when the dentures were taken out are a little bit ambiguous. Based on that ambiguity Woerlee alleges that the patient was conscious at that very moment. He was and is wrong, period. And he knows it, because in a second article in my journal "Terugkeer" nurse TG offered an unambiguous clarification, namely that the Thumper was started after the dentures had been taken out, and after the mayo tube had been inserted into the windpipe of the patient. Woerlee simply ignored this, because as he says now (somewhere, in one of his many posts that abound in the various forums) that the first option makes more medical sense. Sorry, this is wrong. We, i.e. Rivas and I, made inquiries and the response we got was unambiguous: first things first, that is: remove dentures, then insert mayo tube, then place ventilation mask, and finally start Thumper. Which is exactly what TG had done. Woerlee now alleges that TG did not correctly remember his own actions. This is very odd, given the fact that elsewhere Woerlee had initially praised TG into heaven for his correct rendition of the whole case... but apparently when TG's statements do not suit him [Woerlee] then all of a sudden TG seems to have suffered from memory loss... (oh goodness...)

Therefore: Woerlee was wrong, and is wrong and remains wrong, whatever he says as regards this specific point.

By the way, just to make sure, we contacted again TG and asked for another confirmation. He nearly exploded, and expressed his serious regret that he had ever become involved again in this matter. But he confirmed once again that everything he had told had happened as he had told before, and also that he was fed up with that anesthesiologist. I can hardly blame him. It is indeed a big shame the way Woerlee has been treating this whole affair.

Finally, why Woerlee considers our paper replete with ad hominems is a bit of enigma to me. It is akin to the pot calling the kettle black, taking into account what Woerlee had said on Skeptiko Forum (using his nickname Swiferobi) “This book [Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry’s (2010) Evidence of the Afterlife] is not science. It is simply fodder for the uncritical followers of the NDE sect.” In other words, everyone not condoning his views is an uncritical follower of [religious] sect! It shows Woerlee's true colors so to speak. Apparently Woerlee later realized what stupid statement he had made, because he neatly edited it out of his posting.

O yes, the Google "translation" you showed is indeed sheer gobbledigook. If you so wish I can make a proper translation.

Regards to all, Rudolf

[Vitor]

Hi, Rudolf

in a draft version of the paper we did go into greater detail as regards point 1. But the reviewers and the editor thought it became too technical and lengthy, which is why a much more concise version was adopted.

Could you post this draft version of the paper online, or, at least, your arguments regards point 1?

If you so wish I can make a proper translation.

I don't know about Michael, but I would like this.

Best wishes.

[Rudolf Smit]

Hi Vitor,

Mail me - you'll find my mailaddress at the bottom of the title page of the paper.

Regards - R

[Troy]

"Stranger yet, all scientific articles in my JNDS article that explain the phenomena observed in the man with the dentures case are ignored and dismissed by Smit and Rivas with the explanation that they are too detailed and boring."

I don't think this is fair. Smit and Rivas were writing a rejoinder, which is usually shorter than the article it is replying too and is most often required to be so. They simply did not have the room to reply to every article in your bibliography.

[Rudolf Smit]

Thanks Troy - you are hitting the nail on its head. If indeed we had to respond to everything that was brought up by Woerlee we should have used all pages of the journal. But there was no need to anyway: we concentrated on the crucial matters.

I don't think that more issues will be devoted to the dentures case. All that could have been said has been said. For us the case is closed.

Regards - Rudolf

[Kris]

In a few hours I will post my response to Dr Woerlee on Amazon :)

[Kris]

Well I just responded to him :)

[Greg Taylor]

I more than welcome good skeptical arguments, but it has long been clear that Woerlee has his own 'reality filter' on these topics. I wrote back in 2004 regarding his misrepresentation of a Peak-in-Darien experience reported by Barrett:

http://www.dailygrail.com/Essays/2004/7/Blinded-Light

For instance, Woerlee says of the case:

"this unfortunate woman interpreted the bright and blurry images of out-of-focus people elsewhere in the room as 'bright forms.'"

Without mentioning:

(a) She did not just report "bright forms", she reported seeing her deceased father and sister, even though she had not been informed her sister was dead. (from Barrett's report: "she said with rather a puzzled expression, 'He has Vida with him.'")

(b) That Barrett himself noted in his report that her visions were not likely "to have been due to...misinterpretation of some object actually present to sight - as when a dressing-gown is mistaken for a woman".

Regardless of how one interprets the evidence presented, I simply cannot see how any objective reporter could read Barrett's report and then in good faith write of this experience that it was simply a case of interpreting "bright and blurry images of out-of-focus people elsewhere in the room as 'bright forms."

p.s. Thanks Michael for posting my Gardner essay.

[Kris]

Hey Michael

Could you delete my comment post which has my email please. I don't want the spam bots to get it :(

[dmduncan]

Keith is a parochial thinker, so I wouldn't rely too much on what he considers plausible or implausible with regard to Pam Reynold's ability to "hear" the conversation.

I suggest also possibly reappraising what it means to hear. Sure, during normal consciousness we can say we heard or didn't hear a sound or conversation.

But the Pam Reynolds case is NOT an example of normal consciousness, and so what we normally mean by "hearing" may also not apply in her case either.

For me the question is not whether Pam Reynolds could hear the conversation, but rather, was the conversation an auditory object that it was possible for Pam Reynolds mind to distinguish at ANY level of consciousness in addition to the clicking, which was another auditory object.

I assume most people reading this have played catch at one time or another. But have you ever marveled at how extraordinary it is to catch a ball? To put your hand in the precise place where the ball, traveling very fast, will be at such a time so that you can close your hand around it and catch the ball involves a host of calculations that you are not aware of making at all. But those calculations are accurately made or else you would not catch the ball. If you tried to consciously perform the mathematics and to precisely figure out the point in space where the ball would pass so that you consciously know where to put your hand, the ball would be on the ground for several hours before you were ready to catch it. Yet our minds somehow figure all that out in the blink of an eye without seeking approval from what we call normal everyday consciousness.

The point is, we don't know HOW we are able to do the things we do, but we still do them anyway. And you can't really argue that a lack of an answer regarding the how means that the extraordinary explanation is true.

That too is a form of argument from ignorance. You don't know how X is possible, therefore it is not.

That's also what skeptics do when they think the evidence points exclusively to the production hypothesis, when it does not.

The Pam Reynolds case is intriguing, but not convincing to me.

What I would like to see is a demonstration that it was impossible for Pam Reynolds ears to detect and transmit two distinct auditory object-signals to her brain given the known facts of the auditory objects involved in the case and the technical specifications of the human ear with regard to those two specific objects, instead of using the vague terminology about what "she" could or could not have "heard."

That I would find REALLY intriguing.

[Kris]

I used Keith more as an icing on the cake argument then anything else. I certainly did not need his testimony as the facts alone compel the conclusion that hearing for Pam Reynold's should have been impossible, but clearly she heard. Dr Woerlee needs to give us a mechanism. Until he does so basically all his arguments fail. After all his argument is that the NDE is explicable. Without a mechanism for the fact of Pam Reynold's hearing he is shown to have a false position. So basically the mainstream view wins by default.

Unless Dr Woerlee wants to argue the definition of hearing I think I will use the traditional view of it. After all the one counter argument he offered did postulate normal hearing.

However I am not going to play semantic arguments unless Dr Woerlee pursues that route, assuming he even responds to me.

[Aftrbrnr]

One thing I don't understand is how Dr. Woerlee says he doesn't view NDEs as hallucinations, but at the same time does not see them as a form of survival of consciousness. Most of his writings seem to support the hallucination theory, not to mention his book "Unholy Legacy" has a fictional conversation between two people ultimately concluding an afterlife would be undesirable. So from there, Woerlee essentially argues that NDEs are brain-based, but says they aren't hallucinations, so what are they then? I don't really think this is a place where there is really a gray area.

[Kris]

Dr Woerlee strikes me as someone who wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to call IANDs closeminded, but then publishes there . He wants to say other present arguments without evidence, when he does the same thing. He wants to find value in what his own world view would show to be valueless.

[dmduncan]

"He wants to say other present arguments without evidence, when he does the same thing."

I agree. What did he say in that Amazon review? "Suggestive pseudoscience"? But then how does he manage to escape the same charge? He doesn't seem to be suggestion poor himself.

I think Woerlee is committing a form of modal fallacy. He seems to think that if he CAN explain x as y, then x MUST BE or IS y.

[a]

>> I think Woerlee is committing a form of modal fallacy. He seems to think that if he CAN explain x as y, then x MUST BE or IS y <<

Worse still, in many cases X cannot be Y. The Pam Reynolds case is a clear example:

Speakers molded for her ears shot off 100 decibel clicks, as loud as a large orchestra playing in front of you.

But maybe, says Woerlee, the pause between the clicks was enough for Pam to process what was going on.

Wrong. The speakers made over 11 clicks per second. One Mississippi, two Mississippi… oops, we’ve already heard twenty-two 100-decibel clicks. There simply isn’t a long enough pause.

But she did indeed hear, admits Woerlee, so it MUST have been *biologically* processed because hearing occurs ONLY because a person has functional ears - spirits don't have ears, so they cannot hear, or so Woerlee argues. This is obvious question begging, of course, but Woerlee seems unaware of any way to form a coherent model of dualism. Thankfully, Chris Carter does exactly that in his NDE book.

[Rudolf Smit]

Kris! Your latest argumentation on Amazon is truly brilliant!

[Rudolf Smit]

Kris - just a small correction. Pam Reynolds's surgeon was not dr Spitzer but dr Spetzler. But don't worry about this small error.

[Gerry]

I was somewhat provoked by the wilfull ignorance and gloating tones exhibited by some of the readers of this forum (onbehoorlijk, onbeschoft, en onnozel). Very inappropriate to people trying to understand a fascinating phenomenon. So I posted a rejoinder to Key and Smit on Amazon which I do believe proves my points.

Secondly, there is the matter of the article by Smit and Rivas. Such an article would not be acceptable in any academic or scientific journal. As I have stated, it is an article of a shamefully low standard which does not even attempt to address any of the points made in my article. Instead it is of a level appropriate to a popular golly, gee, wow book on NDE phenomena. All the four points they listed in the beginning of the Smit-Rivas article are addressed in my article, and based upon the information in their transcripts.

So I have posted my article in the JNDS at my website together with the original transcripts. The article is referenced to the transcripts of Rivas and Smit, as well as to extensive medical literature. Most of the literature is downloadable and public on the internet. This article is in a format approriate for publication in a scientific journal. It is neutral, and only deals with the facts in a way to as to promote discussion.

I expect readers to read the article, to check whether the medical studies support the facts, and to examine the original transcripts. This is science. Up till now there has been little of this demonstrated by the main protagonists here, some of whom refuse to study the medical literature referred to, preferring preconceptions instead.

The address of my JNDS article is at:

www.unholylegacy.woerlee.org/man-with-the-dentures.php

Enjoy yourselves and try to be rational.

[Rudolf Smit]

From Rudolf Smit

It seems Dr Woerlee feels cornered because he is becoming more and more abusive, but worse, he accuses me of something Rivas and I would never have dreamt of doing so! See what he says on Amazon:

"1. Were the dentures removed before or after stating the cardiac massage machine? TG gives two stories.
In the first report, TG clearly states that the dentures were removed after starting the Thumper (p15 in Autumn "Terugkeer" 2008).

This is a very clear statement. But in a second statement TG, apparently recants, stating that the dentures were removed after positioning the man under the Thumper, and only after the mask for artificial respiration was positioned on the man's face was the Thumper started (p8 in Winter "Terugkeer" 2008).

Two very different stories of his memories of an event 30 years ago. And it's all in the transcripts which I have posted on my website. This second statement is a curious change of mind. Was it due a "will to please" to satisfy the naggingly strident wishes of Smit and Rivas after an article of mine in response to the Autumn "Terugkeer" of 2008? Certainly this was a very strange about-turn. The first statement makes medical sense, while the second is not something any cardiologist would do - the unnecessary extra time delay with cardiac massage reduces the chance of success. "

This is maddening because it is sheer slander! How does one dare suggest that we, Rivas and I, pushed the nurse to recant. And that he had a "will to please". This is so extremely untrue!

What follows now is the truth and nothing but the truth:

When at the time we received Woerlee's commentary on TG's report, we saw his interpretation regarding the moment the dentures were taken out. And we said, gosh, we have to make sure, because there is indeed a small ambiguity. So we asked for a clarification from the nurse, but we never ever pressed the nurse to "recant" so as to satisfy our desire! It was the nurse himself who quite voluntarily stated in writing that of course the Thumper was started after he had taken out the dentures and after he had inserted the mayo tube.
Later on he confirmed this again, as I already wrote on this blog a few items ago.

What you have done here, mr Woerlee, is slanderous to the extreme: i.e. questioning the integrity of the nurse, Rivas an myself.

At the time I was the editor of Terugkeer magazine, the journal of Merkawah/IANDS the Netherlands. After we had tracked down the nurse who resuscitated the dentures man, and all that followed, I found it proper to also ask Woerlee's opinion to be published in our Journal. So he did - and now see to what it all led.

Now I cannot help but enormously regretting it to ever have involved Dr Woerlee in this case.

O yes, Woerlee wonders why we never consulted all the papers he referred to in his article. Why should we, when the premises were already wrong from the very beginning. Besides, we have extensively consulted experts - as a matter of fact, I have a stack of paper about this topic half an inch thick. In short, we did our home work.

[Rudolf Smit]

A clarification:

(Woerlee) "The first statement makes medical sense, while the second is not something any cardiologist would do - the unnecessary extra time delay with cardiac massage reduces the chance of success."

As I said we have consulted experts also on this matter. In a former contribution (see above a few items ago) I copied their response: first things first, etc.

Whether it does not make medical sense to Woerlee, is totally irrelevant. Because it happened as reported in TG's second statement. Besides, the patient did live after all, did not he?

BTW, one of the cardiologists we consulted expressly stated that the use of the Thumper was never popular in his hospital. They preferred manual pressure on the chest, because then they could easier feel the reaction of the patient.

[Kris]

I think your blog ate my previous comment.

This is getting comical now.

To even write the above article Dr Woerlee is dependent on two things.

1.) The nurses memory being correct
2.) The nurses recollections being accurately presented

Obviously if either point is not correct then no further research needs be done. However so that he can write a rebuttal he needs to assume one and two.

Now lets notice what he has done.

Agreed with the nurse, except when the nurse's testimony disagrees with his argument. Of course this invalidates point one so the rational thing for him to do would be to simply say he does not think we can know what happened. But he won't do that.

He needs for you to be honest when presenting the details, but then dishonest enough to bully to the nurse. Of course if you were dishonest enough to bully the nurse, why waste your time bullying the nurse? Simply make up whatever you want the nurse to say. If I suspected someone was falsely reporting other's reports to me I would not believe any of it, but what I do I know, that is only the sensible position.

If Dr Woerlee had an ounce of sense he would simply state this case was from 30 years ago and the nurses memory might be wrong. Instead he chooses to do the above.

Looking over his website I see he really wants to promote atheism. I see he has some critiques of Islam and Christianity, which I would be very surprised if he did something like read relevant scholarship on the subject. Needless to say I do not think he will ever soil his hands with arguments in favor of the resurrection, such as those used by N.T Wright, Dr Mike Licona or Dr William Lane Craig. Just for shits and giggles I tempted to argue for the resurrection of Dr Woerlee wants to argue against it.

I found it odd indeed he would defend atheism as a moral philosophy as atheism can never rise above relativism and communist atheist murdered over 150 million people in the last century. Oddly enough I think his book is published by Prometheus Press, which has books defending such charming practices as pedophilia.

http://subversivethinking.blogspot.com/2009/01/prometheus-books-and-pseudoskeptical.html

[Kris]

I will say seriously, one day I want to be go a bar with Dr Woerlee, Dr Richard Carrier and I think Keith Augustine. I think it would be more comedy gold then anything by Dave Chappelle.

[Kris]

minor correction for bad grammar. I should have said " I want to go to" not " be go a "

[Michael Prescott]

Gerry,

You wrote,

"I was somewhat provoked by the wilfull ignorance and gloating tones exhibited by some of the readers of this forum (onbehoorlijk, onbeschoft, en onnozel)."

The Dutch words translate as "undue, rude, and foolish."

I think the discussion on this thread has been vigorous, but I wouldn't call it rude or foolish. And while I've seen some gloating and oneupmanship, which I don't particularly care for, I haven't seen "willful ignorance."

Please remember that you've made some pretty strong statements yourself. You called Jeffrey Long's book a nadir in NDE literature that will hurl readers into a new dark age of superstition. You had equally harsh words for Pim Van Lommel's book.

When you go on the attack in this fashion, you have to expect some blowback. It would be unreasonable to expect your critics to keep an unfailingly civil tongue while you harangue them with all the rhetorical weapons at your disposal.

"As I have stated, it is an article of a shamefully low standard which does not even attempt to address any of the points made in my article."

I agree that the article doesn't address all your points (which probably would have been impossible, given space constraints), but it does address many of them in detail. For instance, TG seems quite clear about when he inserted the tube. His initial ambiguity was entirely cleared up in his subsequent, more extended remarks.

"Enjoy yourselves and try to be rational."

"Rationality" is something of a loaded term. It means different things to different people. Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and Hegel all thought of themselves as rational, yet all came to different conclusions. A "rational" person 100 years ago would have scoffed at the findings of quantum physics, the theory of continental drift, or the idea that America would elect a black man as president. What seems rational to one person may seem "foolish" to another, and what is "rational" in one era becomes outmoded in another. Perhaps materialism will eventually be seen as just another superstition. Or perhaps spiritualism will. Or perhaps both worldviews will be superseded by something new.

Generally, when people say, "You should be rational," what they mean is, "You should agree with me."

Let's take a particular instance of logical argumentation. You've written more than once that an NDEr could not see or hear anything except by means of the physical senses, because that's the only possible mechanism of perception. As Kris points out, this is question-begging. The point at issue is precisely whether it is or is not possible for people to perceive things by some means other than normal sense modalities. So this argument is clearly fallacious and hence not "rational."

You sometimes add that if paranormal perception were possible, blind people could use their psychic abilities to see. But this doesn't follow logically at all (and so is not "rational"), because blind people, for the most part, are not having NDEs or OBEs. What would follow is that, on the rare occasions when blind people do have NDEs or OBEs, they could be expected to report visual perceptions. And as you know, there is evidence for this, as presented in Ken Ring's book "Mindsight."

Now, I know you don't think much of that book, because you've come up with conjectures to explain away the various cases. But conjecture is not certainty, and a strained, improbable conjecture is not necessarily preferable to a more straightforward reading of the evidence.

My point is that your own arguments do not always meet the criterion of "rationality," if this is defined by adherence to accepted rules of logical reasoning, and moreover, that "rational" people can and sometimes do disagree with you. Our disagreement is not necessarily evidence of incorrigible irrationality, willful ignorance, or medieval superstition.

In my younger days, when I was an Objectivist, I made the mistake of believing that anyone who differed with me on important issues was irrational. It took me a few years to learn that this attitude was itself irrational - that it was actually a psychological defense mechanism that permitted me to avoid dealing with arguments and evidence for which I had no good answers.

In general, I would say that whenever we are most sure that we have found "the truth," we should be most on our guard. It's precisely at that point that we stop questioning our own assumptions.

By the way, Google Translate is pretty much useless as far as the TG transcripts are concerned. Excerpt:

"TG: He said he saw it. He beschreefdat I on a salad made. He thought it was a drawer, it was a tableautje pull, but as a salad beschreefhet really."

Now that's irrational! :-)

[a]

Michael Prescott is calm, cool, collected, and formidable - as usual.

Gerry, I mean this respectfully, but sometimes your writing style needs improvement. You often engage in the very same things you accuse other people of. You're often insulting and condescending, to the point where I wish to stop reading. It's the same with people that I agree with. There are several authors that I usually agree with, but whose style turns me off.

Gerry, my sincere advice is for you to tone it down and relax a little.

[Kris]

I have just wrote my last response to Dr Woerlee. Before this I felt Dr Woerlee was a rational man simply taking a extreme minority view. After this conversation though I am have with reluctance concluded Dr Woerlee is simply too irrational for serious minded people to dialog with. I will not waste my time anymore.

[Troy]

I love beschreefhet salads!!

[Rudolf Smit]

From Rudolf Smit

I now discovered that Woerlee had copied complete pages of Terugkeer, including the frontpage, on his website in the form of pdf's. And that while it was expressly stated on the inside of the cover that "nothing in this publication may be multiplied, copied, put in microfilm, etc in whatever way, without the express permission of the publisher, i.e. the executive committee of Merkawah Foundation."

In this case that would have been me, who was the Editor at the time, and thus representing the Executive Committe. Woerlee never ever asked me permission to place this on his website. This is a violation of copyright, I would say.

As for the Google translation, it is so bad that on the basis of that gobbledigook I find it hard to locate the original Dutch text.

Regards - Rudolf

[Kris]

That is just another case of Dr Woerlee wanting to have his cake and eat it to. He is on a ideological crusade for atheism and he clearly feels the ends justify the means.

[Michael Prescott]

"This is a violation of copyright, I would say."

Yes, it would appear to be. I have to say, though, that there is value in having these documents online, at least for people who read Dutch.

"I have with reluctance concluded Dr Woerlee is simply too irrational for serious minded people to dialog with"

Again, I would be wary of labeling those who disagree as irrational. I don't think this is helpful when done by either side. It might be better just to say that we have irreconcilable differences with an opponent.

"Rationality" is a term that's a lot like "virtue" - it means so many different things to different people that it has little value except as a rhetorical flourish.

An exception would be if "rationality" is narrowly defined in terms of the rules of logical discourse. It's possible to say that someone has made an illogical ( = "irrational") move in an argument, for instance by using equivocation or circular reasoning. But to say that someone's essential worldview or characteristic mode of thinking is irrational is usually, IMO, a mistake. Better simply to agree to disagree.

[Kris]

I think Dr Woerlee is too irrational cause he keeps making basic logical fallacies. I am not saying he is irrational cause of his world view but because of his blatant rational fallacies.

[dmduncan]

"The speakers made over 11 clicks per second. One Mississippi, two Mississippi… oops, we’ve already heard twenty-two 100-decibel clicks. There simply isn’t a long enough pause."

It certainly seems like it would be impossible, but I'm not an expert on human hardware and I simply cannot say that it is because I do not know.

During normal everyday experience we hear a cacophony of sounds mixed together and the human brain is able to separate different auditory objects from one another.

I know how it seems, but in my vew that is not enough. You also have to show that Pam Reynolds hearing a conversation over those clicks was imposssible because it is impossible for the ear drum to react to the sound waves produced by those two different auditory objects. If the human ear drum cannot react to both those auditory objects at the same time, then it would be physiologically impossible for her to have become aware of the content of the conversation given ANY level of materialist-model consciousness because the ear drum could not have reacted to sound waves produced by that conversation.

This is at least a theoretically demonstrable way of proving she couldn't have heard the conversation.

[dmduncan]

I should also point out that's what Dr. Woerlee has to do to make HIS case. He can't just assert it's possible. he has to point to the data that shows it IS possible for the human ear drum to react to two auditory objects at the same time: 100 decibel clicks @ 11 clicks per second in addition to a conversation occurring in the background.

If the clicks are so loud that they completely dominate the ear drums capacity such that the background conversation cannot produce any effect on the ear drum, then the question is settled. There's no way Pam could have heard the conversation at ANY level of materialist model consciousness, if the facts show that is the case about the human ear in general, assuming Pam Reynolds does not have some type of mutant super-ear drums.

[Kris]

Hey Duncan think about this

Pam Reynolds did not report hearing the constant beeping at all. If her hearing was localized and we allow for the possibility she heard normally shouldn't she have heard the beeps. It is one thing to suggest she might have heard the conversation over the beeps but surely isn't it the height of special pleading to think she heard the conversation but not the far louder beeps.

[dmduncan]

Not necessarily. It seems counter intuitive to how it ought to work, I know, but it's more about what she recalls after the fact than the entirety of what she heard.

But I do believe I've pointed out a way that the question can be persuasively settled even to standards that those like Woerlee could not reasonably object to.

If the ear drum would have been so overwhelmed by the clicking, given how loud and frequent it was, that there was no way for it to respond to the sound waves of the conversation, then that is equal to saying that the data shows what Woerlee is suggesting is impossible because then there would literally be no way for Pam to have heard the conversation at all.

If the ear drum couldn't send signals of that separate auditory object of the conversation, then Pam could not have heard it, and it wouldn't be a matter of what seems impossible to you and possible to Dr. Woerlee.

The best known facts would decide it, not anyone's different impressions of what is possible.

[Kris]

Lets put it this way. As things stand now this is a tremendous problem for any skeptical view of the Pam Reynold's case and it is certainly something skeptics need to address. So far no skeptic has given a remotely logical explanation for how this could have occurred. Even if our side cannot 100% prove it would have been impossible for Pam to hear under those circumstances a rational person can still hold the view she could not hear under normal circumstances.

[a]

Duncan, buy two of those keychain alarms that set off 100-decibel waves (which usually have brief pauses between the waves/beeps).

Then hold one up to each ear.

Then ask your friends to speak normally around you.

Then determine if you can process what they're saying.

Now repeat the same exercise when you're drugged up.

[a]

Follow-up to my last post:

Make sure your eyes are taped shut

[dmduncan]

I understand what you are saying, but part of the reason why disagreement remains between reasonable people is because there is no "objective" data cited that shows what Woerlee is suggesting is in fact not possible.

Again, we are not talking about normal states of consciousness here. I don't need a keychain alarm. Ear buds playing music much less than 100db is quite enough for me NOT to be able to hear what somebody is saying to me.

The Pam Reynolds case is about something highly unusual involving states of consciousness that are not normal. So the argument is really about what is POSSIBLE for human beings to do, and that is true whether the final explanation is normal or paranormal.

Either way there is going to be some unusual news made about what is possible.

FWIW, I'm suggesting a way that question may be settled using data about the human ear.

I'm not giving Kris any homework, but he's shown himself to be really interested in the case. That's just the way I would approach responding to Woerlee's claim.

[dmduncan]

In other words, you are making an Appeal to Incredulity. I understand why. It IS hard to believe. But that shouldn't stop us from seeing what the data says which, in this case, would be the technical specifications of the human ear.

The double slit experiments also caused a good share of incredulity. But the data says what it says. It doesn't matter who doesn't like it.

[Kris]

Duncan

I will sum it up at least for me . I am satisfied that with the description given that Pam Reynolds could not have heard through normal circumstance. Her own doctor agreed with this analysis. Until the "skeptics" can explain how she heard normal I will be satisfied with the view she could not have heard through normal mechanisms.

Now I am very curious about the mechanism that did allow her to hear obvious :)

And yes " skeptics : have some explain to do with the drill too :)

I just felt the earplugs war easier to use for my case :)

[Art]

The bottom line is that I listened to these people tell their stories and decided that I believe that what they experienced was real. I worked in biomedical research and in a lab for years and saw people with PhD's and D.V.M. degrees doing all kinds of screwy stuff. Science isn't inviolable. At some point you have to just sit back and close your eyes and decide whether "YOU" believe it's true. In the end it's irrelevant what anybody else thinks. What's important to me is what I think. For my own sanity I have to decide for myself.

[Rudolf Smit]

From Rudolf Smit

What a real, inquisitive scientist would have done

If I had been in Woerlee’s position I would not have relied of what some other medics had said, sometimes ages ago in various medical journals, but I would have resorted to an experimental setup.

Woerlee goes on alleging dat Pam Reynolds had heard by normal means the conversations in the operation theater. Every sound specialist will tell him that under the circumstances (custom made earplugs, 90-100 decibel sound clicks etc – exactly what Kris has told him) it would have been impossible for Pam to hear anything, even if she had been “aware” as Woerlee alleges.

Now, what would a real scientist have done? He would have made an experimental setup. Just take an MP3 player, and modify its earphones so that they closely fit in the ears of a subject, making sure that with the aid of wax and a bandaid the phones would securily be fitted into the auditory channels of the ears.

Next he would play loud music on the earphone, for example a loud passage by a symphony orchestra. A decibel meter can help him to adjust to a level of between 90 and 100 decibels.

Next he would ask in a normal voice, say at a distance of 1,5 metres, questions to the subject. My bet is that the subject would not have heard anything of what he had said.

The experimenter can repeat this with say another 10 subjects. When all of them say that they did not hear the experimenter speak, then Woerlee’s claim would have been falsified. It is that simple.

Another experiment re Woerlee’s claims, which we already hinted at in our rejoinder and which I had suggested to Woerlee a few times is this: Woerlee claims that patient B while being resuscitated had heard all sorts of sounds and on the basis of those sounds had built up an accurate picture of the resusciation room. Nurse TG vigorously denied such possibilities, and Rivas and I concur. As we said in our paper:

“One of us, Smit, has challenged Woerlee a few times via e-mail to set up a simple experiment. Just ask 10 people to sit in a room, blindfold them, and let someone else carry out a few actions. Let that person make some noises with objects, and so on. Then ask those 10 people to make a mental picture of what had happened there and describe it. Every experimental psychologist will tell you that you will get 10 different descriptions and none of them accurate.
Woerlee never responded to this challenge. Yet Woerlee has apparently retained the sincere belief that Mr. B, despite having been in a very dire situation—on the verge of real death and hardly if at all conscious—did accomplish a feat of which any fully conscious professional mentalist would be proud.”

Such experiments would resolve the matter once and for all. Once again, a real inquisitive scientist would have carried out these relatively easy experiments.

Request: Perhaps one of the people participating in this blog is willing to do this and then report back to us? I am not going to do this, because some will say that I am biased in this case. From a scientific point of view this is so, hence an independent researcher should do this.

This is my last contribution on this blog re the dentures man and Woerlee – I have become sick and tired of his allegations, accusations, questioning our integrity and heavens knows what else he has up his sleeve.

Regards to all

[Rudolf Smit]

Postcript (from Rudolf)

I once did a test myself using wax earplugs, known as "Oropax". I really stuffed those plugs in my ears. But I made sure that all hair on the inside of the auditory channels was trimmed out, next I opened my mouth so as to make sure that the inside air pressure was alleviated via the Eustachian tube. Thus the plugs were securily locked. And then I asked my wife to speak to me in a normal tone - at a distance of about 5 feet. When I looked at her I could follow to some extent what she said. Why? lipreading! But when she turned away her head, I could hardly understand what she said.
Now imagine what would have happened if loud music was also playing in that stuffed-up ear!
In an email I told Woerlee about this little experiment - he ignored it. So much for his scientific curiosity.

[Art]

"he ignored it." - Rudolf Smit
--------------------------------------------
LOL! Now you know how I feel whenever I mention the connection between NDE's and the holographic universe theory. It loudly shouts out to me and seems so obvious but everyone else seems to be oblivious to it. Sigh!

[dmduncan]

Yes, the Pam Reynolds case IS unusual. I don't see any way of reasonably avoiding that conclusion. Anybody who has been talked to while listening to music wearing even poorly fitting earphones would know that it's impossible to hear what's being said during normal consciousness. So to explain it you must posit an extraordinary explanation either way, whether it ends up being materialistic or dualistic.

To dismiss it as nothing special seems ludicrous to me and a measure of one's own incuriousity to even refuse admitting it is an unusual case. It is by definition unusual to make out a conversation while your eardrums are being bombarded with such noise.

[dmduncan]

And forget the earphones. Just imagine enough noise in the room that produces the equivalent of 100 db in the ear. What are the odds that you are going to make out the details of a conversation 9' away at normal volume taking place while you are standing right next to a snowmobile revving it's engine or a chainsaw?

You can't make armchair quarterback explanations and leave it untested. It's so unusual that you have to back up that assertion with data that show it's in some sense possible.

[Michael Prescott]

Maybe I've forgotten, but did we ever determine with certainty that the clicks were playing during the exact time when the reported conversations took place? There was some question as to whether the clicks played intermittently, rather than throughout the procedure. (Given the high decibel level, which might permanently damage a person's hearing, it might make sense to play the clicks only occasionally.)

We may have cleared this up on another thread, but right now I can't recall.

[Kris]

Yep the clicks played the entire surgery at 11.7 beats per second. Remember the purpose of the clicks was to make sure her brain was not functional.

[Kris]

Look at it this way, if there was any way to contest this don't you think Dr Woerlee would have done so now.

[a]

Kris, I think it was 11.3, not 11.7. No biggie :)

[Rudolf Smit]

I still hope that someone will volunteer to do the tests I proposed above. Because those tests, which are basically quite simple, will settle the matter once and for all. I am willing to set up a sure fire protocol.

Anyone out there?

[Kris]

I would volunteer for it but someone might accuse me of lying if I did not hear anything.

[Rudolf Smit]

No need to volunteer as a subject, Kris. Someone must be the leader of the experiment. You could do it: collect a number of subjects and one or two independent observers. Piece of cake: done on a sunny winter afternoon! R.

[Kris]

Yeah but I think I might be in a situation where I am accused of being a bit biased :)

[Rudolf Smit]

Not when you ask two or three independent observers, who keep an eye on everything and take down notes.

[Kris]

Remember I would be reporting on them though, I could always lie to advance the NDE conspiracy :)

[Kris]

Art

Have you read Consciousness Beyond Life by Pim van Lommel?

If so I would really like to get your opinion on the NDE on pgs 36-37

[Art]

Hi Kris,
Yes, I've read and in fact I liked it so much that I kept it in my "life after death" library. It's in the other room so I'll go get it and re-read pages 36-37. We have a really good huge used book store in Nashville, which I live fairly close to, and they give trade credit for books so if I buy a book that I'm not that crazy about I'll take it to McKay's and trade it in and get "trade credit" for it. So, I'll go get my Pimm Van Lommel book and re-read those pages and we can talk about it! How fun!

By the way, have you read Peter Fenwick's book The Art of Dying? I really liked it. I also recently read Raymond Moody's book Glimpses of Eternity and thought it was excellent! Glimpses of Eternity is very positive and uplifting and I give it two thumbs up! I'm wading through Chris Carter's book right now. It's taking me a little longer to wade through. It's sort of like reading a college textbook.

[Art]

Hi Kris, I re-read that NDE account. It has a very "holographic" flavor about it. The Life Review is a holographic experience par excellance. You become the other person. I believe the purpose of the life review is not judgement but enlightenment. It's another learning tool. By becoming the other person you learn what it felt like to be them. Feel their emotions, hear their thoughts, etc.

If you meant the part where he talked about reincarnation that is simply him tapping into memories that are stored in the Akashic records. I'm not a huge fan of reincarnation and find it unappealing so I interpret reincarnation as being simply another connectedness-oneness-all knowledge-holographic thing where after we cross over and have "all knowledge" our soul or consciousness becomes connected to all the information in the entire universe and all the memories of everyone who has ever lived are stored in some kind of Universal comsic storehouse.

Sort of like having a holographic DVD library of information and you can take out any DVD you want to and re-play it and identify with the characters and because in a hologram everything is infinitely interconnected to everything else, and everything interpenetrates everything while you are on the other side you think and feel you actually were the other person because you identify so much with them. Sort of like watching a movie and becoming so engrossed with it that you identify with one of the characters.

But the main purpose of the life review is enlightenment and not judgement. It's a learning tool - which is the whole purpose of life. I believe life is a school and we are here to simply learn a few simple lessons.

[Michael Prescott]

"I'm not a huge fan of reincarnation and find it unappealing so I interpret reincarnation as being simply another connectedness-oneness-all knowledge-holographic thing"

Hmmm. But then why would a child recall one specific past life, rather than a whole panoply of lives? And why would a hypnotically regressed person remember a sequence of lives that follow one after the other (sometimes including between-life stages in which he prepares for each successive incarnation)?

"after we cross over and have 'all knowledge' our soul or consciousness becomes connected to all the information in the entire universe and all the memories of everyone who has ever lived"

We never seem to hear about this from mediums, though. The usual message is that the deceased person is not very different than he was when he was physically alive -- that any changes that will take place are gradual and evolutionary.

NDEs mostly reflect the same level of consciousness that the person is accustomed to on earth. There are some cases where NDErs say they experienced all knowledge or vastly increased knowledge, but they aren't typical. And it's debatable how valid this "knowledge" is. Dannion Brinkley said his mind was flooded with knowledge; to prove it, he brought back a series of predictions about world events. But his predictions so far have proved wildly wrong.

I'm inclined to think that universal knowledge is reserved for those at the very highest stage of spiritual evolution, which (sadly) rules me out for the foreseeable future!

[a]

Rudolf and Michael (and others), I'd be interested in your thoughts on this analysis of the Pam Reynolds case:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-InhxLzORzM&feature=related

[Rudolf Smit]

Dear a!

The Youtube film you are referring to is from Woerlee himself, under his nickame Swiferobi. And you hear his voice - with a slight Australian accent.

As you will understand by now we consider this "analysis" wishful thinking on the part of Woerlee. How fanatic someone can be that he even produces such awful youtube films.

Poor Pam Reynolds - but as you may know she passed away in September (heart attack) so she will no longer have to endure these unfounded allegations about her experience.

[Art]

We are limited by our human brain. People who have NDE's interpret them according to their culture and former beliefs. Betty Eadie was convinced that the Light was Jesus.

People from other religions interpret the light according to their own preconcieved beliefs. Buddhists believe "Yamdoots" come and carry them to the next life and Buddhist NDE'ers describe Yamdoots escorting them to the other side.

Another words, after the soul returns to the physical body it is once again limited by the memories and brain of the body it formerly inhabited.

As far as I'm concerned reincarnation might as well be annihilation. I see very little difference between reincarnation and what materialist atheists believe. Reincarnation is no "life after death" at all.

If we forget who and what we were before then there is no point to it. Also reincarnation sounds like the grossest and most horrendous form of punishment for something that the people who were limited to their physical bodies and forced to live in a physical universe they had no control over.

Our thoughts and emotions and personality are affected by the biochemistry of the brain which is dependent on the DNA one inherited from one's parents. A large part of who we are is directly attributable to our DNA and another large part of who we are is formed before we are 5 years old from the environment we grew up in, how we were treated, who our parents were, what people said to us, teachers, peers, etc.

In a holographic universe there are no "levels". The duality that we experience in this life won't exist in the next. We don't live for just ourselves. The information that I learn will be accessible to every soul that has ever lived or will ever live on the other side. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience. We are "gods" in training and once we learn the few simple lessons we came here to learn the soul sheds the body like an old suit of clothes and merges back into the holographic spiritual universe. I don't believe in levels or people or souls on the other side being higher or lower or better or better or worse than anyone. We will all be equal, and yes it's a holographic universe thing.

[Art]

People who have NDEs sit and stew on what they experience and try and figure out what happened to them. Another words, after they come back they try and make sense of it all. They remember bits and pieces of what they were able to carry back with them and they try and put it all together but the problem is that our brains are not large enough or complex enough to put it all together. We are limited by who and what we are. After the soul dies it crosses over into this other holographic dimension and immediately becomes connected to all the information in the entire universe. It's like having a chip in your brain that is connected to the internet and whatever you focus your attention on all the information on that subject is instantly downloaded into your brain. A "bolus of information" all at once, information that is cross correlated and interconnected to where it all makes sense and is understandable. The problem is that after the soul comes back here that connectedness and oneness is lost. Everything becomes linear again and we aren't able to see the connections so easily. The holographic nature of the information is lost.

[Michael Prescott]

"After the soul dies it crosses over into this other holographic dimension and immediately becomes connected to all the information in the entire universe."

Okay, but how do you know this? If NDErs can't retain the memory of the experience, and if it can't come through mediums or other sources, then why believe that it even happens?

"As far as I'm concerned reincarnation might as well be annihilation... [When we die] the soul sheds the body like an old suit of clothes and merges back into the holographic spiritual universe."

Merging with the universe sounds sort of like annihilation to me. How would we retain any individuality or sense of self in this scenario? And if we don't, then how is it different from reincarnation?

[Bruce Siegel]

"There are some cases where NDErs say they experienced all knowledge or vastly increased knowledge, but they aren't typical."

Hi Michael! I'm surprised to hear you say this. It seems to me that a fairly good proportion of NDE'rs say things like "Every question I ever had was answered, as well as many I would never have thought to ask." They claim to have learned about the structure of the universe, beings who live in other worlds, the history of the earth, and much more.

Then they add that they were told they can't bring this information back with them (which makes sense to me for a variety of reasons.) Don't you find this scenario to crop up again and again in your readings?

[Bruce Siegel]

I should add, though, that you make an interesting point about mediums not corroborating this phenomenon of greatly expanded knowledge. I'll have to take your word on that, though, because you've read a lot more in that area than I.

[Bruce Siegel]

OK—one more addendum. :o)

In your back-and-forth with Art, I agree with you that levels or planes of reality and understanding do exist. We ourselves live on one of those planes.

But maybe when we leave the body at death, some of us are temporarily leapfrogged beyond the system of levels, and have a brief taste of union with God and all knowledge, before returning to a lower level, where we resume our more gradual path upwards.

I think I myself—as well as many others—have experienced, during deeply altered states, this sort of leapfrogging even while still in the body.

[Bruce Siegel]

Another possibility, Michael: maybe this is a good example of how, when reading the literature, we each tend to focus on the things we already believe in, or that makes sense to us. The idea of a temporary, mind-blowing expansion of knowledge is something I'm completely comfortable with, so it's possible that I'm more attracted to NDE accounts that feature it. And, of course, the reverse might be true with you.

[Art]

"Okay, but how do you know this? If NDErs can't retain the memory of the experience, and if it can't come through mediums or other sources, then why believe that it even happens?" - MichaelPrescott

Because it fits with the holographic universe theory. In the original holographic piece of film each piece contains the whole, everything is interconnected, and everything interpenetrates everything.
--------------------------------------------
"Merging with the universe sounds sort of like annihilation to me. How would we retain any individuality or sense of self in this scenario? And if we don't, then how is it different from reincarnation?" - MP

That is why our lessons on this earth have to be so intense, emotional, and powerful. They have to be emotional enough to where the soul will remember what it felt like to be separate. Powerful enough to overcome those overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness in Heaven. Each individual soul has to individually experience for itself what it felt like to be separate. All the horrible things we experience in this life have to happen the way they do and we have to believe they are real or our souls wouldn't be able to maintain that sense of uniqueness that we take so much for granted in this life. This earth life is a school and the soul is here simply to experience duality and separation, time and space, and make memories of what it felt like to be limited to or inhabit a physical body and live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universe.

Becoming separate unique individuals and learning what it means and how it feels to be separate is the whole point of life. Life is one big long lesson in separation. From the instant we separate from our mothers and the umbilical cord is cut in two till the moment we die and our death's become a lesson in separation to the loved ones we leave behind. Divorce, different religions, races, cultures, languages, dialects, gender, sexual orientation, wealth, looks, weight and height, the shapes of our faces, different shape teeth, ears, noses, hair, etc. are all little lessons for the soul on what it means and how it feels to be separate.

And separation doesn't just have to be about people. In a hologram ALL INFORMATION is interconnected so even things like picking a tomato off a vine, or picking a grape or even getting up and using the restroom is a lesson in separation. Dropping a knife on the floor is a lesson in time and space, walking, riding in a car, riding a bicycle, flying in an airplane, are also lessons in what time and space look and feel like.

In the original holographic film time and space wouldn't really exist because all the information is spread throughout the entire piece of holographic film.

After our souls are no longer limited to our physical bodies they expand outwards to occupy the entire Universe, and maybe the entire multi-verse. Whatever they focus their attention on, that is what they experience. Whatever we dwell on, that is what we will experience. If you think of Miocene you will literally feel like you are there experiencing everything about that time and place in the Earth's history. But the really neat thing is that you won't be limited to just the Earth's history but the history of the entire Universe. We will be able to explore and experience all the planets and asteroids and comets and everything that exists in this holographic reality. As to what else the hologram contains we can only imagine.

"I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously." - excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE, http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html

[Art]

The reason we come here is sort of exactly the opposite of the Borg Collective. Instead of being assimilated we come here to become UN-assimilated. The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it is holistically imprinted with what it needs to learn regardless of who we are, or where we live, or what we believe. And resistance is futile. It's not like a knuckleheaded 5th grade boy that refuses to pay attention and learn. You don't have to go looking for duality and separation - they will find you no matter where you live or what you believe. If you live long enough in this life you will lose someone you love.

The most intense and emotional lesson in what it means and how it feels to be separate is when someone we love dies. Nothing else comes close. And I believe that is why we will never be allowed to know absolutely 100% for certain that there is life after death because if we knew absolutely for certaint that one day we were going to be reunited with all our loved ones in heaven we might not mourn quite as much and death would cease to be the powerful lesson in separation that it is.

[Michael Prescott]

"It seems to me that a fairly good proportion of NDE'rs say things like 'Every question I ever had was answered, as well as many I would never have thought to ask.'"

Bruce, I haven't made a formal study of it, but from what I can tell, it's not typical. It doesn't even make the list of most common features, which are: feelings of calmness; pure light; OBE; entering another realm; encountering spiritual beings; a tunnel; communication with spirits; life review.

In her excellent book Changes of Mind, Jenny Wade looks at NDEs and concludes that the level of consciousness reported by most NDErs is not significantly higher than their ordinary consciousness, and doesn't approach the higher levels that some people achieve through meditation, peak experiences, etc.

There are exceptional NDEs, though. Here's part of one reported by "Daniel A":

"[I] then became immersed in infinite peace; bliss; ecstasy. Unimaginable love; understanding so great, powerful; so awesome as to be humanly incomprehensible. While I was there (and only there), access was given to knowledge; 'everything that ever was, is, and will be.' The true nature of the universe was suddenly clear as a bell, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It seemed to have a perfect order to it...in fact, it was evident that I was soon to become part of it. I was about to join the entity which could only be described as... God; so vast in dimension and scope only biblical words can come close to describing. I wasn't able to retain the knowledge given; the human brain is much too primitive and limited to house it. This intelligence requires an entirely different dimension to exist and comprehend. Yet it is part of our three dimensions as well...just hidden out of view of our 5 senses. Yet I retain enough to remember the sheer awe."

Source: http://www.nderf.org/daniel_a_nde.htm

Note that this NDEr has created a web page, which is linked to the URL given above, in which he seems to cast himself as a Biblical prophet. One of his predictions was that Y2K would be a massive catastrophe. Naturally the failure of this prediction has not soured him on his other revelations...

I wasn't even aware of this guy when I started writing this comment. I just Googled "near-death experience" + "all knowledge," and his NDE came up. But it's interesting that the first example I found has turned out to be kind of flaky.

[no one]

"I think I myself—as well as many others—have experienced, during deeply altered states, this sort of leapfrogging even while still in the body." Bruce S.

Yes. Agreed. Then only to return - sooner or later - to my own habits of thought, feeling and behavior. I suspect that those NDEs that do report access to unlimited information and a connectedness to everything are along the same lines. It may well be that had those people actually died they too would have returned to some more typical level of spritual awareness; albeit on some bardo plane.

Another thought I have is that NDEs that report in the way that Art likes are from people who are not previously experienced with hightened/altered states of consciousness and their first taste of this sort of thing blows their minds, but isn't, in reality, all they are saying it is. Having every question answered, being connected to the universe, feeling a pervasive limitless love...these are all not infrequently reported by practiced meditators and some people using psychedelics under the right set and setting.....I've been there and I've had friends that have been there. It's really quite dazzling at first. But, over time, one begins to realize that while one actually did enjoy knowledge of higher orders of understanding, 1. one didn't really get all of the ultimate answers and 2. the knowledge isn't necesarily applicable in the material daily grind and hence sort of fades in signficance over time.

So, I guess my question to Art is this; how do we know that NDEs reporting these holographic elements are what they claim to be? How do we know that a person truly obtained? that "access was given to knowledge; everything that ever was, is, and will be."?

How do we know that all of that isn't an expression of a feeling versus a fact?

[Bruce Siegel]

"Jenny Wade looks at NDEs and concludes that the level of consciousness reported by most NDErs is not significantly higher than their ordinary consciousness, and doesn't approach the higher levels that some people achieve through meditation, peak experiences, etc"

Again, this really surprises me. Which is not to say that it's wrong, but that it goes against my own impression of NDE's. For example, I've been reading a lot on the NDERF site lately, and I bookmarked three NDE accounts recently that I plan to download to my ipod because I like them so much.

I just checked all three, and in two of them, the experiencers strongly emphasize the seemingly limitless knowledge they temporarily enjoyed. The third hints in this direction but is less explicit.

Now it's quite possible that I chose these accounts for this very reason! In fact, more and more, I'm thinking that's the case.

But it never occurred to me that this was a personal bias. I've always thought of a sudden immersion in knowledge and insight as a hallmark of the NDE. I'll have to reconsider this.

By the way, you've twice today commented on the inaccuracy of experiencers' precognitions. I too, have come to realize that these predictions are not to be trusted. EXCEPT that, in many cases, NDER's talk about receiving advance information about their own personal futures, and this information seems to be much more reliable and even impressive.

I agree with you, incidentally, that the guy whose site you linked to seems pretty strange. But I certainly don't have that feeling about everyone who claims to have had experiences of all-knowing.

To clarify, Michael: do you doubt the validity of ALL claims of omniscience (or something like it) during an NDE?

[no one]

"....But it's interesting that the first example I found has turned out to be kind of flaky." Michael P.

That's what I'm talking about. Someone probably unfamiliar with altered states of consciousness suddenly experiences a fairly dramatic one and gets all kinds of carried away with it to the point of thinking he is now a prophet.

Daniel describes a powerful but not extraordinary state of awareness. Many practiced at the art of meditation or psychedelic use would recognize the place Daniel visited as special, yet familiar. They would also tend to offer a calmer and more circumspect interpretation of the significance of the visit.

I suppose that somewhere in the world there may still be tribal people who know nothing of airplanes. Imagine finding one of these people and taking him/her up for a flight over the tribal territory. Imagine the descriptions that the tribesperson would offer to the other members after returning to the ground. Imagine the theories (and religion?) they would create based on that first flight. And they'd be mostly way off base.

[Art]

If you are summoned to be a juror and they bring witnesses the more witnesses that testify the more you might accept that what they say is true actually is. I have read a plethora of NDEs that have a very strong holographic flavor to them. I highly doubt this could happen accidentally. Very few people know or understand the implications of what it means to live in a holographic universe. I'm willing to bet that most people who have had NDEs have even heard of the holographic universe theory.

The physics of the original holographic film would be very different than this universe. All knowledge, "bolus of information" (instant downloading of information - all at once), 360 degree vision, connectedness and oneness, overwhelming love, more consciousness than normal, "realer than real", feeling like you are literally everywhere in the universe at once, time and space not existing, being able to experience any time and place in history simply by focusing your attention on it, communicating telepathically, etc. are all things one might expect in the "holographic film" universe.

There are two parts to a holographic universe. There is the original film and then there is the holographic projection from the film. We presently live in the "projection" or "the place of separation." The other side would be the place of "connectedness and oneness." A place where everything interpenetrates everything and where is infinitely connected to everything else.

The really great thing about it is though is that we don't really lose anything. All the stuff on this side that we loved and lost will still exist on the other side. If it is here, it also must exist there.

And because there is a certain inherent degree of blurriness in a holographic projection - then the other side, the original holographic film from whence this side derives it's reality from, will feel even more real to us than this side does. The difference will be that we will be able to experience any time and place in the history of the Universe simply by thinking about it. We will be like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes (TV show) and become masters of space and time. Perhaps this is why Jesus told the pharisees in the gospel of John, "is it not written, "you are gods."

[Art]

"My mind and thoughts were moving as fast as lightening. Everything was like crystal. I understood everything and again there was absolutely no fear.......I was going backward as if I was going away from that place of separation." - excerpt from RoseMarie's NDE, http://www.nderf.org/rosemarie_w_nde.htm

And this is the reason why the other side seems "realer than real." The blurriness that exists in a holographic projection (this side) won't exist in the original holographic film (heaven).

"Since the volume of the spherical universe is much bigger than its outer surface, how could this be true? Hogan realized that in order to have the same number of bits inside the universe as on the boundary, the world inside must be made up of grains bigger than the Planck length. ‘Or, to put it another way, a holographic universe is blurry,’ says Hogan."

http://blogs.monografias.com/sistema-limbico-neurociencias/2010/02/19/the-holographic-universe-when-it-pays-to-be-first/

[sbu]

You are mixing things up Art. There is no indication that Hogan links his theory of a holographic universive to consciousness. All he is saying is that space time might not be continuous. He could still be a materialist regarding the brain as a computer.

[Art]

sbu, I'm linking the two together. I'm smart enough to see the connection between the two. It is irrelevant to me whether Hogan can see it or not. I can see it. The connection between near death experiences and the holographic universe theory is obvious to me and by the way Hogan's research explains why the other side will seem even more real to us than this side does.

And I'm not the only one who sees it. Dr. Ken Ring has a chapter in his book "Life At Death" about the connection between NDEs and the holographic Universe. Dr. Melvin Morse devotes several pages to it in his book Where God Lives, and Dr. Edgar Mitchell sees the connection between NDEs and the holographic universe, and Dr. Oswald Harding wrote a whole book about it called Near Death Experiences: A Holographic Explanation. I have also read other books that mention the connection between the two.

excerpt from Chamisa's NDE:
"Everything in a hologram. The ability to see and know everything at once. Seeing through walls. Knowing the past, present and future of people in surgery and seeing family members and what they were doing."
http://www.nderf.org/chamisa_h_nde.htm

excerpt from Kelly K's NDE:
"The next thing I recall was being shown the universe. I remember thinking, "So, THAT'S how it is! I was in awe. It was like a huge net, or chain link fence, everything in the universe is connected."
http://www.nderf.org/kelly_k's_nde.htm

from Victor Solow's NDE:
"I was moving at high speed toward a net of great luminosity."
http://tatfoundation.org/forum2003-12.htm

[Art]

As far as my ideas about "why we are here"? It all depends on how smart you think the Creator of the Universe was. If this Universe was designed to teach us "what it means to love" and "oneness with God" it is very poorly designed indeed. Very few people are successful. If we have to repeat the experience numerous times to be successful than the Creator of the Universe wasn't very smart or successful in creating this universe. It is like a teacher where 95% of her students fail every year and have to repeat the class.

But, if the purpose of this life is to experience duality and separation, time and space, and imprint memories of the physical body then the Creator of the Universe was brilliant because this Universe is perfectly designed to teach us those lessons and because of the holographic nature of our universe - where everything is infinitely connected to each other - then even little tiny babies that die during childbirth can tap into those collective memories and get a sense of what it means and how it feels to be separate, what time and space look and feel like, and access the memories in the Akashic record of what it felt like to be limited by a physical body and what it felt like and what it means to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time Universe.

When I examine both theories mine seems to make a whole lot more sense to me. Life is one big long lesson in separation. Separation in every way, shape, and form possible. From the moment we are born and separate from our mothers till the day we die and our death becomes a lesson in separation to the loved ones we leave behind.

Very few people are truly successful in overcoming the inherent separation that this world forces on us. There are very few saints. Very few Mother Theresas. Very few Ghandis or Jesuses. So if it were God's intention that we should learn in this life what it really means to learn agape love - then the Creator wasn't that successful and I give Him a C- at best.

A teacher where only 5% or less pass the course is a very poor teacher and should probably look for another profession.

[sbu]

sbu, I'm linking the two together. I'm smart enough to see the connection between the two. It is irrelevant to me whether Hogan can see it or not. I can see it. The connection between near death experiences and the holographic universe theory is obvious to me and by the way Hogan's research explains why the other side will seem even more real to us than this side does.

I'm not sure you reasoning is sound scientific methodology but it makes me smile :) The interesting thing is that you actually reduce consciousness to a physical phenomena in your claims. I think most people in here are dualist beliefing the opposite, that consciousness is immaterial.

[No One]

Art, I am hoping you can explain what appears to me at least to be a contradiction in the logic of your theory.

On the one hand, you say that the disembodied person can focus its attention and merge with any particular aspect of the hologram that it chooses and be there (I think you used an example of some pre-historic period of time on earth, but too lazy to back and check ;-)

On the other hand, you are saying that upon death one re-merges with the totality of all things that is the hologram.

So which is it? Is a soul returned to the oneness of all things (which does sound an awful lot like obliteration of the personality) or does one have the option of focusing one's attention on some obscure piece of the hologram and residing there; potentially alone?

And, if the latter is possible, in your opinion as you earlier stated, this points to a possible fissure in your explanation of the meaning of life because apparently separation could be continued in the afterlife to the same extent it is experienced here and now.

But, if the latter is not possible, then all of the mediums must be wrong and the oblivion that you seek to avoid must be real because that is all that could result from a total merging with the source and a total elimination of "separation".

Am I missing something in your perspective?