An extraordinary rendition?

Here's an interesting tidbit from Anthony Everitt's fine bio, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor. It concerns Augustus on his deathbed, after a long reign filled with accomplishment but also crowded with bloody strife.

Just before he died, his wits seemed to wander, for he suddenly cried out in terror: "Forty young men are carrying me off!"   [p. 314]

Considering the many cruelties Augustus inflicted on other people throughout his life, especially in his early years, one has to wonder if his wits had really wandered ... or if, in fact, he was seeing his immediate future quite clearly. 

Comments

[william]

Speaking of deathbed visions did anyone see Larry king as he did a special on the paranormal last night. Kind of interesting especially the guy that does research on the paranormal and I think his book was called the ghost hunters. He had some pretty good insights on the paranormal. And a neat picture frame of a ghost that showed up in one of their videos standing in the doorway.

Also had a skeptic on there that stated if this was true people could make a million dollars from randi and his challenge. Apparently he has not read the small print on randi's contract. That pr stunt might have been one of the best pr stunts in the history of humankind. And it keeps right on working. Now one yet that I have seen on TV knows how to discredit it and this group last night did not touch it.

He also stated there is no evidence for life after death because no one has published in a prestigious journal. Like mainstream scientists would publish paranormal material. I continue to be fascinated by our human minds and how we can filter out all incoming information that does not agree with our cherished beliefs.

Most people put scientists and professors with PHD’s in some special category of not being influenced by any cherished beliefs. After teaching at three universities and attending countless faculty meetings and teaching hundreds of scientists at my seminars I know better.

[lucyjane D]

William, you say that you have taught professors, I am curious to know if you will kindly afford me of what exactly was your expertise? Regarding the afterlife you state that for skeptics trying to probe for proof or evidence,that"I know better." I have done alot of self research through the years on afterlife and still wait for some evidence of afterlife, countless testimonies just won,t do it for me. some scientist will deny it on the 'processes' of the brain that it goes through as it loses its normalfunction that will start shutting down its vital signs via equipment that registers its wave,etc. The best hope I hold to is dreams that to me impressions made independent of brain and more through the port of the mind which, occassions are as true to waking hours will things validate a part visited while dreaming. its been told many times that your loved ones come to visit after death through dreaming. people I know attest to this in almost every case of a passing of their loved ones.

lucyjane D

[Leo MacDonald]

I remember wacthing a youtube video where Richard Dawkins was on and a guy from the audience mentioned that he read the god delusion and came the conclusion that it's highly unlikely that there is an afterlife because evolution because replicating molecules came first

[Leo MacDonald]

Here's the video it's at the very irst of the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAnBTRXQpw&feature=related

[Arthur]

Just before he died, his wits seemed to wander, for he suddenly cried out in terror: "Forty young men are carrying me off!" - Augustus
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God I love Death Bed Visions! Augustus's death bed vision may not have been negative or bad. He might have been unnecessarily negative. Those angels might have been carting his soul off to heaven.
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He also stated there is no evidence for life after death because no one has published in a prestigious journal.
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Huh? What about Dr. Pimm Van Lommel's work published in the Lancet?
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I have done alot of self research through the years on afterlife and still wait for some evidence of afterlife, countless testimonies just won,t do it for me. - lucyjane
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Have you ever read The Holographic Universe and NDE's? The parallels and corroboration between the two is mind boggling and unexplainable. No one has ever been able to explain that away to me. For instance, Mark Horton says in his NDE description, "I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously." http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html If you'd ever read the holographic universe you'd see how holographic that sounds. - Art

[Kevin]

My mother's father had a deathbed vision (actually, he was sitting on his living room sofa shortly before dying of emphysema) which was a curious one. The year was 1961, so there was no comtamination from the later work of Kenneth Ring and others. As he sat with my mother's sister, he complained about the light from the television set (!) which he saw in the ceiling of the living room. My aunt reported that she could see nothing there, but my grandfather apparently went on to complain at some length. We now recognize this as the often reported "tunnel of light", but he had no such concept to work with and was not a particularly religious man. I was far too young to understand what was going on at the time, but my mother shared the story with me years later.

To lucyjane D, I would ask what she would consider to be "evidence" of the continuation of consciousness after physical death. Given the nature of physical death, testimony in the form of veridical NDEs is probably the best evidence we will have access to. The alternative (experiencing your own death) will give you the answer you seek, but will obviously end the life you are presently inhabiting. It seems highly unlikely that science, as it is carried out in the here-and-now, will provide any information to aid you. As such, the experiences of others, particularly those who acquire information which is subsequently verified, may well be as close as you will come while living. Perhaps a re-examination of such testimony is in order. The second of Chris Carter's books on what is called the "paranormal", a book which specifically addresses the questions you have, will be released soon. I can recommend it in advance on the strength of his most recent offering ("Parapsychology and the Skeptics"). Michael has mentioned a wealth of others sources on this blog, and a quick Google search will overwhelm you with material. This is meant in no way condescendingly, but remember that physical evidence of death populates every cemetary, while MENTAL evidence of continuous consciousness must remain, well..., mental. I wish you well in your search.

[william]

Lucyjane: “William, you say that you have taught professors,” this is a miscommunication. I may have taught a some professors when I taught at seminars for an international consulting organization based in Japan but what I did say was that I taught scientists that worked at organizations designing computer chips and electronic components for NASA.

Also because I worked as a professor I attended a lot of faculty meetings were various ideas were discussed and my point was we all carry our bias into these meetings with us. More education can have the opposite affect on an open mind and cause us to have tunnel vision.

“I have done alot of self research through the years on afterlife and still wait for some evidence of afterlife,”

Try out this link and see what the odds are that all of these evidences listed of life after death are not valid. Maybe that will help if we deal in probabilities. Science deals in probabilities but when we say life after death is valid because here is the probability of it being invalid these skeptics yell foul. Heads I win tails your lose is their model as Michael suggested.
http://lifeafterdeath.info/Additional_Comments.htm

I am very much a skeptic and a small part of my research has been that I watched every show john Edwards did on crossing over and it was 6 months before I felt that he had a true gift and was telling these people things that highly suggested that he was communicating with someone they once knew or once loved. And it was not mind reading or telepathy because often he would tell them things that they later learned to be true.

“The best hope I hold to is dreams” dreams give to me at least the least evidence for life after death. This is an interesting statement from me because I once had a series of profound dreams that later I found out are called garden dreams and visitations. If the other side is like that series of three dreams that I had the other side must be a wonderful place and the telepathy with the non-judgment and acceptance of me just as I am from this “entity” was beyond words to describe.

These dreams came to me after two years of asking the universe for proof of life after death. But in my mind at least they failed to give me proof but they sure were wonderful to have. Never have had another one like them since over 16 years ago.

[william]

“Huh? What about Dr. Pimm Van Lommel's work published in the Lancet?”

Art for me at least NDE’s are not proof of life after death but only suggestive of life after death. From my point of view spiritualism has done the best and worst job of proving life after death. The best like direct voice and physical manifestations and profound and accurate readings for sitters and trance readings with direct voice and the worst because of the fraud that has been discovered.

I have used a cross validation approach to put some validity into all this evidence that is suggestive of life after death. When this evidence is put together as probabilities it becomes highly suggestive of life after death such as Ira Stevenson’s work on reincarnation.

As far as death bed visitations try and convince my wife that her brother was not seeing someone (dad?) right before he crossed over. Things were moving in the room all on their own at the exact time she asked, “who do you see and do you see dads”. He died ten years to the day after his dad died and almost on the exact minute. One of those you had to be there which her sister was and saw the same thing. Scared them when it occurred but later brought them comfort.

[william]

lucyjane: have you read the book "no living person could have known". this book is highly suggestive of life after death.

what would you consider proof?

[Greg Taylor]

One night when my grandmother almost died in hospital, she reported the following morning that two men in a chariot, with winged helmets, asked her to hop on and go for a ride. Coming from a quiet and conservative lady, who grew up in rural Northern Ireland, it's quite an interesting anecdote!

And apologies for plugging it again, but Michael Grosso has an essay on deathbed visions in our anthology Darklore (which Michael Prescott also has an essay in) - you can see the title spread for Michael Grosso's "The Beatific Vision" http://dailygrail.com/node/5577>in this Daily Grail update.

[Leo]

Hi Lucy Jane try out this link www.survivalafterdeath.org

[Martin Brunet]

One night when my grandmother almost died in hospital, she reported the following morning that two men in a chariot, with winged helmets, asked her to hop on and go for a ride.
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Hi Greg,
Couldn't we interpret that has being allucinations generated by a brain in crisis? The brain would create allucinations in order to soothe the dying person. I can see the spirits has kind of know-it-all entities that would know the time of death of a person. Than why spirits could offer to hop in the chariot? Don't they know that it's not her time to die?
I always have those kind of «pop culture»-ish interrogations, but I think they are valid, because I'm not trying to prove a point. I'm trying to point out a few weaknesses. It's my first time writing a comment, but I have been reading this (one of the few) quality blog about the paranormal.

[Ryan]

William, if you don't mind me asking, what is your PhD in?

[william]

Ryan: double major: education and industrial management. My PhD dissertation was on the Toyota production system, which is now called lean flow. We Americans want to pretend we invented it.

The Toyota production system is a pull system that uses a signal (kanban) to pull material/information through an organization whereas the world had always used a push system to push material and information through a series of processes. It is a paradigm shift of the highest order. I noticed in my consulting career organizations wanted tools not mental shifts.

This is a case of one person changing the world as one person thought of this system in his mind. It took over 20 years to finally make it work (much resistance). It goes against all logic (busy worker mentality) until one sees it work.

But my specialty was teaching this system along with understanding variation and six sigma statistical research strategies to administrative/design groups in government facilities and how to move information through an organization faster and this is where I worked with people making "stuff" for NASA.

At these seminars I showed the video the business of paradigms and that video changed the way I viewed the world. Our paradigms often encase our beliefs in concrete and that is called paradigm paralysis. A paradigm shift is a rare phenomenon.

One a side note I also worked for an international Japanese consulting organization teaching organizations how to become not only results oriented but also process oriented. This proved to be an impossible task for American organizations and educational institutions. The “no child left behind” is a classic example of what happens when an educational institution or governments fail to see the need to become process oriented in our schools. But it did make a lot of money for the corporations designing and making tests.

[Ryan]

Very interesting, William. I think being process orientated as well as results orientated is something that holds for life, too. And creativity, and scholarship, etc.

The Bhagavad-Gita goes even further, and urges not to care for results at all. Don't know if I would go that far.

[Arthur]

This is kind of related. Okay, not exactly but it's pretty cool.

On October 25 one of my wife's beloved cat's, Max, died. Max was a grey and white Manx cat, neutered, and right at 13 years old. We think he died of cardiomyopathy. He had a heart murmur when he was a kitten. My wife just got back today from Chicago and she just shared with me a dream she had while she was there.

In her dream her brother (Jeff) was visiting our house and he said to her, "come out back, I want to show you something." So she went out back with Jeff, and he was standing there with Max. The thing was that Max was big, like as big as a large dog. When Max saw my wife he was so happy to see her that he came running up to her. She said to Jeff, "Randy must be a really good Vet." Because Max was still alive. She said that she felt so much love from Max in the dream and it was so vivid. She also said she can't get it out of her head.

I told my wife that I believe she had an ADC, and "after death communication" from Max. - Art

[lucyjane D]

Hi William
thanks for answering all of my questions, as well as others who offered help with their own developments in research material and personal accounts to enabling or strengthing a faith or private validation to that effort of Afterlife. I will check out the links and books that lend the science possibilities of our human dynamics in the here and now and beyond the frontier of this temporal life. I hope I am not to late for anyone to read my comments, I wasn,t near the computer over the weekend. I tend to hold Mr Brunet's view that allucinations might be what happens to a brain in crisis. My father died for three minutes before he was revived while having a heart attack and he said he was seeing a bright whiteness during that time or light and seemed to float that way until he became conscious again to his surroundings while code 'blue was being proformed on him.
thats the only testimony of going through a white tunnel I ever heard.family members have seen a ghost once and only when we were young, I have felt things but discredited them to natural causes all my life.All right I am going to land a bomb and tell you that every now and than but far and between I hear breathing like in my ear that if I listen it gets louder and more pronouced? I attribute this to blood pressure or physiological explanations like a person passes ringing in their head to nerves or tiredness. my sisters and brother once said they hear this too? But dreams are really my point of investigation because they point to things that my filters miss of perhaps the band wave is too limited bring to my waking attention or conscious hours. altho in dream research on scientific books etc on the brain and mind I am led to beleive that our mind operates on different levels or layers or parts of the brain that is specialized for certain functions or sensory stimulation. And those parts remain active while we sleep or become creatively free to express and visualize their interpretation of those wave bands. you asked what I would consider 'validation'to afterlife..witnessing some paranormal happening of anything that visits upon my own senses and defies logic but nevertheless isn,t just suggestion or overlooking a natural 'cause' that cannot be found.
LucyJane D.

[wvogt]

How do we know anything whatsoever about the scene at Emperor Augustus' deathbed? If the description is sound history it is because there was one or more witnesses who left us a record. If we did not accept the testimony of such witnesses our historical records would evaporate. We would have no history.
If we do accept such testimony, how then are we justified in rejecting the testimony of witnesses in the area of the survival of bodily death (as Lucy Jane in her post says she in fact does)? The customary answer, I think, is based upon Carl Sagan's principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A special rule applies. But who gets to decide what is extraordinary and what is not?
In his book When the Impossible Happens Stanislav Grof, a founder of transpersonal psychology, relates a meeting he had with Sagan at the latter's hotel room in Boston. Sagan, a prominent member of CSICOP, was disturbed by the direction that transpersonal psychology was taking and wanted to set things right and practically summoned Grof to the meeting. Grof and Sagan did not see eye to eye and their conversation finally focused on the case of a patient of Michael Sabom who had accurately described in detail under anesthesia the procedures that were carried out during his surgery. Sagan's position was, "Of course, this did not happen." And he added, "There are many cardiosurgeons in the world. Nobody would have known the guy. So he made up a wild story to attract attention to himself. It's a PR trick!"
Thus Sagan disposed of the testimony of a highly qualified witness. If it were up to me, I would not appoint the Sagans of the world to be the decision makers as to what is to be accepted as evidence in extraordinary cases.
With regard to witnesses, some of the strongest evidence of survival I have come across is found in Vice-Admiral W. Usborne Moore's book The Voices. The strength of the evidence here is due to the testimony of the witnesses, including the admiral himself. Much of the book is made up of the experiences of the sitters, told in their own words. Many of them give their names and places of residence at the end of their accounts, although some chose to remain anonymous. So it is not fiction. An appreciable number of these direct voice seances were held in well-lit rooms. Several voices often spoke at once, sometimes while the medium, Mrs. Etta Wriedt, was speaking herself. And sometimes in foreign languages unknown by the medium. The explanations of trickery under the cover of darkness and/or ventriloquism were thus ruled out. (To my mind these circumstances also rule out any possibility of Super ESP. It is hard to imagine how Super ESP could be stretched to cover direct voice).
If we reject witnesses where does this leave us? Do we reject the story of Augustus' deathbed vision? Do we even deny that Augustus existed, since his existence is based on testimony? If so, that goes double for Caligula.

[Michael Prescott]

Thanks, wogt, for your interesting comments. Admiral Moore's book The Voices can be downloaded for free here.

I agree that if we refuse to accept any and all personal testimony, we're being unduly skeptical.

[william]

I just visited a high school friend that I had not seen in over 50 years and his wife told me a story how her dad had a near death experience. I mean this story had all the classic phenomena in it. It was the first and only one she knew about, as she does not have an interest in such things. It was the classic NDE.

When her dad met his wife on the other side she told him he had to go back but he did not want to and also his wife who died at a very old age looked like she did the day he married her. Now this experience at least to me does not prove he left his body but what about those people that know things that they could have only known if they had left their bodies. How do we explain those experiences?

Try to convince my wife and her sister there was not someone in her brother’s room while her brother was passing. Large objects moving on their own at the exact moment she asked the question “is someone in this room that you see”. It is interesting that people that where not there in that room can explain the experience to satisfy their existing paradigm such as it did not happen or whatever. This is the power of paradigms.

Lucyjane: for me it is all the evidence combined that highly suggests that we survive death. Also 6 years of doing research into spiritualism has help me see that life after death exist and this was six years after doing 10 years of research into a wide variety of phenomena. Apparently we are only seeing about 4% of reality so I think there is a whole lot out there about the mysteries of life and this universe that we don’t know.

[lucyjane D]

"Apparently we are only seeing about 4% of reality so I think there is a whole lot out there about the mysteries of life and this universe that we don’t know"

Now I'll vouch for that.

lucyjane