In comments, Art suggested that I read (or actually reread) Chapter 12, "Beyond the Body," in Kenneth Ring's 1980 book Life at Death: a Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. I took his advice and found the material very interesting. What follows is a summary of the first part of the chapter.
Ring begins by looking at the early stages of a near-death experience -- the apparent separation of the person from the physical body. He writes,
I believe that what happens when an individual is near the point of apparent death is a real, and not just a subjective, separation of "something" -- to be specified shortly -- from the physical body. It is this "something" that then perceives the immediate physical environment and then (in subsequent stages of the core experience) goes on to experience events outside of the time-space coordinates of ordinary sensory reality.
He suggests that the sense of peace and absence of pain typically described by NDErs are consistent with what we would expect if the experiencers "are free from all body-based cues."
But is the experiencer disembodied, or does he have a new body? Ring considers both possibilities, finding evidence for each. Some accounts suggest a disembodied consciousness, while others indicate the existence of a "second body of some kind." Employing a commonly used term from esoteric studies, Ring calls this second body "the double."
He goes on:
According to [Raymond] Moody, most of his respondents, while subjectively out of their physical body, found themselves to be "in" another body. Typically, however, his interviewees found it difficult, if not impossible, to describe this body. It is, of course, weightless and invisible [to the living], but sometimes it seems to have a human shape and is capable of at least visual and auditory perception. Moody remarks that this second body is usually characterized by such terms as a mist, cloud, vapor, energy pattern, or the like. He felt that the term that best epitomized its quality was the spiritual body ...
On the other hand, most of our respondents [i.e., people interviewed for Ring's book] implied or stated that they were not aware of a second body, but rather felt as though it was simply "themselves" or "their mind" that was conscious while out of the body ...
From these several sources, then, about all we can conclude is that the perception of a second body -- the double -- is sometimes reported by persons having an out-of-body experience, but it is by no means always the case ...
This conflict in testimony could be seen as problematic, but as we'll shortly see, there is a fairly easy way of resolving the two kinds of accounts.
In the meantime, still pursuing the elusive double, Ring looks at descriptions of the dying process provided by people who allegedly could observe the formation of this second body. (Incidentally, the medium Andrew Jackson Davis gave a similar report, which I quoted in this post, with a follow-up here.)
Ring quotes a nineteenth-century missionary's account of the Tahitian belief that at death
the soul [is] drawn out of the body, whence it was borne away, to be slowly and gradually united to the god from whom it had emanated ... The Tahitians have concluded that a substance, taking human form, issued from the head of the corpse, because among the privileged few who have the blessed gift of clairvoyance, some affirm that, shortly after a human body ceases to breathe, a vapour arises from the head, hovering a little way above it, but attached by a vapoury cord. The substance, it is said, gradually increases in bulk and assumes the form of an inert body. When this has become quite cold, the connecting cord disappears and the dis-entangled soul-form floats away as if borne by invisible carriers.
After this, Ring quotes two accounts presented by Robert Crookall, which dovetail neatly with the Tahitian view. Here's the first one:
Estelle Roberts described her husband's transition. "I saw his spirit leave the body. It emerged from his head and gradually molded itself into an exact replica of his earth-body. It remained suspended about a foot above his body, lying in the same position, i.e., horizontal, and attached to it by a cord to the head. Then the cord broke and the spirit-form floated away, passing through the wall ...
And here is part of the second account, in which a physician, R.B. Hout, described the death of his aunt:
My attention was called ... to something immediately above the physical body, suspended in the atmosphere about two feet above the bed. At first I could distinguish nothing more than a vague outline of a hazy, foglike substance. There seemed to be only a mist held there suspended, motionless. But, as I looked, very gradually there grew into my sight a denser, more solid, condensation of this inexplicable vapor. Then I was astonished to see definite outlines presenting themselves, and soon I saw this foglike substance was assuming a human form....
As I watched the suspended Spirit Body, my attention was called, again intuitively, to a silverlike substance that was streaming from the head of the physical body to the head of the spirit "double." Then I saw the connection-cord between the two bodies. As I watched, the thought, "The silver cord!" kept running through my mind. I knew, for the first time, the meaning of it. This "silver cord" was the connecting-link between the physical and the spirit bodies, even as the umbilical cord unites the child to its mother...
The cord was attached to each of the bodies at the occipital protuberance immediately at the base of the skull. Just where it met the physical body it spread out, fanlike, and numerous little strands separated and attached separately to the skull base. But other than at the attachments, the cord was round, being perhaps an inch in diameter. The color was a translucent luminous silver radiance. The cord seemed alive with vibrant energy. I could see the pulsations of light stream along the course of it, from the direction of the physical body to the spirit "double." With each pulsation the spirit body became more alive and denser, whereas the physical body became quieter and more nearly lifeless ... By this time the features were very distinct. The life was all in the astral body... the pulsations of the cord had stopped... I looked at the various strands of the cord as they spread out, fanlike, at the base of the skull. Each strand snapped ... the final severance was at hand.
It's obvious that these accounts -- and many others like them -- agree on the essentials, even if there are discrepancies in some details. (And perhaps there are not any greater discrepancies here than in various accounts of birth, since, as any obstetrician will testify, not all births follow an identical procedure.)
If we are to give credence to this evidence, we seem drawn to the conclusion that a second body is formed (or re-formed) as part of the dying process, and that the soul or spirit or life force -- my terms, not Ring's -- uses this second body as a vehicle when the physical body is no longer functional.
After some qualifying remarks, in which he makes a few too many concessions to critics of parapsychology for my taste, Ring attempts to formulate a theory on the basis of these accounts. Here's where he offers a solution to the apparent contradiction between the two types of accounts.
Recall that some people sense or see themselves in a second body, whereas others do not. The clairvoyant visions I have cited, however, all suggest that the formation of a second or duplicate body takes time, that it does not appear all at once. If that is so, then it becomes understandable why only some people would feel that they were "in" such a body; presumably those who fail to report such perceptions were at an earlier stage of the dying process, a pre-second body stage, to be exact. Whether this alleged second body is actually an objective reality (albeit in another set of dimensions to which some clairvoyants are presumably sensitive) or is nothing more than what esotericists call a "thought-form" (that is, a mind-created reality in the physical space-time with which we are all familiar) is a question that we must leave unanswered. It may even be that it is not a terribly helpful way of phrasing the alternatives....
Not only is there a high level of agreement across independent witnesses concerning the formation of a spirit double at death, but their descriptions accord, on the whole, very neatly with the accounts provided by near-death survivors themselves! That is, both the external perspective of the witness and the direct testimony of the individual close to death converge on what is occurring during the initial stages of death: There is a splitting-off process that takes place during which one's center of self-awareness is freed from the constraints of the physical body.
Ring admits that most NDErs, even those who report being in a second body, do not describe the formation of the body in detail. Some who are "caught up in this extraordinary process" may not be in a position to note the details. Others may not have gotten "far enough into the experience" to observe the second body's formation. Even so, Ring has turned up one case in which an NDEr does report the formation of the double in great detail. The case, incidentally, long precedes the popularization of NDEs by Raymond Moody in the 1970s.
It is the case of "A.S. Wiltse, a medical doctor, who nearly died of typhoid fever in 1889. Wiltse obtained sworn depositions from the witnesses, including his own position, concerning his medical condition and the actions that took place during his coma." Wiltse reported:
I passed about four hours in all without pulse or perceptible heart beat as I am informed by Dr. S.H. Raynes, who was the only physician present. [During that time] I came again into a state of conscious existence and discovered that I was still in the body, but the body and I had no longer any interests in common.
With all the interest of a physician, I beheld the wonders of my bodily anatomy, intimately interwoven with which, even tissue for tissue, was I, the living soul of that dead body. By some power, apparently not my own, the Ego was rocked to and fro, laterally, as a cradle is rocked, by which process its connection with the tissues of the body was broken up ... I felt and heard, it seemed, the snapping of innumerable small cords. When this was accomplished, I began slowly to retreat from the feet, toward the head ... As I emerged from the head, I floated up and down and laterally like a soap bubble attached to the bowl of a pipe until at last I broke loose from the body and fell lightly to the floor, where I slowly rose and expanded into the full stature of a man. I seemed to be translucent, of a bluish cast and perfectly naked ... As I turned, my left elbow came in contact with the arm of one of two gentlemen, who were standing at the door. To my surprise, his arm passed through mine without apparent resistance, the severed parts closing again without pain, as air re-unites. I looked quickly up at his face to see if he had noticed the contact, but he gave no sign.
It appears, then, that both external and subjective reports largely agree on the proposition that consciousness leaves the physical body at or near the point of death, and that a second body receives this consciousness.
Ring sums up his conclusions so far.
On the basis of the separation hypothesis ... I do endorse the proposition that consciousness (with or without a second body) may function independently of the physical body.
Finally, there is the so-far-neglected issue of the "mechanisms" underlying the separation of consciousness (or the double) from the physical body. An answer to this question could only take us into the wilds of esoteric speculation, where I have no wish to roam ... For me, it is sufficient to postulate that a separation can take place. Just how it occurs is a problem I must leave to scientists more imaginative and daring than I.
To account now for the later developments of the core experience we will have to go beyond the approach of parapsychology and employ a different but compatible framework, based, in part, on an emerging paradigm in contemporary scientific thought: holographic theory.
We'll take up this part of Ring's account next time.
I like how some near death experiencers say or describe "the real me was up by the ceiling". They also frequently say "it was strange but I felt little to no emotional attachment to my body. It was just this thing on the table (or bed)." This fits with my theory that the soul just uses the physical body to learn about the physical universe, and caring very little what happens to it, casts it off, after it is finished with it, with little more emotion than one might reserve for a worn out old suit of clothes.
Posted by: Art | July 27, 2009 at 01:09 AM
The same comment is often made by spirit communicators.
Posted by: Zerdini | July 27, 2009 at 02:14 AM
“Estelle Roberts described her husband's transition. "I saw his spirit leave the body. It emerged from his head and gradually molded itself into an exact replica of his earth-body”
I just finished reading Estelle’s book 50 years a medium and I felt it was a worthwhile read.
The last two chapters were very informative where Estelle’s spirit guide talks about many of the mysteries of life.
Posted by: william | July 27, 2009 at 04:13 AM
After reading extensive debates about whether the consciousness can continue outside the body and 'proofs' that the brain is responsible for producing consciousness it is interesting to read such practical first-hand accounts. Although I would not expect a determined sceptic to do anything other than dismiss them as hallucinatory, for an open-minded person they are definite food for thought.
In a way I am pleased that Ring acknowledges that an explanation of the mechanism is beyond him and confines himself to reporting the simply observations without attempting to theorise about the means by which it is achieved.
Posted by: Paul | July 27, 2009 at 05:25 AM
Damn I wish I could edit these posting afterwards.
Posted by: Paul | July 27, 2009 at 05:25 AM
Art says, they also frequently say "it was strange but I felt little to no emotional attachment to my body"
In my experience, I felt exactly like this as well as not wanting to return as I was overcome by the peace and love.
Strangely for me I didn't even think about those I'd left behind, once I was there I felt like I returned home from a really terrible holiday in a foreign country, totally relieved to be outta there. It was like that feeling you get as the plane lands safely on your home soil after experiencing terrifying turbulence with hysterical people screaming "PLEASE TELL US WHAT'S GOING ON!!!!" as the plane plunges and tilts dropping 1000's of feet before it regains control again. :-)
Posted by: Hope Rivers | July 27, 2009 at 06:20 AM
Here is something to note, the keyword in this matter:
consistency
With this line of research, one finds consistency in many different avenues. This silver cord matter relates to subjects from ancient religion to eyewitness accounts.
But thinking of it like a scientist versus a mystic, the cord is simply the etheric matter "spun up" like a ball of cotton and glued to the body. This etheric matter (and by etheric, I simply mean subatomic particles on a different vibration / wavelength than our denser particles) is needed to form the etheric body, but it must be fully "unglued" in order to fashion the new body.
Electrical signals that carry thought / consciousness, while currently stored in our neurons, freely travels across 'etheric' substance. So, a mind can easily manipulate this stuff, and recreate a body based on stored memories (information) programmed into the consciousness.
And what's the purpose of a double body? Well Watson that's simple. We need structure and form. It's a matter of taste and personal preference. Without a mechanism for interacting... some kind of a suit... life would be as thrilling as being a cloud floating around in the sky (literally speaking...)
Posted by: Cyrus | July 27, 2009 at 07:26 AM
"the cord is simply the etheric matter 'spun up' like a ball of cotton and glued to the body"
Possibly. But many traditions hold that the etheric double is interwoven with the physical body during our earthly lives. If this is true, then upon death the etheric double is not newly created, but instead recreated.
Of course those traditions could be wrong. Who knows?
"After reading extensive debates about whether the consciousness can continue outside the body and 'proofs' that the brain is responsible for producing consciousness it is interesting to read such practical first-hand accounts."
I, too, prefer to look at empirical accounts. It seems to me that it's too early to make philosophical assumptions about what is or isn't possible when we're still trying to confirm the basic facts. I would regard any theory or model in this area as very tentative, provisional, and hypothetical.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 27, 2009 at 01:12 PM
This sort of explains why near death experiencers say the other side seems more real than this one? Never did understand how or why that was possible till I read the New Scientist article about the holographic universe. I am eternally fascinated about the connection between NDE's and quantum physics and the holographic universe. This ain't the main show! The other side is. It will seem even more real to us than this side does. Why? Because a hologram is blurry due to the limits of the planck length.
"Hogan realised 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://gizmodo.com/5131839/physicists-believe-our-universe-i...
iands.org - What is a Near-Death Experience? Jul 6, 2009 ...
A near-death experience, or NDE, is a profound psychological event ... and be remembered vividly for decades as being "realer than real."
http://www.iands.org/nde_index/ndes/what_is_a_near-death_exp...
NDE Network Australia
A neardeath experience , or NDE , is a profound psychological and spiritual phenomenon ... they remain in memory for decades as being "realer than real."
http://www.nde.net.au/definitions.htm
Posted by: Art | July 27, 2009 at 01:12 PM
This etheric matter (and by etheric, I simply mean subatomic particles on a different vibration / wavelength than our denser particles) is needed to form the etheric body, but it must be fully "unglued" in order to fashion the new body. - Michael Prescott
-------------------------------------------
I believe it was Sir James Jeans who said something to the effect that the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine? Perhaps we create ourselves as we go about our lives? Our thoughts create who we are; and maybe that has something to with "why we are here?"
Posted by: Art | July 27, 2009 at 01:29 PM
"once I was there I felt like I returned home from a really terrible holiday in a foreign country, totally relieved to be outta there." -Hope
Very good analogy, Hope. I read a similar thing that said people who pass on say it is like awakening from a bad dream. Makes you wonder why we dream so long.
Posted by: Barbara | July 27, 2009 at 03:04 PM
I remember (very enthusiastically) showing Ring's book, Life at Death, to a friend of mine, donkey's years ago. He dismissed it completely because it was retrospective saying it could all be down to reconstructed false memories. Twenty years later, I gleefully pointed him in the direction of Van Lommel's prospective study, "There you go I said," the very same experiences and there's the proof,what more do you want? He replied that the subjects of the prospective study would have had plenty of time to subconsciously absorb the main features of the near death experience from Ring's original book(and others) and it was more than likely that THAT was the explanation.
Naturally, I gave up discussing it with him, I may as well have been talking to the wall.
Apologies that the point is not quite relevant, but I wanted to show how infuriating these skeptics can be and your mention of Ring's book brought back the exchanges we used to have.
Posted by: steve wood | July 27, 2009 at 03:41 PM
"This etheric matter (and by etheric, I simply mean subatomic particles ... [etc.] - Michael Prescott"
For the record, I didn't write this. It was Cyrus's comment.
I would not say that the etheric body consists of subatomic particles on a different wavelength. I have no idea what "etheric matter" consists of.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 27, 2009 at 03:54 PM
“Possibly. But many traditions hold that the etheric double is interwoven with the physical body during our earthly lives”
I think so as this is why when a person loses an arm or leg for a period of time they can still feel this arm or leg like it was still attached to their body.
Posted by: william | July 27, 2009 at 06:10 PM
I'd stop banging your head against the wall Steve - it is quite pleasant :) - I understand what you mean about the frustration you feel when people won't even consider what you are saying properly. To my surprise (probably naiively) so called well-respected scientists do the same eg Wolpert.
Posted by: Paul W | July 27, 2009 at 07:40 PM
Strangely for me I didn't even think about those I'd left behind, once I was there I felt like I returned home from a really terrible holiday in a foreign country, totally relieved to be outta there. ~Hope Rivers
I just remember feeling like I was home. I barely remembered where I had been before I got to the NDE place. I don’t remember a tunnel, I just remember being with my Grandma. I never questioned how either one of us got there. My dog was there with me too. She died in the same car accident. When it was time to go back, I didn’t really understand what I was going back to. Grandma just kept holding my hand and telling me everything was going to be alright and that she would get me through all the bad stuff. I often wonder if that is why I still have her with me to this day, because she promised to get me through all the bad stuff if I came back.
Posted by: Sandy | July 27, 2009 at 11:52 PM
“Naturally, I gave up discussing it with him, I may as well have been talking to the wall.”
The wall is a much better listener. It does not make ignorant comments when you are finished talking.
As a side note those ignorant comments have their home in innocence.
Posted by: william | July 28, 2009 at 03:09 AM
Paul, thankfully, I haven't actually started 'head banging' the wall yet, although it's definitely a possibility if Sam Parnia's Aware study gets positive results and my friend tracks back to the 'super-psi' catch all theory :~)....
"As a side note those comments have their home in ignorance"
William, I only wish that was so...and it may sometimes be the case but when you think back thirty three or so years, the only real objection then was that the experiences just 'didn't happen.'
And now we have the absurd nit-picking(Pam Reynolds style)objection or rather picking the nits off a nit, that someone under deep anaesthesia, with high decibel clicking nodules in her ears covered with three sheets can somehow correctly describe an implement she'd never seen,while in that 'state.' That she would subconsciously fabricate the correct image ( how do you do that,by the way,apparently it always seems to work well when your comatose) ..fool herself.. and then spend a further fifteen years recounting something that never really happened.
I think it's bad minded. The world would have been a better place.
Posted by: steve wood | July 28, 2009 at 06:14 AM
....probably.
Posted by: steve wood | July 28, 2009 at 06:24 AM
“the only real objection then was that the experiences just 'didn't happen.'”
The person that stated as fact that these experiences could not or did not happen was not speaking out of understanding but out of bias beliefs. Whether this happened or did not happen is not the point. The point is we have no proof that it did happen or did not happen. But if one does their research and can suspend their possible bias they will discover it may have indeed happened.
Now what would make a person state it did not happen without positive proof? It is bias beliefs based in unawareness of the research or refusal to do the research into these types of phenomena. What is a synonym for unawareness but ignorance?
"As a side note those comments have their home in ignorance"
William, I only wish that was so”
I will stick with what may be my bias beliefs that yes indeed that comment “it didn’t happen” was based in ignorance. The Buddha realized 2500 years ago that most if not all of our suffering was due to ignorance and 2500 years later few people in the world do not realize the profound implications of his discovery.
2500 hundred years and most of the world still does not know about or understand the profound implications of Buddha’s realization. To me that is unbelievable.
My discovery has been that even few Buddhist monks understand the Buddha’s realization and confuse the symptoms of ignorance with the origin of suffering.
Of course Jesus taught truths over 2000 years ago and how many people in the world understand his teachings. I mean the meek shall inherit the earth, forgive 70 times seven and my favorite it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than…..well everyone on here knows the rest of that teaching. Most preachers wont touch that one or the one that the Father is greater than I.
Posted by: william | July 29, 2009 at 12:31 AM
Good points.
I think the 'eye of the needle' was simply a very narrow gateway in one of the walls of Jerusalem(might be wrong)of which it was exceptionally difficult to go through whilst seated upon a fully laden camel.
'The meek shall inherit the earth.' This is obviously contrary to reincarnation and not good news for most of us.
'I' and the Father are one..in the light of the NDE, that makes sense.
Posted by: The Very Reverend... steve wood.... | July 29, 2009 at 06:36 AM
William, I'm not sure why I posted the previous 'gem.' It's sounds so bloody patronising.I'll bet you didn't know 'THAT,'heh ? I'm going to wear a hair shirt and eat cuscus all day.
Posted by: steve wood | July 29, 2009 at 08:44 AM
Actually william you said "innocence" in the original comment not "ignorance" - which I think prompted Steve's objection. Slip of the digit perhaps :)
Posted by: Paul (nit picker extraordinaire) | July 30, 2009 at 03:16 AM
“The wall is a much better listener. It does not make ignorant comments when you are finished talking.”
My use of the words “ignorant comments” was my attempt at humor and it failed. Ignorance is in the eye of the beholder. In this case the beholder was me. Got caught in my own ignorance. Darn that karma.
“As a side note those ignorant comments have their home in innocence.”
“Actually william you said "innocence" in the original comment not "ignorance" - which I think prompted Steve's objection. Slip of the digit perhaps :)”
Thank you for noticing that. Actually I will stick with my original comment that those ignorant comments have their home in innocence. If ignorance causes most if not all of our suffering from whence did it orginate?
“I think the 'eye of the needle' was simply a very narrow gateway in one of the walls of Jerusalem(might be wrong)of which it was exceptionally difficult to go through whilst seated upon a fully laden camel.”
I will stick with my original comment here also. By the time a soul evolves to the level of going to heaven if we believe heaven is in the fifth or seventh realm then material wealth would be of little interest to a soul. It appears that most souls when crossing over, confuse a paradise condition with heaven.
Can you imagine a preacher in a church preaching this teaching of Jesus to his or her congregation? No way. The collection plate and attendance would take a dive.
“'The meek shall inherit the earth.' This is obviously contrary to reincarnation and not good news for most of us.”
This is an interesting comment that I will give more thought to.
Posted by: william | July 30, 2009 at 05:04 AM
Paul,,it's the near deaf experienced, particularly Pat Renault's veridi..veridiculed one, that gets me making missteaks.
Sometimes,I could could just chuck a cyber space electric toothbrush at Keith Augustine and say, Does that really look like a bone saw? Honestly... :~)
Posted by: steve wood | July 30, 2009 at 09:28 AM
LMAO
Posted by: Paul W | July 30, 2009 at 01:28 PM