I originally intended to post this piece as a palate cleanser after the "Charlie Charlie" viral Twitter phenomenon was exposed as an ad campaign for a movie. However, I'm no longer completely sure that the tweets were a hoax. Snopes.com offers an interesting analysis that's worth reading in full. Here's an excerpt:
The UK’s Independent ... explained how most sites jumped upon the “viral marketing stunt” explanation with both feet despite the timeline discrepancy and the fact that the details of the challenge were contrary to the film’s context ...
It seems fairly evident that the connection between the social-media-driven “Charlie Charlie challenge” and the upcoming film The Gallows emerged well after the former had come and gone from Internet “trending” lists: No link between the challenge and the film was mentioned in the game’s first wave of popularity, nor was the film’s trailer referenced in mainstream news coverage prior to 1 June 2015. As the Independent noted, the social media challenge originated in a time and place far removed from any tangible connection to the film ...
While the Charlie Charlie challenge was certainly utilized with alacrity by The Gallows's marketing team, it appears that marketing tie-in was created after the fact: the film was neither an initial part of the story nor the driver (primary or otherwise) of the viral trend’s popularity.
So maybe the hoax explanation is premature.
In any case, for those who still would like a palate cleanser, or at least a change of topic, here's an interesting case study from more than 300 years ago. I found it in The Immortal Mind, by Ervin Laszlo and Anthony Peake, which I'm still in the process of reading. Though I've read many accounts of near-death experiences, I don't think I've come across this one before.
Laszlo and Peake write:
An early report on human NDE concerns the experience that took place in November 1669, in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England (or, in some reports, in South Wales). The report is in a religious pamphlet written by Dr. Henry Atherton and published in London in 1680. Atherton's fourteen-year-old sister, Anna, had been ill for some time, then was thought to have finally died. The woman attending to her used to the only method available at the time for ascertaining death: placing a mirror to her mouth and nose. There was no evidence of breathing. They then placed red-hot coals to her feet and received no response. She was clearly in a state of what would now be termed "clinical death." However, she subsequently recovered. When she was able, she described how she had visited heaven and was guided there by an angel. This being showed her:
"things glorious and unutterable, as Saints and Angels and all in glorious apparell." She heard 'unparalel'd Musick Divine Anthems and Hallelujahs.' She was not allowed to enter Heaven but the angel told her that "she must go back again for a while, and take leave of her friends, and after short time she should be admitted."
As predicted by her "Angel," Anna died four years later and according to the pamphlet she departed "with great as[s]urance of her happiness hereafter."
While she was in her near-death state, Anna reported seeing people she had known, all of whom had died. There was one individual who, as far as Atherton knew, was alive. However, he subsequently discovered that this individual had passed on a few weeks earlier.
The source cited is Henry Atherton, The Resurrection Proved (T. Dawes, 1680).
The account contains many of the notable features of modern NDE's, including:
- A state of apparent death in which the patient is completely unresponsive
- Visions of heavenly beings
- Ethereal music
- A barrier that prevents entry into heaven
- A heavenly being who commands the person to return to life
- The presence of deceased friends and loved ones
- Assurance of life after death that persists even after being revived
It also includes a feature sometimes observed in deathbed visions: the patient's report that a certain person had died when, at the time, this fact should have been unknown to her. And there is the interesting detail of the accurate prediction of her coming death – there would seem to be no obvious reason for a fourteen-year-old to assume that her return to life would last only a "short time," yet she did in fact die not long afterward. (The actual pamphlet, the full text of which is online, says, she died two years later, not four years as stated in The Immortal Mind.)
The pamphlet, which is quite short, makes interesting reading. It includes the further details that Anna passed through three different gates but was stopped before the fourth, "Heaven Gate," and that the angel who guided her was "all in white" and was present in the sickroom when she told her story. In modern NDEs, the ethereal beings encountered in the next life are often described as being clad in white robes.
Anna's brother, described as a "Physician in Caermarthen," naturally interpreted her story in accordance with his Protestant faith, publishing it "in this Adulterous, Atheistical and Papistical Generation, wherein neither God, Christ, Soul, Heaven nor Hell are minded; but Whoring, Swaring, Lying, &c. and, it may serve as a Curb to Vice, and a Spur to Vertue."
No doubt there are significant elements of cultural overlay in the NDE itself, such as the "hallelujahs" Anna heard. But the core elements transcend cultural differences — and can be seen to persist over more than three centuries, even to the present day.
Very interesting, Michael! Even if we could ignore the accurate and otherwise unknowable information that comes from NDEs, I think we are left with two choices:
• NDEs are "real" in some sense
• There is a psychological system inherent in human beings that causes people to have the same experiences
I think arguing the latter is a very tough row to hoe indeed.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 09, 2015 at 05:21 AM
Great find Michael!
I find this interesting, ""in this Adulterous, Atheistical and Papistical Generation, wherein neither God, Christ, Soul, Heaven nor Hell are minded; but Whoring, Swaring, Lying, &c. and, it may serve as a Curb to Vice, and a Spur to Vertue."
It seems that every generation perceives itself to be less virtuous than idealized previous ones.
Posted by: no one | June 09, 2015 at 09:28 AM
Yes, No One, I picked up on that too. However as one who has lived in several generations I really believe that the 1940-1960 generation was better than the current one---maybe not more virtuous but in many many ways, better. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 09, 2015 at 11:54 AM
Accounts like this strongly reinforce my leanings that NDEs are real, thanks. It's actually pretty amazing the similarities between this and present-day NDEs, especially the angel figure telling her to go back - that seems to happen so many times in NDEs.
Posted by: Kathleen | June 09, 2015 at 01:45 PM
There seems to be an overwhelming number of accounts over the centuries from people who report that they experienced something, some conscious experience, during a time when their body showed no signs of life and they were considered to be unconscious or in many cases seemingly dead. They report that their consciousness was displaced from their body to someplace else, either up in the corner of the room where the body lay or transported beyond the room to some ethereal environment peopled by perfect beings often reported to be clothed in white or appearing as a bright white light. Usually the beings were recognizable as friends, family members or acquaintances who had previously died. Occasionally religious figures were identified, albeit in one report Elvis Presley was seen and in another report Santa Claus was seen although to some people these characters may be equated with religious figures I suppose. When someone thought to be currently living was seen, reportedly it was later ascertained that that person had previously died unknown to the percipient or was close to death, in a coma or other wise in a non-communicative or dissociated state at the time of the percipient's apparent 'death'
Now what to think of all of these reports?
With such overwhelming numbers of reports it is difficult for me to discount them all as fabrication, fantasy or wishful thinking. They are so similar in content in hundreds if not thousands of cases, even those reported from hundreds of years ago. There must be some kind of reality behind at least some of these reports What that reality is---is the question.
Are they really what they seem to be, that is, has the consciousness or soul of the person really become disembodied and entered another reality or dimension?
That is the most straight-forward answer I suppose especially if one has the will to believe that a soul survives death of the body. In my opinion there is no other good (scientific) explanation yet. All of those other explanations from educated people that have been put forward have not held up, in my opinion, under close consideration.
However, I am currently in a doubting mode and am becoming non-plussed by the multitudinous written evidence on many fronts suggesting survival of consciousness after death of a body. I don't know why it is so hard for me to believe it since I have accumulated a mountain of evidence myself of various types that should convince me. I am at a point where I don't know what more it would take to convince me other than to have a near death experience myself or perhaps a telephone call from my mother in Summerland.
Now that would knock my socks off! :^) - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 09, 2015 at 05:48 PM
AOD,
Were you alive in 1940? I think it's funny how, these days, age really is just a number. I'm almost 44 but still feel young. It often blows my mind that people are still walking around who fought Hitler or survived his camps. Barbarossa started just 30 years before I was born, after all. It's a crazy world!
Doubt is good, I think. I certainly go through periods of it myself, as my last guest post indicated. It is only through doubt that we achieve real confidence in the true.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 09, 2015 at 09:10 PM
AOD - you put it in words much better than I can, but I was thinking and experiencing the exact same thing lately. I too very much wish and hope for that important 'aha!' moment that eliminates any and all doubt from my mind.
Posted by: Sleepers | June 09, 2015 at 09:11 PM
\\"albeit in one report Elvis Presley was seen and in another report Santa Claus was seen although to some people these characters may be equated with religious figures I suppose."//
---------------
Both Elvis Presley and Saint Nickolas were both formerly alive people who are now dead. My mom loved Elvis Presley and I wouldn't be at all surprised if after she died she made an effort to "talk" to Elvis. As for Saint Nickolas it is my understanding he was an actually person albeit not exactly the same as currently described. And for that matter there may very well have been a little Jewish Rabbi named "Jesus" who the original story of Jesus is based on, but perhaps highly embellished and told out of sequence. If someone comes back to life after having been "dead" and says they saw these people, in a holographic universe where everything is connected and each piece contains the whole, finding these people may not be all that difficult in "heaven."
Posted by: Art | June 09, 2015 at 11:56 PM
Good point Art. It just seems so incongruent to imagine seeing Elvis in all of his regalia and someone recognizable as 'Santa Clause' in his red costume in heaven (This was a child I think.) along with all the spirits dressed in white. I agree though that those two people, including 'San Ni Klaus' were alive at one time and if one wanted to meet them in heaven I suppose one could, providing that Elvis and Santa were open to the meeting.
Yes Matt, I was alive in 1940 (barely). - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 10, 2015 at 09:00 AM
Ah Matt! Only young people think that age is only a number. ( That means you, you young whipper-snapper!)-AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 10, 2015 at 09:12 AM
Here is Patience Worth's short poem about doubt. - AOD
http://www.patienceworth.org/patienceworthpoems_065.htm
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 10, 2015 at 11:44 AM
I'm almost 63 and I still think age is a number. While I can't say I feel exactly the same as I did in my twenties, I do have the same enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge - or should I say understanding.
As for the comments from Amos, Matt and Sleepers: I have long suspected that the reason why doubt tends to increase over time is because exploration into the afterlife inclines towards addiction: The more evidence we find, the more we need. These days I find it more satisfactory to let the evidence find me . . . . . . . . and even then I find myself saying, "Surely not?"
Posted by: Julie Baxter | June 10, 2015 at 11:47 AM
AOD, you pretty much perfectly summarized my feelings about NDEs at this point.
You might be interested to know that back in the late 1990s I experienced what seemed to be a phone call from my deceased mother. Whoever it was immediately called me my name, said she was my mother, and she sound EXACTLY like my deceased mother. I almost fell over. Unfortunately, the line was full of static and I couldn't hear everything all that well. But she sounded like she came from a long way away. Seriously. And it had happened on Good Friday, which she always observed. Apparently, though, these phone calls from the dead are pretty common.
Posted by: Kathleen | June 10, 2015 at 02:01 PM
Well yes Julie, in psychiatry there are some patients with a 'need for reassurance'. I am one of those people.
No matter how many examinations and laboratory tests are done that prove that the patient doesn't have a life-threatening disease, the patient after a period of time of feeling relief, begins to believe again that there surely must be something wrong with him and seeks reassurance again from the doctor.
This can go for years, or a lifetime in my case. Sometimes this is called the 'Doubting Disease'. It can result in 'symptom shifting', developing additional various and sundry symptoms in various parts of the body, thereby justifying another visit to the doctor. It becomes a compulsive behavior used by the patient to avoid feeling anxiety related to deep-seated fear-provoking issues e.g., death.
You have provided insight into why I am not satisfied with the evidence for survival. Thanks! - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 10, 2015 at 02:51 PM
Yes Kathleen, I have read several reports of phone calls from the dead. You are fortunate to have experienced one. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 10, 2015 at 10:45 PM
Kathleen,
Yes, that is called "instrumental transcommunication," and it is not particularly rare, it seems.
Julie/AOD,
I'm an arrogant bastard, and I want to figure it all out, but one of my virtues (if I may say so) is an unwillingness to think I've figured it all out (as is obvious). So I am in the Mist, per my last guest post on this forum. I am hypochondriac by nature and fearful of death, so AOD's points ring true as well. :)
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 10, 2015 at 11:23 PM
Life appears to be grounded, the mortgage, childrearing, the job etc.
But like Julie says searching can be an addiction of sorts. Much like how we want more special effects in movies, more violence etc. We always seem to want something more interesting or different.
Although I may be wrong, it seems that both you Michael and Amos feel you need something more substantial. I know for me, for a long time I was on the fence, and I used to think that if a ghost stood in front of me, then I would believe. Some people believe after having witnessed what I would term to be inconsequential however, so it's obviously personal.
I know the turning point for me though, was when I quietly meditated for two nights and asked my grandmother to come to me. What was said was then relayed to me word to word three months later by a medium. So I feel, that meditation is a major key to it. And I know even now, the more I can still my mind, the better I hear. It seems too, that those of a scientific bent i.e. Bernado Kastrup, similarly have used mediation to free their grounded mind.
I also think it was my 'total belief' that opened the door so to speak. That it was perhaps a 'mental block', that prevented it. Even now, I don't do readings, as I hate the thought of getting it wrong. But yet I hear all the time. Lately I ask where a lost item is - I thought "if I can hear them, I may as well put it to some use". And after a bit of practise, I get it right now.
So I think it's me, and a case of 'I think, therefore I can '.
Cheers Lyn :).
Posted by: Lynn | June 11, 2015 at 05:56 AM
You're most welcome, Amos. :)
And, Kathleen, I too have had the experience of someone apparently talking to me from 'the other side'. It sounded as if they were speaking to me via one of the very old and very heavy telephones that we used to have here in the UK during the first half of the last century. The experience was so weird that I couldn't stop shaking my head for a minute or so afterwards.
Oddly enough, I'd shared an intellectual rather than emotional affinity with the person concerned. It was as if they wanted me to know that we were right in our speculations about the reality of an afterlife.
Posted by: Julie Baxter | June 11, 2015 at 06:23 AM
@Matt: I must say that I find it somewhat I alarming that a medium should find himself fearful of death! What is there to fear if you already have a pass card to eternity? :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | June 11, 2015 at 06:25 AM
Julie,
Because everything in reality is so weird, yet then seems "just normal," then it flashes back to weird again.
I'm in Pilates class... normal. Ah, but then I see we're these primates dressed in Lululemon gear doing this *stuff*... and isn't that weird?
And so it is with psi, the Afterlife, and so on.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 11, 2015 at 12:24 PM
You mean you simply can't get a handle on it, Matt?
Posted by: Julie Baxter | June 11, 2015 at 05:10 PM
Julie,
The maddening thing is that we can figure out so much, but putting together the big picture is far from easy. It's as if the Universe wishes to be understood and not understood at the same time.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 12, 2015 at 12:35 AM
a new serie about near death experience, psychics and other stuff, just watched episode 1
PROOF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3NQuS7n-6A
Posted by: le français | June 16, 2015 at 07:29 PM