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November 1, 2005 |
Vol. 04 No. 11, Ed. 01 |
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The Near-Death Newsletter is a free semi-monthly newsletter from
www.near-death.com which is emailed to subscribers every 1st of the month and on every 15th of the month. The mission
of this newsletter is to provide the latest news on the subject of near-death experiences and related phenomena and to
promote IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies), near-death researchers, experiencers,
events, and multimedia resources. Disclaimer: This newsletter is not affiliated with IANDS; but the author of this newsletter, Kevin
Williams, is a member of IANDS and is dedicated to the IANDS mission. IANDS is the premier organization for near-death research. Membership gives you access
to their prestigious Journal of Near-Death Studies and
Vital Signs newsletter. You can join IANDS at their website.
Get connected with IANDS because they will probably be the organization who will someday provide the scientific evidence proving that human consciousness
survives death. |
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Download this newsletter in PDF format.
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Table of Contents |
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Archive of NDEs in the News
- Read all the major news articles
concerning the NDE and related phenomena
from 1995 to current. This is a
permanent archive to ensure that these
news articles will always be available
on the internet. The Near-Death News
section of this Near-Death Newsletter
will soon be available in syndication so
stay tuned! |
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(November 2005) |
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"Beyond
the Indigo Children: The New Children and the Coming of the Fifth World" hit
bookstores September 28th. Get a copy. I know you will be surprised by what is
in the book! It is now time for all of us to move beyond labels such as indigo,
crystal, star, sky, cosmic, and psychic, and take a real look at the REAL
children now entering our world - and the Great Shifting occurring everywhere! |
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LATEST HEADLINES FROM P.M.H: |
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FREEBIES FROM P.M.H: |
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WHAT'S NEW ON P.M.H.'S WEBSITE: |
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(October 30, 2005) |
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In the spirit
of Halloween (pun intended), I found a photograph on the
Internet which is the best "ghost" photo I have ever
seen. A teen was murdered in his home and his mother was
so despondent that she put her home on the market for
sale and moved into an apartment. In the process of
selling her home, she took a number of photographs of
the interior of her home. When she received the
developed photographs, she looked through them all to
see how they turned out. When she came across one
particular photograph, however, what she saw shocked her
so much that she ...
[Read more here] |
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(October 30, 2005) |
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The following
organizations are looking for NDErs to share their story: |
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A top UK publisher is looking for
personal NDE accounts preferably from experiencers living in the UK.
Contact Tammy Cohen at
tammymichael@btinternet.com. |
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A national magazine called First For
Women is seeking to interview women who have had an NDE
. Send a photo and full
contact info to: Christine Coppa,
ccoppa@bauerpublishing.com, Bauer Publishing, Special
Projects, 270 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 07632, phone: (201) 569-6699
x394, fax: (201) 569-6264. |
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NDErs needed for interview for a
History Channel documentary called "The History of Heaven" to be televised later
this year. Please email Associate Producer Ann LeSchander
at annbbp@earthlink.net with
your name, your testimony and your contact information. |
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(September 22, 2005) |
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Reports
of OBEs and NDEs are often simply anecdotal, but the hospital
environment allows Sam Parnia to monitor and compare oxygen, carbon
dioxide and salt levels in the patients who did and did not have
either experience. His study also involves a novel method of testing
if the "self" actually does leave the body during an OBE. Sam has
suspended boards below the ceiling and these have images on the
upper side. The idea is that if people do look down from above, they
may recall the extra information. As yet, no patients have reported
seeing these images. Whether these phenomena are visions of a dying
brain or paranormal activity, Dr Parnia says science needs to offer
an explanation of what happens when we die. "I think that NDEs hold
the key to finally solving this mystery. In studying them further we
will be able to discover the true nature of the relationship between
the mind and the brain and answer the wider questions regarding the
existence of an afterlife."
[Read more here] |
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(October 30, 2005) |
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I
felt a pinch in my chest and I found myself in a tunnel, what seemed
to be a tunnel. I walked or floated down the tunnel until I came to
... two more tunnels. One was very bright and the other one was
black. So I took the one on the right, which was light, and suddenly
appeared before a picket fence, similar to the fences you'd find
around the old railway stations ... I was looking out on an area
which was multi-coloured. The colours were beautiful. I can't
describe them. The only way I could describe them - it was a very,
very beautiful garden. What seemed a few seconds, my parents
appeared from the side, were standing in front of me, smiling. My
mother-in-law, she joined them. They're all smiling and I had the
urge to go through the fence, through a gate into the garden. And my
father gave me a look which fathers give to naughty children. In
other words: "Don't do that, or else." So I didn't go through the
gate. Next thing I found I was back in the tunnel going the way I'd
come.
[Read more here] |
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(October 26, 2005) |
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Watching
himself die and be resuscitated -- twice -- has brought the Rev.
Elkan Kemp to his own interpretation of a relationship with God ...
"I remember I was in the hospital and they were trying to
resuscitate me," Kemp said. "And I was off in one side of the room
watching what was going on while they were trying to bring me back
to life. At the time, it was not an emotional experience, but just a
matter-of-fact experience of witnessing it." Then there was the
pneumonia incident, when Kemp spent too long a period on his back.
It caused his breathing to become impaired and he suffocated. "I saw
the doctors working on my body, lifting me up. And I heard the death
rattle. The doctor pulled the sheet over my body and said, 'We're
done.' Then the nurse pulled it off and tried again, and I came
back," Kemp said. "It was kind of like a dream or a nightmare."
[Read more here] |
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(September 28, 2005) |
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He
floated into an "almost blinding white light," he said. "I heard
dolphins clicking, and there was this really white light with a blue
hue," said Patterson, now 35. "Then I saw seven angels, and they
took me into a building. They were your traditional angels with
wings and everything. They were 14 feet tall, and they were all
females." During his time with the angels, Patterson said he learned
that God and angels love people's souls unconditionally,
understanding that the mind is a separate entity that can force
people to make bad decisions. "You feel so peaceful and loved," he
said, describing the angels' presence. He added the angels explained
to him people are reincarnated until they learn to respond with love
in bad situations instead of anger. When he awoke in his bed the
next morning after being slammed back into his body, he didn't tell
anyone about his experience, but he did change his life. "I try to
spend time meditating, and it made me study religions to find the
common truth among all of them," said Patterson, who earned an
undergraduate degree in psychiatry. "It made me 100 percent
responsible for myself."
[Read more here] |
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(October 7, 2005) |
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"I've
always been interested in the paranormal. I had a near-death
experience when I was six years old. I drowned in a river and was
resuscitated by my sister. While I was drowned I saw another boy in
the water. I was being dragged away from him and I realised that
this other boy was me. So I knew at the age of six that there is
some form of other existence and from then on I've been searching,
through every job and life situation I've had, for this paranormal
life ... When I published Shadowmancer I had a series of dreams that
told me what was going to happen in the future and they've all come
true," he explains.
[Read more here] |
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(October 3, 2005) |
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A
soldier "died" for 40 minutes after a horrible car crash - then
amazed his Sheffield family by regaining consciousness. Sgt. David
Gratton was about to be deployed to Iraq when his Army Land Rover
was involved in a serious motorway collision. The 22-year-old
squaddie was brought back to life at a top intensive care unit ...
"My son was clinically dead for 40 minutes but somehow a surgeon
managed to save his life." David, who was based at Aldershot Army
barracks in Surrey, was traveling in an Army Land Rover when it
collided with another vehicle. Rescue teams who attended the
accident on the M3 in Basingstoke in February failed to detect
breathing and thought David had died. Doctors later conducted a
medical test which showed he had the same level of consciousness as
a dead body.
[Read more here] |
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(October 30, 2005) |
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Take
Joanie Thurston for instance. She was a 52 year old woman when she
crashed her late model compact car into a light pole. The force of
the impact crushed her chest and caused major internal damage.
Moments later Thurston watched the paramedics pull her from her car
from above. Joanie wrote a book about her near death experience
called Possible Fatal with fellow writer, Wally Johnston. She
candidly reveals that one of the true miracles of her near death
experience is that she was changed for the better. From everyday
personality shifts to eradicating deep emotional wounds, Thurston's
NDE and its aftermath is a powerful biographical testament.
[Read more here] |
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(October 30, 2005) |
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On
October 1, 2005, Mellen-Thomas Benedict spoke at the Virginia Beach
IANDS and an audiocassette tape and a VHS videotape of his
presentations were made. Copies are available of his first
presentation (a 2-hour audio tape) and his second presentation (a
3-hour video) through the Virginia Beach IANDS. For a donation to
the Virginia Beach IANDS of $10 (also add $2 for shipping &
handling), you can get either the audio tape or the video tape. For
a donation of $20 (also add $2 shipping & handling), you can get
both which is the recommended package from the
Virginia Beach IANDS. Place your order by sending an email to Dick
Dinges at
RichardADinges@aol.com. Specify whether you want the 2-hour
audio tape, the 3-hour video, or both (the recommended package).
Make your check out to "VBIANDS" and mail it to this address:
Dick Dinges, VBIANDS, 1285 Paramore Drive,
Virginia Beach, VA 23454.
[Read more here] |
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(September 10, 2005) |
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Scientists
probing the paranormal said on Wednesday they hoped to set up a
major experiment in Britain trying to find out once and for all
whether the mind can step outside the body at the brink of death.
The proposed study would involve interviewing people who had
survived cardiac arrest to see if they had had an out of body
experience while on the operating table. "Over the course of a year
we hope this would give us 100 people who leave their bodies,"
neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick told reporters at the annual meeting
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The
researchers plan to ask 25 hospitals to place special objects and
pictures around their cardiac units. Each survivor who then claimed
to have an out of body experience -- where they typically hover near
the ceiling watching the resuscitation process -- would be asked if
they had noticed any of the objects. "If they do notice them when
the brain is not functioning then it makes the case for the mind
being separate from the brain," he said.
[Read more here] |
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(July 2005) |
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Near-death
experience is a term used to describe a unique psychological
experience in individuals who survive a life-threatening medical
condition such as cardiac arrest and includes one or several of the
following elements: the sensation of seeing one's body from a
vantage point outside the physical body (out-of-body experience);
entering a tunnel; meeting living or dead relatives; a strong
positive affect; encountering "religious" aspects such as a "being
of light," lights and colors, a celestial landscape or a deity; a
panoramic life review; and a ...
[Read more here] |
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(September 15, 2005) |
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The
group, Friends of the International Association for Near-Death
Studies, have been meeting every fourth Saturday for about two
years. In the case of the mediator, Rev. Juliet Nightingale, her
life has slipped precariously from her hands not once, but three
times, from bouts of colon cancer, pneumonia and meningitis. But
these folks aren't concerned with the particulars of how they'd
died, but rather, how to live seeing what they've seen, knowing what
they know ... Nightingale mentions that she jetted around the
universe in death, and while she “saw scenes that were difficult to
look at,” she never felt afraid. There is no ego in death, she
explains -- no attachment to people or things. What keeps spirits
around, according to these folks, is the energy of the living, who
refuse to let them pass. So the notion that people live on forever
in our memory, while comforting to us, may not be that great a shake
for those trying to get to more exciting destinations.
[Read more here] |
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(September 2005) |
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The
following are some of the many benefits that out-of-body
experiencers have reported worldwide in the last three decades ...
Development of a greater awareness of reality ... Personal
verification of our immortality ... Accelerated personal development
... A decreased fear of death ... Increased psychic abilities ... An
increased desire for answers ... Realizations concerning death ...
Accelerated human evolution ... Spontaneous healing ... More
expansive self-concept ... Increased spirituality ... Recognizing
and experiencing past-life influences ... Accelerated psychological
change ... Obtaining personal answers ... Encountering a being of
light, an angel, or nonphysical resident of some kind ... An
increased respect for life ... Increased self-respect,
self-responsibility and inner dependence ... A reduction in
hostility, violence and crime ... Increased knowledge and wisdom ...
A profound sense of knowing instead of believing ... An inner
calmness ... An increased zest for living ... Increased
intelligence, memory recall and enhanced imagination ... A sense of
adventure.
[Read more here] |
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(October 11, 2005) |
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At
two of America's best universities, professors and doctors are
studying the existence of the soul, near-death experiences and
reincarnation ... The University of Virginia's Division of
Perceptual Studies is another hotbed of afterlife inquiry. It's
home to both near-death studies (why do people have visions on the
operating table?) and a researcher who compiles reports of children
who talk about their past lives. Have these researchers actually
found anything to suggest the existence of a soul or afterlife?
Schwartz said his research with about 20 mediums proves that some do
indeed have a connection to the dead, or at least a way to glean
details about them.
[Read more here] |
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(August 11, 2005) |
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 Nancy
Clark is not afraid of dying. Neither is Dennis Hale. Been there.
Done that. Came back. Their deaths, they say, changed their lives,
and for the better. Clark, a resident of Dublin, and Hale, who lives
in the small town of Rock Creek outside of Ashtabula, have both had
what they classify as near-death experiences. Clark is convinced she
died during the birth of her son in 1962. Hale firmly believes he
passed away in 1966 while floating on a life raft in Lake Huron
following the sinking of an ore freighter on which he was a member
of the crew. In addition, Clark had what she terms a "transcendent
experience" while delivering a eulogy in 1979 for a close family
friend who had been killed in a plane crash in Alaska. Clark had
attempted to completely ignore that first experience in 1962, but
not so in 1979 when, she says, once again she lifted out of her body
and saw that bright light. No longer concerned with what people
might think of her mental state, Clark began telling family and
friends what had happened to her in that funeral home.
[Read more here] |
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(October 15, 2005) |
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"For
35 minutes he was dead, the doctors said, but somehow his heart came
back and it started beating again." Roberto Zanini, a cardiac
specialist at the hospital, said: "You do sometimes get these sort
of unusual cases in medicine. "For 25 minutes we had fought to save
him with electrocardiogram and massage but there was no response.
"When there was no sign of heart or brain activity he was declared
dead, but under Italian law he still had to be kept attached to the
monitor for two hours. Then a full 35 minutes later the machine
beeped again and his heart started beating. "Further chest massage
was given and he responded well this time - so much so that he was
able to speak and eat a light meal. "As a matter of routine we
checked the monitor and it was in perfect working order. "The
patient is still in hospital but is responding well to treatment."
Mr. Maestrelli is now understood to be recovering. Yesterday his
wife, Anna Maria, said: "We just can't believe it. This is truly a
miracle."
[Read more here] |
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(October 9, 2005) |
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And
in the last chapter, "Six Feet Over," Roach reports on the study
that most excites her. At the University of Virginia Hospital,
Professor Bruce Greyson has set up a computer screen facing the
ceiling of a defibrillator-insertion surgery room where patients
routinely have "near-death experiences." During such out-of-body
wanderings, people often claim that they float somewhere near the
ceiling, watching their own surgery in progress. If so, they will be
able to see -- and later describe -- the image on Greyson's computer
screen, which would not be viewable from elsewhere in the room. (Too
bad the study is in too early a stage to have produced any
reportable data.) ... Indeed, this personal journey is what the book
most successfully captures: How a skeptic learned to be a believer
(or a possible believer, anyway), and still keep her wit intact.
[Read more here] |
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(October 6, 2005) |
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The
six bullets lodged in Jim Holladay's skull sometime make his ears
ring when he passes through a metal detector. But he said they also
gave him an opportunity to hear a joyful sound never heard on Earth.
For seven minutes that "seemed like an eternity" Holladay, the
victim of a 1992 robbery, said he was dead. Before doctors at
Huntsville Hospital revived him, he said, he saw heaven approach,
only to learn it wasn't his time to be there. "But I was there long
enough to hear the heavenly choir," he said. "It was the most
beautiful thing I ever heard. It was way better than any rock band."
Doctors told Holladay, 39, at the time, that he seemed upset when
his heart
started beating again. Holladay said he was mad because he couldn't
stay in heaven.
[Read more here] |
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(October 19, 2005) |
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In the
Andersons' new release "Rainbows & Bridges: An Animal Companion
Memorial Kit", they deal with all aspects of pet loss, including
after-death reunions. McCluskey says in "Rainbows &
Bridges" that her deceased Great Dane Keira communicated in a dream
that her sister, of whom the dog had been fond, needed a breast exam
immediately. McCluskey related the warning to her sister via an
e-mail letter. About a week after the dream, McCluskey's sister
phoned and said that indeed, she had been putting off having an exam
of a lump in her right breast. She hadn't wanted to alarm McCluskey
by telling her about it. After reading the letter about McCluskey's
dream with Keira, the sister got a mammogram and thankfully, found
that the lump was benign.
[Read more here] |
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(October 6, 2005) |
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An
Italian man who spent two years supposedly unconscious in a deep
coma and written off by doctors as nearly dead, awoke saying he had
heard and understood everything happening around him during his
ordeal. Salvatore Crisafulli, a father of four, is describing his
case as a "miracle". His brother said Crisafulli was "an Italian
Terri Schiavo case", a reference to the brain-damaged Florida woman
who died in March after her feeding tube was removed. Crisafulli,
38, who had been injured in a road accident in 2003, emerged from
the coma three months ago, but began speaking only recently. His
first word was "Mama".
[Read more here] |
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(October 11, 2005) |
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 Bill
Guggenheim, co-author of "Hello from Heaven!," was invited by Nick
Roy, of Greensburg, who for nearly three years has led meetings at
WCCC to discuss purported contact from dead people ... Guggenheim
will talk about reported after-death communication incidents that
people claim helped them through the loss of loved ones ... Roy's
interest in after-death communication began years ago, when he
believes that his dead brother contacted him by phone. He started a
discussion group at WCCC after he researched after-death
communication and found others with similar experiences. More than
400 people have attended and enrollment has increased this semester
... His interest began in 1978 at a seminar by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross,
an expert on death and dying who said a deceased patient "came back"
to her. Two years later, Guggenheim said, he had an experience that
saved the life of his youngest son, Jonathan, when he was a toddler.
The family had a pool with a locked safety gate, but the boy somehow
got through. Inside the house, Guggenheim claimed, he heard "in his
head" the voice of his dead father. "He told me to go outside and
check the swimming pool," he said. He found Jonathan floating face
down in the water. The boy survived. "That really grabbed my
attention," Guggenheim said.
[Read more here] |
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(October 20, 2005) |
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Rob
Macomber and his family say they have been receiving communications
via "automatic writing transmissions" from the spirit of the
deceased psychic, Ruth Montgomery. The Macombers are writing a book
based upon the automatic writing communications they say they began
receiving after Mrs. Montgomery's June 10, 2001 death. According to
the Macombers, these transmissions occur when the energy of a
departed spirit enters the body and moves the pen in the hand across
the paper on its own ... The book includes: A 3-part action plan
that provides solutions to the planet's greatest troubles. Why 50%
of the book's profits will be donated to help address the world's
single most pressing problem: the plight of the Third World. Ruth's
description of Heaven and the hope that she and the Spirit Guides
have for humanity. In one of her communications, she told the
Macombers, "It is fun doing this work from 'The Other Side.' There
is so much freedom 'up here' . . . I can't wait for the day when
humans on Earth will experience this kind of bliss." In another
message, the Spirit Guides explained: "To give away our many secrets
is such a relief . . . "
[Read more here] |
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(October 19, 2005) |
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To
paraphrase Jane Austen, there are two truths universally known.
Everybody dies and everybody dreams, whether they can remember them
or not. An emerging notion is that the dreams we have before we die
may be particularly significant and can be used to ease a terminal
person and their families' pain and grief. The Rev. Patricia Bulkley
worked as a spiritual counselor at a hospice in Marin County,
Calif., for more than 10 years. What she found when speaking to
patients was many of her patients had stories to tell and dreams to
share ... The authors focus on three types of dreams and the symbols
inherent in them. These are dreaming that one is going on a journey
and all the excitement that entails, seeing dead who act as a guide,
and dreams where the dreamer resolves a conflict or faces a
recurrent sense of anxiety.
[Read more here] |
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(October 28, 2005) |
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The
Tibetan Book of the Dead is a kind of Baedeker (i.e. travel guide)
for the afterlife and, like the best guidebooks, its reassuring
refrain is “Don't panic!” After death, it says, you will be assailed
by thunderous sounds and bewildering apparitions as first the
peaceful deities rise before you, then the wrathful ones, who drink
blood and eat the entrails of bloated corpses. If you are very
unlucky, Yama (representing the forces of impermanence and the laws
of cause and effect) will chop off your head, lick out your brains
and drink your blood, then eat you. The trick is not to be afraid
and to remember that you don't have a body any more, so he can't
hurt you ... This idea fascinated Jung, who revered The Tibetan Book
of the Dead as a great psychological work. According to Highest Yoga
Tantra (from which The Tibetan Book of the Dead derives), only
during the | | | | |