I am now going to explain the line of reasoning due to which I believe that the near-death experiences should be explained by the most straightforward narrative, which says that those people indeed died and experienced the afterlife. The same reasoning applies for the spiritual experiences of the saints.
Years ago my wife and I were walking along a path and as we passed by a tree, it meowed at us. It was dark and we couldn’t see the cat on the tree, but although we couldn’t see it, it sounded like a young cat, and it wasn’t happy. Since it was too dark to do anything constructive about it, we went our way.
Now, if we didn’t believe in the existence of cats, or if we didn’t believe that cats can climb trees yet forget how to get down, we might have looked for another explanation; maybe someone placed an electronic device for reproducing sound on the tree. Maybe a man was on the tree, imitating a cat in order to fuck with us. Maybe it were little green men in flying saucers. Maybe.
We didn’t see direct evidence of cat on that tree, but we accepted the obvious explanation of the meowing tree, because we are informed and reasonable.
However, in the case of NDE experiences, some people would rather believe in the most idiotic, improbable and flawed explanations, just to avoid the obvious conclusion that if something meows at you from a tree in the dark, it must be a cat.
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The thing is, even though they are solid facts, it will probably be a long time till they get into “mainstream”.
That may be so, but only because there are problems with the mainstream, not because there is a problem with the facts. They are what they are, and if you have a problem with them, you live on the wrong side of reality.
I read a lot of reports coming from people who got out of coma. Basically, almost everyone said that they could go around in hospital, they could see and hear their relatives who were coming to visit them and so on.
Is that what theosophists said “projection of etheric body”?
If so, could that “body” be seen and is responsible for various ghost phenomena?
Etheric projection, yes; basically, if you want to perceive the physical plane with your astral body, you need the intermediary layer of prana, which is sometimes called “ether” in western esotericism. Theosophy dabbled in this somewhat, but in reality the NDE experiences provide a higher quality of information since source neutrality and sample sizes are more significant. Whatever you call it, you are left with some solid facts. They are not undeniable, because some people deny things like Moon landing and Earth curvature, but they are beyond reasonable doubt.
What is the actual nature of NDE? Is that purely astral experience or of higher planes of consciousness? Could “being of light” that is many times reported, that greets a person, be a Deva?
You mean, what’s the actual nature of the reality experienced during NDE? I don’t think there is one answer to that, since the experiences seem to come in a scale, from basic to very sophisticated, and I’m not sure they all experience the same level of reality, because some seem to go much higher than others. However, the inevitable conclusions are following:
– human soul outlives cessation of bodily functions and is completely independent of them
– the soul has senses that can perceive the visual and mental parts of the physical reality (they can see objects and hear others’ thoughts), but can’t perceive touch, sound or smell
– the soul can move in the physical, in its bodiless state
– the soul retains intellect, emotion and memory that is not reduced, and is likely expanded compared to the embodied state
– at one point, for unclear reasons, the soul switches planes of existence (usually experienced as some kind of a tunnel) and enters a completely non-physical plane of existence, with completely different laws, kinds of beings and general architecture
– in this world, there is a hierarchy of spirits, where some are greater than others in holiness or general spiritual magnitude
– those beings are sometimes recognized as religious figures (like Jesus), but most of the time it is understood that they are “someone else, very holy”
– the soul is usually assigned to one of those beings who shows it its life from an objective point of view, by showing it what its actions really were, as opposed to what one perceived them to be at the time
– there is usually a message or a lesson in that
– there is sometimes a choice, to return or to stay, but sometimes it is made clear that one must return because it’s not his time
– in most cases it is understood that the perspective of those higher beings doesn’t confirm human religious concepts; the fact that gods exist doesn’t mean that the human clergy has a good understanding of them
– this experience is several orders of magnitude higher and more fulfilling than anything in physical life, and those who return experience shock and despair because of the magnitude of their loss.
That, I would say, is the correct way to summarize NDE.
Why does medical establishment dismiss NDE experiences? Is reason related to fact that if they embrace it, they are basically admitting that they don’t have all the knowledge (a thing which is very hard for everyone to admit)? Is it something else in question here?
It is incompatible with the ruling paradigm, that’s all there is to it. Atheism is prevalent in the medical profession and science in general, and this is de facto proof that they are wrong. It isn’t proof of God, but it’s proof of existence of the transcendental reality, it’s proof that matter isn’t everything and that humans possess spiritual core that is transcendental to the world and to human body.
Christians have no problem with it, Buddhists have no problem with it, Hindus have no problem with it, but Atheists will perform incredible feats of mental gymnastics in order to negate it, and they very much resemble the flat-earthers in that. Atheists love to say that the facts are on their side, but NDE is a clear example of how they are not.