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Near-Death Experiences
Have Been Recorded Throughout History
Reports
of near-death experiences are not a new phenomenon.
A great number of them have been recorded over
a period of thousands of years. The ancient
religious texts such as
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the
Bible, and
Koran describe experiences of life after
death which remarkably resembles modern NDEs.
The oldest surviving explicit report of a NDE
in Western literature comes from the famed Greek
philosopher,
Plato, who describes an event in his tenth
book of his legendary book entitled
Republic. Plato discusses the
story of Er, a soldier who awoke on his
funeral pyre and described his journey into
the afterlife. But this story is not just a
random anecdote for Plato. He integrated at
least three elements of the NDE into his philosophy:
the departure of the soul from the cave of shadows
to see the light of truth, the flight of the
soul to a vision of pure celestial being and
its subsequent recollection of the vision of
light, which is the very purpose of philosophy.
In Plato's
Republic, he concludes his discussion of immortal
soul and ultimate justice with the story of
Er. Traditional Greek culture had no strong
faith in ultimate justice, as monotheistic faiths
do. Ancestral spirits lingered in the dark,
miserable underworld, Hades, regardless of their
behavior in this life, with no reward or punishment,
as
Odysseus learned in his Odyssey. But Plato,
perhaps importing some Orphic, Egyptian or Zoroastrian
themes, drew on the idea of an otherworldly
reward or punishment to motivate virtuous behavior
in this life. The first point of Er's story
is to report on this cosmic justice; it is:
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"..the
tale of a warrior bold, Er, the son
of Armenious, by race a Pamphylian.
He once upon a time was slain in battle,
and when the corpses were taken up on
the tenth day already decayed, he was
found intact, and having been brought
home, at the moment of his funeral,
on the twelfth day as he lay upon the
pyre, revived, and after coming to life
related what, he said, he had seen in
the world beyond. He said that when
his soul went forth from his body he
journeyed with a great company and that
they came to a mysterious region where
there were two openings side by side
in the Earth, and above and over against
them in the heaven two others, and that
judges were sitting between these, and
that after every judgment they bade
the righteous journey to the right and
upward through the heaven with tokens
attached to them in front of the judgment
passed upon them, and the unjust to
take the road to the left and downward,
they too wearing behind signs of all
that had befallen them, and that when
he himself drew near they told him that
he must be the messenger to humanity
to tell them of that other world, and
they charged him to give ear and to
observe everything in the place."
(Rep. X,614 b,c,d)
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From the other tunnels
came souls preparing for reincarnation on Earth.
From above came souls happily reporting "delights
and visions of a beauty beyond words."
From below came souls lamenting and wailing
over a thousand years of dreadful sufferings,
where people were repaid manifold for any earthly
suffering they had caused. Journeying on, the
newcomers saw:
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"..extended
from above throughout the heaven and
the Earth, a straight light like a pillar,
most nearly resembling the rainbow,
but brighter and purer ... and they
saw there at the middle of the light
the extremities of its fastenings stretched
from heaven, for this light was the
girdle of the heavens like the undergirders
of triremes, holding together in like
manner the entire revolving vault."
(Rep. X, 616 b,c)
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The cosmic
axis is a rainbow light holding together the
eight spheres revolving around the Earth, each
guided by its Fate, a daughter of Necessity.
One of these Fates casts before the crowd to
be reincarnated a number of earthly destinies
from which they may choose to be, for example,
a tyrant, an animal, an artist, or, as Odysseus
carefully chose, an ordinary citizen who minds
his own business. Then, just before returning
to Earth as a shooting star, each soul is required
to drink from the River of Forgetfulness, so
that all these cosmic events will fade from
memory. Only Er was not allowed to drink and
forget.
Thus
Plato's cosmology is framed in the story
of a NDE, although it obviously has been elaborated
beyond an individual account into a collective
cosmology. This amazing vision of the universal
light, immortal soul, reward and punishment,
reincarnation and even tunnels, is echoed 2500
years later in our contemporary NDE reports.
Plato's
allegory of the cave in the Republic similarly
reflects the centrality of the cosmic light
of wisdom. Chained inside a cave, looking at
a wall dancing with shadowy figures, residents
take there figments to be reality:
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"Such
prisoners would deem reality to be nothing
else than the shadows of the artificial
objects."
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But then one prisoner
is freed and, climbing out of the cave with
dazzled eyes, discovers the blazing sun and
the true world that it floods with light.
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"When
one was freed from his fetters and compelled
to stand up suddenly and turn his head
around and walk and to lift up his eyes
to the light, and in doing all this
felt pain and, because of the dazzle
and glitter of the light, was unable
to discern the objects whose shadows
he formerly saw, what do you suppose
would be his answer if someone told
him that what he had seen before was
all a cheat and an illusion, but that
now, being nearer to reality and turned
toward more real things, he saw more
truly?" (Rep. VII,515 c,d)
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Plato uses the image
to convey the soul's philosophical awakening
to the realm of archetypal forms. Several parallels
with NDE reports stand out. The shock of the
discovery through the light, reversing all previous
convictions, echoes loudly the experiencers'
radical shift in consciousness. When the wanderer
returns to the cave and attempts to awaken his
mates to the true light, he provokes laughter
and even death threats:
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"And
if it were possible to lay hands on
and to kill the man who tried to release
them and lead them up, would they not
kill him?" (Rep. VII, 517a)
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This
reference to Socrates' death reflects the pain
of misunderstanding and rejection felt by survivors
of a NDE, and the subsequent difficulty adjusting
to the ordinary world of shadows. The returning
bearer of visionary discoveries is despised
for upsetting the cave's established order.
The flight
of the immortal soul toward an incredible vision
of pure celestial being, Plato describes in
the
Phaedrus. Drawn out by love and beauty,
the soul is carried as on a chariot pulled by
two eager steeds, upward to join a magnificent
circular parade of souls (the Milky Way), each
following the Greek god it most favors (Ares
for warriors, Zeus for wise leaders, Hera for
royalty, etc.) All parade around the cosmic
cycle, straining for a view of pure being in
the center. Those who see more of it are reincarnated
with more memory of the universal forms of pure
truth, justice, beauty, temperance and love:
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"..every
human soul has, by reason of her nature,
had contemplation of true being; else
would she never have entered into this
human creature ... Some, when they had
the vision, had it but for a moment
... Few indeed are left that can still
remember much." (Phaedrus, 249e-250a)
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Like an initiation into
a mystery religion, our eternal souls are enlightened
by:
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"...the
spectacles on which we gaze in the moment
of final revelation; pure was the light
that shone around us, and pure were
we." (Phadrus, 250c)
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The purpose of philosophy
for Plato is to remember that primal vision
of pure, powerful Light. The very purpose
of life is to remember that journey between
lives, that pilgrimage between death and birth,
to uncover that transcendent vision of Light
revealed in NDE reports.
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"To fear death
is nothing other than to think oneself wise
when one is not. For it is to think one
knows what one does not know. No one knows
whether death may not even turn out to be
one of the greatest blessings of human beings.
And yet people fear it as if they knew for
certain it is the greatest evil."
Socrates
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NDE Evidence Index
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Copyright © 2013
Near-Death Experiences
and the Afterlife
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