Near Death Experiences

In my own studies of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) I've read about people who have had Christian NDEs, New Age NDEs, Mormon NDEs, Native American NDEs, Buddhist NDEs, Hindu NDEs, and most NDEs don't involve a god at all, most are either a bright light and lots of love, or a being of light that remains unidentified. And in most cases the NDE's relieve a person's fear of death, no matter what that person's religion is. I even know of one in which a person went to a dark hellish place and was taunted by dark beings, but was taken up out of that darkness by a being of light, and asked the being which was the best religion, and the being said, "whichever one brings you closest to God."

As for waking dreams and visions from various people and for various cultures, the cultural differences and perceptions and interpretations again are of a wide variety. Heck, there were visions and appearances of ancient Greek miracle workers back in the days of ancient Greece.

I believe I mentioned in my testimony in Leaving the Fold that I heard a cassette tape testimony of someone who had a life changing NDE, who went to a hellish dark place, was tormented there by other souls and then pulled out by a bright being of light and got to speak to several other beings of light. They answered his questions, including, "which is the best religion?" They said, "Whichever one brings you nearer to God." He left his career as chair of an art department at a major university to study at seminary afterwhich he became a liberal Christian minister. He doesn't believe that Christianity is the best religion, only that it brings him nearer to God since he happened to have been raised in it. His tape was quite moving. Of course, you've probably already heard of Betty Eade and her heavenly explorations during her NDEs. She's a Mormon, and lo and behold her NDE turned out to reveal that Mormonistic teachings were closest to the truth. Likewise, some NDEs experienced by born again Christians reveal a firey hell and huge talking Bibles in the next life. The first fellow I mentioned said that he'd heard about a wide variety of NDE experiences as well, and he attributed them to the ability of those superior beings to show people things they could understand and welcome and not be fearful of. So a country Christian dies and goes to heaven and the first things they see are a little white chapel on a grassy hill, etc. Of course Medieval Christians had it the worst and their visions of the next life contains horrors of both purgatory and hell and were almost always negative, while today's NDEs are overwhelmingly pleasant and remove people's fears of death no matter what their faith. And today most people do not even see or meet religious figures during NDEs, they are more likely just to see a bright light, or to meet a person much like themselves. Of course, in some cases devout Buddhists or Hindus or Native Americans meet, respectively, Buddha, Krishna, or a totem animal. Personally, I don't know what to make of NDEs. Some skeptics think they are biological brain functions on the way out, but people who have them say they are more real than waking reality. All I know is that I do not believe in the Christian explanations of "salvation." If nothing else, NDEs express a far broader range of afterlife experiences, having nothing or little to do with any particular theology or soteriology.

Skeptics and Mediums Debate on Larry King Live

I'm skeptical about almost all people who have convinced themselves that they are gifted, even when it is demonstrated to them that their "powers" only work occasionally.

Personally, I find NDEs more fascinating, and still put some stock in Howard Storm's NDE (he never wrote a book, but it changed his life, as NDEs change many people's lives, and I've heard him tell his story on cassette tapes a number of times (no charge, he's not making a cent off it, not even now, he converted from being a class A jerk to quitting his cushy job as chair of the Art Dept. at a university and became a liberal Christian minister). And I put some stock in a few other NDEs. I also admit that part of the reason I do this is because some NDEs make sense to me, like Storms, and the kind of heaven they describe makes sense to me, a skeptic. And I WANT to believe it. By the way, one of the greatest, or at least one of the most prolific skeptical minds of our time, Martin Gardner (who writes a regular column for CSICOP) also happens to believe in an afterlife, though he admits he hasn't found any proof for it yet, still he argues that there is no necessary reason to deny it in his book, THE WHYS OF A PHILOSOPHICAL SCRIVENER.

I also agree that mediumship and "cold readings" strike me as having a lot in common with Pat Robertson's nightly stabs in the dark at the illnesses of his viewing audience, some of whom inevitably call him to say that they are sure he was speaking about THEM, and now they are cured (even when the show is a rerun of a tape Pat made earlier). I think Pat is sincere and he thinks his random naming of illnesses is being given him by God, and many mediums think their random calling out of things that "hit upon" are due to "supernatural" powers or beings making them "hit the nail on the head." But then, maybe a lot of it is just guesswork inserted in and around occasional true visions that happen a lot more rarely than psychics think they happen. I mean once you have one true premonition you start seeing them everywhere, you start to mistake every little coincidence in your life for a miracle and you start to mistake yourself for a great psychic. The same things happen to people say, in public office. Once they get elected they start to mistake themselves for politicians, and start to speak like politicians, walk like politicians, etc. We all wear many masks in life. And we all may have certain things we are very good at, or even may have occasional inexplicable bits of insight of maybe even an occasional supernatural encounter, but that doesn't mean we're good at everything or always being led by spirits, nor does it mean that demons are everywhere, though they might be in a few places (as even the Catholic church admits, true possession is very very rare). I think as human beings we make everything out to be larger than life, even our skepticism. Deep down, the skeptics and the mediums both wanted to be right, they wanted a clear cut across the board vindication of their positions, their ideas, but nothing in nature or the world is that clear cut and both should be humbled. Maybe Edwards occasionally does have or has had a supernatural insight about someone. Maybe most of the time, it is just wishful thinking and coincidence and nobody is truly a "medium." So, maybe there's some truth to both sides, with of course, the majority of the time being fodder for skeptics.