Coming soon to a funeral home near you!

Today we're going to talk about death. We know, touchy subject. Most of us spend our lives trying NOT to think about death. But it is inevitable. There is no escaping it. (Unless of course you are a Turritopsis nutricula, an immortal jellyfish. But that is for another posting.) If you are reading this, you are going to die. (Hopefully not as the result of this reading, we hope our writing isn't that bad.) Oh... also if you are dead and you are reading this, please contact us. We would be very interested in hearing about that! Specifically we are going to discuss near death experiences. Most of us have heard the stories, the tunnel, the bright light. The friends or relatives or sometimes the mysterious voice telling you, "you have to go back." The commonality of these experiences has led to all sorts of discussions. Some people think it's the door to heaven, others think it's a re living of the birth experience, you know, the tunnel being the exit from the womb, the bright light being the hospital birthing room. And that makes sense, except for the problem of culture. It seems that people with different cultural and religious backgrounds have completely different near death experiences. The Japanese people for example often see water, and remember wading in a river (one man was walking on his hands across the river.) Indian (the Hindu kind, not the native americans) Near death experiences are strange, but similar to each other. For example one man explained his near death experience as being dragged before the Hindu God of the dead, where the God told the men who had brought him that they had brought the wrong man and sent him back to life.  In another case the man was dragged before God and when he tried to resist they cut off his legs. After the God realized he had the wrong man they showed him some legs and he correctly picked his own, they then returned him to life. In many cases of Hindi near death experiences it seems that the people who run the afterlife have brought the wrong person. (Perhaps the denizens of the Indian afterlife should outsource their personnel department to another country.) Hindi near death experiences differ in another way also. It seems that the Indian people don't view their body as they are leaving it. (Which is common in western near death experiences) Native Americans who have near death experiences generally are visited by men who tell them "your grandfathers wish to talk with you." and they are taken to a place (sometimes on horseback) where old men are seated. One man described them as "older than the stars." There have only been a few recorded Native American near death experiences, but enough to see that clearly the culture and religious belief of the individual seems to be the key to what the experience is like. Atheist near death experiences run the gamut from experiencing a biblical hell to transcending and spiritually exploring the universe. Some atheists have met God in their near death experience and come back as religious converts. One atheist, Carl Jung (the father of analytical psychology) came back from his near death experience because the spiritual form of his Doctor came and told him he must return. Interestingly his Doctor was bedridden the same day the Carl Jung was first able to sit up in bed. The Doctor died of septicernia shortly after. Dr Yung describes seeing the Earth from space, and preparing to enter a chamber where all would have been revealed to him when his Doctor spiritually appeared and told him he had no right to leave the earth and must return. It should also be noted that Test Pilots when subjected to high centrifugal force (or intense zero G maneuvers in jets planes) have recorded having out of body experiences where they see themselves as if from above. So what do we learn from all of this. Well for one thing the theory that near death experiences are the result of physiological rememberance of the birth experience seems to be wrong. After all, Hindu's, American Indians, and the Japanese all have near death experiences completely unlike the type western individuals have. And yet they come into the world in the same way.  So... does your personal belief system have an effect on what sort of afterlife you experience? If one believed in reincarnation would you come back into another body? If you are an extremist Muslim would you awaken in paradise with 72 virgins attending to your needs? (notice we said "extremist" most Muslims don't believe this version of  things. Also do female Muslims get 72 male virgins? Just wondering.) Anyway we hope we have given you something to think about.  If you are interested in reading about some of the near death experiences go here. We must warn you however that this site makes presumptions based on personal opinion. But it does have some interesting near death experiences listed. That's about it. Ciao for now.