Like many, I hope to live forever. Like many, I seriously doubt
that such an eventuality is our destiny but I'm unwilling to say
it's impossible until I know more about all that is and all that
can ever be.

As for near-death experiences, are they profound revelations
from beyond or are they one of many demonstrations of the
way in which the human brain can store claims about profoundly
impactive beings/spirits/supernatural entities and access them
when under severe stress? Is it culturally impacted or independent
of culture? Is it a result of physical activity in the brain or beings/
spirits/supernatural entities interacting with humans?

- - -

Excerpt from a recent Reuters news article which some have
pointed to as "evidence" for life after death:

~Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies
~
~LOS ANGELES - A British scientist studying heart attack
~patients says he is finding evidence that suggests that con-
~sciousness may continue after the brain has stopped func-
~tioning and a patient is clinically dead.
~
~ [skip]
~
~ 09:45 06-28-01

Point-in-fact, Parnia's efforts were reported quite some time
ago, in a BBC article at

Monday, 23 October, 2000, 09:24 GMT 10:24 UK
Evidence of 'life after death'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_986000/986177.stm

Excerpt from the end of the article:

"Dr Chris Freeman, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist
at Royal Edinburgh Hospital, said there was no proof that the
experiences reported by the patients actually occurred when the
brain was shut down.

"We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite
good at knowing that something happened, but we are very
poor at knowing when it happened.

"It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the
recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they
happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little
evidence for that at all."

- - - end excerpt - - -

4 of 63 having a NDE? Why so few? If NDEs represent a com-
mon real experience, why did 59 of 63 have no NDE? If NDEs
represent an external reality, why do they mate to the myths
of the individuals exposed to them? Would that not indicate
a factor within the brain rather than external to it? The God
myth and christ myth are pervasive in western cultures, espe-
cially in the minds of children, so it would be difficult to find
an uncontaminated subject who had claimed some kind of God
heaven-like christ-like NDE or Satan hell-like NDE.

Likewise, if you were to study NDEs in Beijing, I doubt you'd
find very many mating to western views as most of the children
in that culture are raised with a wide range of eastern philoso-
phies from ancestor worship to buddhism to confucianism to
taoism and other spirit world views outside of the Judeo-Islamic-
Christian ones.

NDE flubs? One must wonder if anyone reports anything like
meeting someone beyond the light who happens to be someone
from their childhood who was thought to be dead but is still alive,
and other such tip-offs as to the dream-nature of the experience.
For those, especially those of a religious bent who are already
disposed to believing anything close to their myth-steeped no-
tions, it wouldn't be all that unlike them to "forget" to mention
aberrations which call their desired-for-continuance construct
into question.

Now, if Parnia is serious, he should study the phenomena in
Beijing, or better yet, Tokyo (Shintoism has a rich world of
ancestors/Kami which should provide a bevy of other worldly
contact material) and get back to us on how many western
myths pop up in eastern cultures.

As for aspects most NDEs have in common, apart from the
variation in mythical beings/constructs, those aspects are easily
explained by the physicality of the experience, the actual nature
of what is in common in those who experience such a thing.

Also, the amazing ability for implants to find their way into
claims of things actually thought to have occurred may be at
play (in NDEs / ghost sightings / ET abductions / bleeding
Jesuses and Holy Mary appearances (really big with catholics) /
etc. etc. etc., as evidenced by the "malleable memories" phe-
nomena recently reported ...

Malleable Memories (and influences
impacting disbelief/belief) (062701)
http://prohuman.net/disbelief/malleable_memories.htm
"... The experiment resulted in 30 to 40 percent
of subjects 'knowing' or 'remembering' an event
which had been implanted in their minds, but
did not, in fact, occur. ..."

- - -

As for other causality of so-called spiritual 'contact' with
'the supernatural' ...

Drug Use in Religion
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=118686&tocid=40536
Excerpt: "... One of the pharmacological mysteries is the nature
of the Zoroastrian haoma and the early Hindu soma, both sacred
drinks made from plants.

Their source may have been the Amanita muscaria mushroom,
the mind-affecting chemicals of which pass into the urine with
their properties very little diminished; there are scriptural refer-
ences to sacred urine drunk as the source of divine insights.

Allusions to the twigs and branches of haoma, however, suggest
other plants, perhaps hemp.

... Because hallucinogenic drugs, both natural and synthetic,
tend to evoke an experience spontaneously recognized by many
as religious and therefore of supreme value to the user, small
communities of seekers have grown up wherever the drugs are
generally used, most recently among whites in large centres of
population. ..."

- - -

Altered perceptions, on the part of the individual and his/her
thoughts as well as the chemical nature of the workings of
the human brain, can be caused by a variety of physical and
mental phenomena.

Some religious zealots go so far as to inflict themselves with
pain by beating themselves or by fasting in order to achieve
this altered level of consciousness, a level covered in depth
by Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception and Heaven
and Hell:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060900075

Aldous also refers to peyote and native American religions
in his journey into the world of altered consciousness.
It was my determination upon reading his book that there
was a lot of psychological focus involved with physical
alteration (drugs, pain-infliction, fasting) which led to
various modes of altered perception on the part of the
religious, the artists, and the practicers of alternate
consciousness in his book.

All are best understood as the naturalistic workings of
the human brain 'under the influence of something' rather
than interactions with magical mystical worlds.

- - -

Last year, a young lady slipped into icy waters,
suffered death and a record cold/freezing departure
from this plain.

She was brought back to life, thereby proving you
can "die" (or at least be classified as "clinically
dead") and come back.

This, as far as I know, was a totally explainable
phenomenon with no mystical ramifications what-
soever other than it demonstrated she didn't go
anywhere and come back with knowledge of a
place, she merely was unconscious (for all prac-
tical purposes, all-but-irreversibly-dead) and
came back to life:

Friday, 28 January, 2000, 13:50 GMT
Skier revived from clinical death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid%5F620000/620609.stm
Excerpt: "A female skier made a full recovery after she
fell into icy water and her body temperature dropped to
just 13.7degC. Normal body temperature is 37degC.
Anna Bagenholm, 29, was brought back to life after
being clinically dead. ... Statistics show only a 10-33%
survival rate for adults whose core body temperature
drops below 28degC.

The previous lowest survived body temperature,
14.4degC, was recorded in a child. Mads Gilbert said:
"Victims of very deep accidental hypothermia with
circulatory arrest should be seen as potentially resuscit-
able with a prospect of full recovery. ... This case really
does bring it home to us how cautious one has to be
before diagnosing death in people who are cold. There
is an old saying that nobody is dead until they are warm
and dead."

- - -

Skeptic's Dictionary : Near-Death Experiences
http://skepdic.com/nde.html
Excerpt: "... Skeptics believe that NDEs can be explained
by neurochemistry and are the result of brain states that
occur due to a dying brain. For example, "neural noise"
and "retino-cortical mapping" explain the common exper-
ience of passage down a tunnel from darkness into a bright
light. ..."

- - -

Pseudoscience
Skeptical Inquirer - July, 2000
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-07/aps.html
Excerpt: "... CSICOP founder and chairman Paul Kurtz,
professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University
of New York at Buffalo, opened the session, addressing
what he calls the emerging "paranatural paradigm."

This encompasses such ideas as beliefs in God, ghosts,
angels and the design theory of "creation science"-none
of which are a part of the natural world.

But protagonists insist they have proof to substantiate
their claims, so in response, Kurtz outlined how such
life-after-death questions and "evidence" have been
scrutinized for more than 150 years-with no positive
results. ...

Kurtz also reviewed recent claims made on behalf of
near-death research. He said it was highly questionable
that resuscitated patients meet discarnate persons on
the other side.

What is being described is the dying process; here natur-
alistic psychological and physiological causes more parsi-
moniously fit the data.

Concluded Kurtz: "As far as we know, the death of the
body entails the death of physiological functions, con-
sciousness, and the personality, and there is no reason
to believe that ghosts hover and communicate with us.

I realize that this flies in the face of what the preponder-
ance of humans wish to believe, but science should deal
as best it can with what is the case, not with what we
would like it to be." ..."

- - -

Dying to Live : Near-Death Experiences,
by Susan Blackmore
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879758708
"Near-death experiences (NDEs) have remarkably
similar characteristics the world over, leading many
to cite them as proof of a hereafter. Blackmore,
a British psychologist, carefully reviews the literature
and her own research for something like an opposite
claim.

NDEs do indeed have universal aspects, but that's
because they manifest the chemistry of dying brains;
what's universal is the brain itself. Moreover, compon-
ents of NDEs (such as 'tunnels,' down which the dying
travel toward bright lights; sensations of well-being;
and the appearance of comforting relatives from the
beyond) can also be found in LSD trips and dreams."

- - -