So, has anyone looked into this? (or better yet, experienced one, or an out of body experience?)
It's something I've been reading about for the past couple of months, starting from a casual (as in a longtime hobby) interest in mythology, psychological archetypes, a little archaeology (specifically on the Indo-Europeans), and whatever I can understand of physics among other interests (I'm not some erudite robotic genius in any way, so among these "other" interests we're talking about Warcraft, )... predictably, a book called the Quantum and the Lotus was a quick snatch for me. It wasn't until I read it the second time with a better understanding, that I felt it had opened me up mentally to looking into more far-fetched things. Eventually, indirect things here and there (yay for being vague so I can get to the point!) lead me to this topic.
So being the kid with too much spare time on their hands, I tried. I'd say I've gone through the same conditioning in life as most everyone else, enough to be pretty skeptical about this kind of thing, you know? For starts, I threw in "Life After Life" onto my reading list (and it was short, so it skipped a few others in line ). When I finished, I had enough genuine curiosity built up to look for more information. That persistence is still with me as I continue to look, but I feel like I need to touch base with someone.
By now my ideas of near death experiences being hallucinations, some sort of biologically/psychologically ingrained coping mechanism, whatever I, with the powers of common sense and reasoning , could come up with, had been addressed. There was just something that could be argued for it otherwise, or an explanation, or it was just irrelevant. Whether they're decent and credible is up for debate (and I'll just leave it at that for now).
After reading everything I'm able to understand (and again, not nearly done) from as many sources as I can manage to get my hands on (there is SO much garbage information on it too, even repeating information people hadn't realized was already established), I can't help but feel that there's enough convincing evidence to put it on the consideration table. Not just for me, but for others too, if only they'd just look. For me personally, I'm convinced it's something very probable. And I feel like I'd be getting the crazy look for trying to share that (you, my patient reader, might be cocking the ol' eyebrow as you read this )
But it really makes me wonder, why isn't this stuff talked about more? Without the ridiculous light that's been put on it, or the deterrence's like it being too taboo and morbid to even think about. Or peoples' quick-to-stick religious associations (conclusions? validations?) to it, making other people all the more ready to dismiss it (faith can't be proven after all). Is this just a matter of open-mindedness? Apathy?
Or, even though I trust my judgement, am I a fool?
Maybe someone else might have some insight? I haven't been able to talk to anyone else about this, and Berserk dances along these lines somewhat, so here's hoping.
It's something I've been reading about for the past couple of months, starting from a casual (as in a longtime hobby) interest in mythology, psychological archetypes, a little archaeology (specifically on the Indo-Europeans), and whatever I can understand of physics among other interests (I'm not some erudite robotic genius in any way, so among these "other" interests we're talking about Warcraft, )... predictably, a book called the Quantum and the Lotus was a quick snatch for me. It wasn't until I read it the second time with a better understanding, that I felt it had opened me up mentally to looking into more far-fetched things. Eventually, indirect things here and there (yay for being vague so I can get to the point!) lead me to this topic.
So being the kid with too much spare time on their hands, I tried. I'd say I've gone through the same conditioning in life as most everyone else, enough to be pretty skeptical about this kind of thing, you know? For starts, I threw in "Life After Life" onto my reading list (and it was short, so it skipped a few others in line ). When I finished, I had enough genuine curiosity built up to look for more information. That persistence is still with me as I continue to look, but I feel like I need to touch base with someone.
By now my ideas of near death experiences being hallucinations, some sort of biologically/psychologically ingrained coping mechanism, whatever I, with the powers of common sense and reasoning , could come up with, had been addressed. There was just something that could be argued for it otherwise, or an explanation, or it was just irrelevant. Whether they're decent and credible is up for debate (and I'll just leave it at that for now).
After reading everything I'm able to understand (and again, not nearly done) from as many sources as I can manage to get my hands on (there is SO much garbage information on it too, even repeating information people hadn't realized was already established), I can't help but feel that there's enough convincing evidence to put it on the consideration table. Not just for me, but for others too, if only they'd just look. For me personally, I'm convinced it's something very probable. And I feel like I'd be getting the crazy look for trying to share that (you, my patient reader, might be cocking the ol' eyebrow as you read this )
But it really makes me wonder, why isn't this stuff talked about more? Without the ridiculous light that's been put on it, or the deterrence's like it being too taboo and morbid to even think about. Or peoples' quick-to-stick religious associations (conclusions? validations?) to it, making other people all the more ready to dismiss it (faith can't be proven after all). Is this just a matter of open-mindedness? Apathy?
Or, even though I trust my judgement, am I a fool?
Maybe someone else might have some insight? I haven't been able to talk to anyone else about this, and Berserk dances along these lines somewhat, so here's hoping.