OPINION - Near death experiences

“Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.”

- The final words of Steve Jobs before departing this life.

Archaeological evidence over thousands of years reveals that the question “What happens when we die?” has always been part of the human quest for meaning.

What if we were able to peer through the veil of death and see what happens when we die? Throughout history and across all cultures, there have been those who claim to have seen the other side through having a near-death experience (NDE). NDEs are cross-cultural and cross-temporal accounts of those who are close to death or have been pronounced dead but who return with reports of having left their bodies (as spirit or ‘consciousness’) and entered into a parallel state of existence inaccessible to the living around them. It is estimated that between 10-20% of patients close to death have such experiences.

The current physicalist paradigm, which seeks to nullify the idea that our existence may continue (albeit in a changed state), is a recent aberration in this quest. Over the past 50 years, public interest in the afterlife has bucked this trend, and contrary to the secularisation hypothesis, people are more interested in spiritual things than was expected.

What if we were able to peer through the veil of death and see what happens when we die?

In 1976, the publication of Raymond Moody’s Life After Life brought the afterlife into widespread media attention. It carries accounts of those who had been pronounced clinically dead and had a near-death experience (NDE). These claims of seeing through the veil of death to the other side seemed to prove we may indeed be more than mere physical matter and that our conscious state may be able to exist outside of such physical constraints. These stories captured the imagination of a public, hungry to see evidence of the answer to that great life question.

Since then, advances in neuroscience, consciousness studies, research and data analysis techniques, end-of-life care, resuscitation techniques and similar fields have brought even more stories from often bewildered, yet strangely reassured, patients whose NDE has caused paradigm shifts in their outlooks on life. Their experience has transformed many, and they become more determined to live much better and more altruistic lives. Others have acquired new, savant skills; some have even discovered a sensitivity to psychical phenomena. The International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) collects such accounts, providing an information hub for scientists, the media and the public on NDEs and support groups for those who have experienced them. The Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) has approximately 5000 NDE reports on its database.

Many of the NDE reports raise alarm bells from some in the Church, especially when they challenge beliefs regarding what happens when we physically die. Some claim that NDEs are a demonic deception designed to alleviate the fear of dying, negating any need for a response to Christ, thus leading them straight to eternal damnation. Yet we should not place all NDE reports as counterfeits of the afterlife, for one can only have a counterfeit NDE if a true NDE exists. Others turn to physicalist explanations such as hypoxia (oxygen deprivation to the brain) or even a psychedelic trip from the chemistry of a dying brain. Still, others may put up a wall of silence and refuse to discuss these things, fearing that an unbiblical paradigm shift may be required to understand the afterlife. The struggle by some within the Church to understand NDEs seems curious, as the Church should be the one place where those with such experiences should be welcomed and supported.

Afterlife ideas evolve throughout the Old Testament, through the Intertestamental literature, and into the New Testament.

When reading NDE accounts, caution and discernment should be undertaken, for some strange encounters are reported. However, Scripture teaches that we are to test everything, holding to what is good. This testing means that we need to engage with the subject openly and honestly, listening to where God may be at work in the lives of those with an NDE, even if it’s not in our Christian language.

In researching my book, The Invisible Dimension: Spirit-Beings, Ghosts and the Afterlife, I discovered why many in the Church struggle with NDEs. It is due to a downgraded and dismissed understanding of the intermediate afterlife between physical death and resurrection. We have understood life after the resurrection as the afterlife rather than us entering a conscious intermediate state whilst we await the resurrection life-after-the-afterlife. Novel ideas such as soul sleep, monism and even instant resurrection for the believer have been invented to remove any thought of a conscious, intermediate afterlife, which itself is progressively revealed as Scripture moves through the Old to New Testaments. Yet, as my research and book reveal, the biblical writers all accepted that a non-physical part of a human went to the underworld. Afterlife ideas evolve throughout the Old Testament, through the Intertestamental literature, and into the New Testament. The afterlife is not a monolithic, unchanging teaching within Scripture. Concerning engaging with NDEs, our abandonment of the intermediate afterlife has left us with frail responses that people are ignoring in their attempts to understand these experiences.

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So, how do Christians respond sensibly and biblically to NDEs?

NDE reports are part of a larger category of ‘Otherworldly Journeys’ found in Scripture and other religious and secular historical texts. They arise from our altered states of consciousness, which appear to be able to interact with other spiritual planes (heavens, dimensions, realms) of existence.

No two NDEs are identical, though typically, NDEs include leaving the physical body and rising to an observation point within the room. Some claim to have had the ability to move through physical matter like walls and floors, to witness the conversations of others or see items that are in visibly inaccessible places, which are later verified as accurate, such as shoes on hospital ledges or machine serial numbers that are not visible from the perspective of the patient whose eyes were taped shut and had no measurable brain function. Out-of-body experiences are found within Scripture, including Paul’s claims to have visited the third heaven (though he was unsure whether this was in the body or out of it) and Elisha’s spirit, which both went with Gehazi to hear him asking Naaman for payment for his healing and was able to remotely view the enemy king’s battle plans. The temporary separation of consciousness from the body is a scriptural teaching.

Out-of-body experiences are found within Scripture, including Paul’s claims to have visited the third heaven...

NDEs often include a life review, a kind of self-judgement, where the person experiences their behaviours towards others, both from their perspective and those they acted towards. Those who return are often changed for the better in their attitudes towards life and the people around them. The whole premise of Dickin’s A Christmas Carol is that facing the implications of our actions and accepting responsibility for our misdeeds leads to a changed life. We are told in Hebrews 9:27 that after we die, we face judgement (not the final judgement, which comes after the resurrection), which, if understood to be restorative rather than punitive, fits the reported fruit in the changed life of the returnee. Several scriptures point to books of our deeds used in our judgement, with its cultural imagery of record-keeping. Augustine’s commentary on Revelation 20 explains that our deeds are brought before us instantaneously by a divine power, which could be considered a ‘book’ which is ‘read’ by the recollection of facts. This fits with NDE reports of instantaneous life review, and one wonders if Augustine was using the NDE account found in his work Caring for the Dead regarding Curma, a man who lived near Hippo in the town of Tullium, as source material for this idea.

An NDE often includes the visitation of departed loved ones. Some visitations may not even have been expected, including those not known to be dead then and those they simply didn’t know. Communication with these beings is often through non-verbal, mind-to-mind, telepathic means, with a person knowing what those with them are thinking. For those who believe in an active intermediate afterlife, this data fits with concepts such as the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews and Church Tradition. Knowing what someone is thinking without verbal communication is exhibited by Jesus, who knew what people were thinking regarding his teaching.

Within an NDE, a sense of time dilation may occur, with what may seem like many aeons passing in, which can be measured in only minutes in this realm. Similarly, a sense of spatial distortion, with the ability to perceive things in higher dimensions, such that one can see the entirety of an object, inside and out, front and back, in a similar way that we can observe the properties of a lower dimensional being in their two-dimensional flat land. For those curious to explore a higher dimension and what it might be like, theologian Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland is a worthy read.

...a sense of time dilation may occur, with what may seem like many aeons passing in, which can be measured in only minutes in this realm.

Some NDE reports speak of flowing along a tunnel of light. Some have claimed this is the product of the brain’s visual centres shutting down. However, according to Zalenki, medieval NDE reports do not have tunnels of light but rather bridges. This lends credence to the idea that this might be more of a cultural aspect of the NDE than a biological one.

Many NDE reports contain mention of some kind of barrier, where the experiencer claims that they intuitively knew crossing it would mean not returning to this realm of existence. Christians familiar with the hymn Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah will understand this with its lines: “When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside…”

Again, NDE reports often contain meeting a being of light, a mere ball of light, a type of being, or even a religious character which searches their hearts and knows them intimately. They report that this being of light sometimes helps in that self-judgement process. For many Christians, this is the most disturbing of all, as we have been conditioned to meet God when we die. Those outside of our faith who meet other beings who don’t meet our understanding of God or Jesus may alarm us and cause condemnation of their experience. Christian NDE researcher Fox comments that those who have studied this particular aspect observe that the culture and language of the percipient shape the experience itself. Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Hindus may understand the being of light as Jesus, Mary, an angel or Krishna, respectively. Theologians Habermas and Moreland also report that the cultural framing of an NDE report by the percipient will have a bearing on how they understand this light, and we should test the fruit of the encounter with the light. We are reminded in Scripture constantly that God is light, those who live in him live in the light, the faithful shine like stars, and Moses’ face shone when descending the mountain having met God.

In summary, when dealing with NDE reports, we need to practise discernment, which requires a thorough understanding of the scriptures in context and listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We should listen well, testing everything for the fruit in the life of those having an NDE. Does their experience increase love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and/or self-control? If so, there is no law against these things. Perhaps we can come alongside them and help them with their understanding of what the light might mean. Maybe we can learn about the intermediate afterlife and encounters with the departed in the long history of the Christian Church. Perhaps we can be more open to being like Paul in Athens, where he could hear God’s voice in these strange arenas. Maybe we can begin to realise the gift NDEs provide to open up spiritual conversations about the intermediate afterlife and let it shape how we approach our inevitable entry there.

Bibliography:

Arnold, M. D. (2024), The Invisible Dimension: Spirit-Beings, Ghosts and the Afterlife, Anamchara Books.

Augustine, City of God 20:14.

Couliano, I. P. (1991), Out of this World: Otherworld Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein, Shambhala Publications.

Fox, M. (2003), Religion, Spirituality and the Near-Death Experience, Routledge.

Greyson, B. (2021), After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond, Bantam Press.

Habermas, G. R. & Moreland, J. P. (1998), Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, Crossway Books.

Hagan, J.C. (2017), The Science of Near-Death Experiences, University of Missouri Press.

Moody, R. (1976), Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon – Survival of Bodily Death, Corgi.

Zalensky, C.G. (1988), Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times, Oxford University Press.

Bio:Matt Arnold is the author of The Invisible Dimension: Spirit-Beings, Ghosts and the Afterlife, and editor of The Christian Parapsychologist Journal. He regularly appears on podcasts, lectures across the UK on all things paranormal from a Christian perspective, is a Montgomery Trust lecturer and is a member of The Churches Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, The Alister Hardy Trust and The Ghost Club (1882).