Is there life after death? Here are the stories of eyewitnesses. The post-mortem experience of a neurosurgeon scientist is much easier to believe. In the book “Proof of Heaven,” Alexander analyzes his own near-death experience and medical reports

A good friend of mine the other day, during a routine, unremarkable surgical procedure, he almost gave his soul to God. At the very beginning of the operation, under the influence of anesthesia, his heart suddenly stopped. Doctors had to start the engine manually - first with an indirect massage, then with an injection of adrenaline.

Fortunately, everything worked out fine. His heart stopped, stood for a while and started again. Then the operation proceeded calmly and ended successfully. My friend would hardly have even known that he already had one foot in the next world if the doctor had not told him about it the next day during his rounds.

For the rest of the day, my friend digested and processed the information. In the evening, when I went to visit him, we had a lively and extremely emotional conversation.

There was nothing there, you understand! - my friend exclaimed, waving his arms, - not a ray of light, not a dark corridor. I did not observe myself and the doctors bending over me from the side - neither from the side nor from above. Neither demons nor angels met me. There was no Apostle Paul there (out of excitement, he apparently confused the functions of Paul and Peter). And I didn’t meet my dead grandmother either.....

I must say that my friend and I sometimes engage in friendly debates on religious and philosophical topics. And if I am biased towards atheism, only occasionally moving towards the position of agnosticism and very rarely, as an experiment, trying myself in the field of philosophical deism, then my friend rather gravitates towards various degrees of a religious-mystical worldview. He even went so far as to advocate to me the healing effect of a pilgrimage to the Pochaev Lavra.

Stories about posthumous religious experiences - in oral transmissions, on television and in relevant literature - have always aroused genuine interest in my friend. He learned to distinguish correct post-mortem visions from false ones and even made me study the book of Seraphim Rose. And suddenly he himself found himself in a state of clinical death - and nothing. Neither right nor wrong visions - none.

Absolutely nothing! Empty! Black! Well, it turns out - his thought, knocked out of the usual patterns, rushed further and further like a gallop - is there really nothing but emptiness there, in the next world? No heaven, no hell, no Apostle Paul? (This Pavel was given to him!).

I saw that in such a state one could try to make him, if not an atheist, then at least an agnostic. But I didn’t want that at all. Firstly, it is rude to take advantage of a person’s momentary weakness. Secondly, my friend is not only an intelligent and well-read person, but also extremely tactful, so arguing with him is a pleasure. Thirdly, I could not ignore the fact that in his doubts and confusion he proceeds from the wrong premises.

Calm down and listen,” I told him, “people talk a lot about clinical and biological death, about post-mortem experience.... There are many features and subtleties that we will omit for now. Roughly speaking, when the heart stops and breathing stops, this is not death in the strict sense of the word. The heart does not beat, the lungs do not breathe, but the body tissues still live. And only when irreversible changes in the brain occur from hypoxia can we talk about real death - that death from which there is no return, unless, of course, a general resurrection someday occurs.

As for the so-called “clinical death,” here we are dealing with the magical influence of the word “death” on the minds of ordinary people. Asystole, apnea, coma - yes, this is dying, but not yet death. It's just not a very good name that confuses many people.

You can't have two deaths - have you heard that? We have only one dare. What is called biological death is courage. Clinical death is still life, it is just a dying state.

Therefore, all cases of the so-called “posthumous” experience, all these rays of light, dark corridors, deceased relatives, angels or even demons - all these are the experiences of not dead, but almost dead people. They still relate to our material world, and not to the mountain world, even if we theoretically assume the existence of the latter. It is not surprising that the brain in an agonal state produces fantastic images.

Equally, it is not surprising that many people, including you, do not see anything at all in a state of clinical death. This is comparable to how many people do not see or remember dreams.

In general, the emptiness of your dying visions says nothing either for or against the presence of the other world. You were not in the next world. You didn't die. And you don’t have any posthumous experience - just as no one living today has it.

Yeah,” my friend jumped up joyfully, “so you still admit that another world exists?” So, somewhere deep down in your soul you also believe in God?...

And not at all.. - I began, but then our argument went along roads that had been traveled and studied many times.

And my friend is being discharged tomorrow.

Quote from Gaspar Noe's film "Enter the Void", given as an epigraph to the scientific article "DMT simulates near-death experiences" authored by researchers at the Center for Psychiatry and the Laboratory of Neuroimaging at Imperial College London and the Department of Consciousness and Neuroscience at the University of Liege

On the border of worlds

The scientific history of NDEs began in 1975, when a respected researcher first became interested in them: Raymond A. Moody, Jr. In the book “Life after Death,” he analyzes 50 cases of people who experienced clinical blackout and looked into the “other world.” Since Moody's time, the scale has changed somewhat: already in 2009, the largest anthology summarized the experience of more than 600 scientific articles and comments from more than 3,000 interviewees. What are they researching?

First, the structure of the visions themselves. As a rule, during an afterlife trip, patients encounter mystical insights about the divine nature of existence, flights outside the body, an overview of one’s own life, and other dopings. And although such retrospective reports can be considered representative with great stretch, this does not prevent researchers from putting forward hypotheses about the causes of mysterious trips - this is the second thing.

For example, it is assumed that an increase in the level of carbon dioxide in the blood is to blame.

In ordinary life, the structure of the “I”, an established system of automation and forecasting, does not allow us to break out of the limits of the evolutionarily established standard of perception of the world and ourselves in it. But in conditions of lack of oxygen, the body does not coordinate with the brain and does not carry out the necessary commands.

Against the backdrop of loss of control, the brain, of course, begins to “panic” and unleashes chemical and electrical shocks wherever it hits. In particular, on the TPJ - the temporo-parietal node, which is responsible for synchronizing the body's systems and our awareness of ourselves (if you stimulate the TPJ, you will get an OBE - out-of-body experience) and the temporal lobe. It is also called the “zone of God”, since it is responsible for experiencing mystical events and insights in the spirit of Dostoevsky’s epileptic visits. This is how NDE is formed from different functional zones along a thread.

There are two mysterious problems with scientific explanations of NDE. The first British psychologist Susan Blackmore, a great skeptic of spiritualism and owner of her own out-of-body experience, who has studied NDE for a long time, describes it as follows:

If NDE is simply a cascade of neurotransmitters, half-sleep or the brain losing composure, then why does this experience develop into a narrative of transformation and renewal for different people?

Indeed, most people who have experienced NDE describe it as a turning point in their lives. As meticulous researchers add, a turn for the better - increased empathy, concern for the environment, increased self-esteem, and reduced fear of death. Only rarely do NDEs turn into a severe bad trip.

In addition, there is repetition. After analyzing one and a half hundred descriptions of NDE, scientists found that at least every 4th one flies in a dark tunnel towards pacification and dissolution of the ego, which for 69% of people is visualized in the form of bright light. 64% see spirits and familiar/unfamiliar people performing strictly assigned functions.

What's interesting is NDE in its classic form (with visual images)are worried even people who are blind from birth.

What’s even more interesting is that the narrative of near-death experiences is suspiciously reminiscent of the cartography of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thedol), an ancient “instruction for death” and a transitional state of consciousness.

In search of answers to mysterious questions, you can delve into the works of Jung and the manuscripts of Tibetan Buddhism, or simply shrug it off: one in four is not that much, and the cascade of neurotransmitters and related processes may well cause a sequence of hallucinations perceived as a “transformative” experience.

Another mystically sensitive issue is related to the on/off state of the brain during NDE. One of those who made some noise in this matter was the famous neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, who taught and practiced, in particular, at Harvard Medical School. In many ways, it was he, an authoritative and sane scientist, who finally transferred the study of afterlife tunnels from the area of ​​interest of TV-3 scriptwriters to the scientific plane.

In the book "Proof of Heaven» Alexander analyzes his own near-death experiences and medical reports. The scientist comes to the conclusion that at the key moment his brain was not active - which means that the journey to the other world was made by consciousness, detached from the overweight body.

In 2013, an investigation by journalists got to the bottom of this claim, and many considered it to be refuted. In contrast to another illustrative case: the clinical death of Pam Reynolds, who, with her heart turned off, managed to fly over the operating room, spy on the work of the surgeon and overhear how the doctors staged Hotel California (“You can check out whenever you want, but you can never leave”). Many consider it far-fetched, citing the phenomenon of “anesthesia awareness” and the potential imperfection of the EEG, but not everyone. Analytical philosophers who advocate the immateriality of consciousness would say: yes, everything is logical.

In short, humanity has little scientific evidence that consciousness can function after the death of the body. This means that we are talking only about the maximum approximation to the border of the worlds, characterized by specific effects, sensations and narratives common to a surprisingly large number of people. And this, in turn, means that NDE can be reproduced without driving subjects up to their eyeballs in the Styx.

Reality is better

Researchers have not yet decided to trigger the Bardo-Thedol experience by driving the brain into a state of total crisis with the help of sensors and electrodes. But NDE still sneaks into laboratories through the back door, as is perfectly illustrated by experimental psychedelic therapy programs for terminally ill patients.

Patients who have previously experienced NDE (eg, cardiac arrest during surgery)reported that the course of psychedelics caused them extremely similar experiences.

In the placebo study we included in the epigraph (DMT models of near-death experience), the connection between psychedelics and near-death experiences is indicated more specifically: “After the administration of N,N-dimethyltryptamine, the phenomenological features associated with NDE are significantly enhanced.”

Raymond Moody, whom we mentioned earlier, also writes about this happy coincidence. And also followers of the “pharmacological NDE hypothesis”, who believe that DMT (which our brain usually produces in microdoses) is especially intensely released during the dying process. The hypothesis has been criticized on the basis that stress and near death may themselves lead to similar states of consciousness (see theories above).

According to Anthony Bosis, a New York University psychiatrist who has studied the effects of psilocybin on cancer patients, a “narrative of transformation and renewal” similar to the NDE experience is found here: “Anxiety about death, depression, feelings of hopelessness and demoralization are dramatically reduced within a few days after the session." His words are confirmed by a number of studies.

While psychedelics With increasing authority in the scientific world, scientists are finding another way to reconstruct dying - with the help of virtual reality.

It turns out 50/50. On the one hand, VR perfectly manipulates the brain: we can integrate into the bodies of the opposite sex, purple, or even a Barbie doll and not feel a catch. VR deceives our basic settings like the “body diagram” - a model that the brain builds for the convenience of our life in space. It is so flexible that it can even be "reconfigured" using the rubber arm trick, where you think the fake limb is your own. It is not surprising that VR easily recreates the illusion of leaving the body - one of the essential signs of NDE.

What is important: when someone from the outside threatens a rubber hand, the cerebral cortex experiences the same anxiety as if the hand were really yours. The same applies to hallucinations - if you look at the brain mapping of someone who hears voices, the picture will be exactly the same as if the sound really came from outside.

Our life experience is a rather virtual thing. This is why VR, even in its infancy, causes such amazing changes in those who experience it: adults after the session in the body of a 4-year-old child, they perceive the world as slightly enlarged, and themselves as younger.

For white-skinned people who have been in the body of black people, the subconscious tendency to prefer one race over another decreases. In short, everything you experience in VR, you experience in reality. What about death?

Attempts to immerse someone in a full-fledged afterlife trip are still reminiscent of sketches for video games. For example, they look like this: 15 experimental participants live on an idealized virtual island in virtual bodies for six sessions. They go through a mini-cycle of growing up and aging, come into contact with each other, observe the death of their companions, and in the last session, their own. Moreover, the researchers recreate all the external signs of classic NDE (exit from the body, overview of virtual life, tunnel leading to white light). After “death,” participants watch the continuation of “The Last Hero” and their own funeral with the erection of a monument from an external screen.

However, even such a comical attempt to live life and survive death gives pleasant results. Not comparable to real NDE in intensity, but close in meaning. All participants in the experiment noted a change in their attitude towards the world: the development of empathy, an increase in interest in global problems compared to mortal-material ones, and a decrease in the fear of death. The control group did not report such insights.

Look at her

The famous anthropologist Anthony Becker would say that the power of such experiences lies in the acceptance of the fact of one's own finitude. In his book Denial of Death, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and is based on the works of Kierkegaard and Otto Rank, he writes that much of our entire noisy civilization (if not all) is built on overcoming the fear of death and anxiety about this check. Becker also suggests “practicing death” - reflecting on the inevitable end as close as possible to it (sages have been talking about this since ancient times).

The order memento mori is doubly relevant for modern man, since the idea of ​​death is rapidly disappearing from our existence. A typical resident of Washington, Berlin or Moscow does not see active dying around him, like, for example, a local Varanasi , calmly washing clothes in the Ganges River next to the corpses that had just been “buried” in it.

A more gentle picture of dying is also not available to modern people: for example, according to statistics, only 25% of Americans die at home, the majority in nursing homes or other institutions. We cannot even wholeheartedly join in the rite of passage, which the ancients used for existential adaptation.

According to the theory of managing the fear of death (terror-management theory, or TMT), which arose on the basis of Becker’s ideas, even when walking through a cemetery or learning about the illness of loved ones, we subconsciously tend to put up a protective mental armor and fence ourselves off from thoughts about death.

DTA (death thought accessibility) theory -reads : We tend to think about death only when there is a threat (to us or to our cultural values ​​or worldview).

Its virtualization in the media, cinema, and photography also helps us in shielding ourselves from death. What Žižek calls the “multiplicity of deaths” is the difference between the biological-organic and the symbolic body, the one-time physiological death and the multiple symbolic one. As sociologist Katerina Exley notes, regular broadcasts of death lead to alienation.

Why this is bad is clearly shown by a study on the fight against terrorism, which involved 22 municipal judges from the state of Arizona. They were asked to set the amount of bail under which they planned to release the “decoy” prostitutes who participated in the experiment. Some of the judges first took a survey that included items like “describe the emotions that the thought of your own death evokes in you,” and “describe as specifically as possible what you think will happen to you when you physically die.” Judges who completed the survey set bail 9 times higher than those who were not offered it.

The researchers concluded that thoughts about their mortality forced judges to turn to their own values ​​and make what they considered better moral choices.

When a similar experiment was carried out with students, the logic was confirmed: those who considered prostitution “morally reprehensible” set a harsher bail, and vice versa. Experiments in which participants are asked to write about their own death for 6 days show exactly the same thing: reasoning about one’s own finitude and openness to the experience of death helps to move towards an awareness of internal values.

However, simple reminders of death should not be overestimated - the TMT meta-review notes that the effect of them is quite comparable to thinking about any other phenomenon that threatens meaning (for example, watching a surreal film). As the German philosopher Dolf Sternberger writes, the absurdity and nihilism of death cannot be overcome by intellectualization alone.

One of the main reasons for the transformative power of near-death experiences, which pulls from a person his evolutionary attunement of perception of the world and himself, is their ability to radically change the attitude towards death.

However, for the sake of this, it’s still not worth sticking a plug into the socket, because soon psychedelic therapy will be completely tested and VR will become completely grown-up.

Among all the Christian writers and righteous people of our time, there is a man whose name is practically unknown in his homeland, but at the same time extremely popular among the Orthodox. Among the parishioners of our Church there are hardly those who have not even heard of Father Seraphim (Rose).

Some people love him, others not so much, but the fact that he has a whole range of interesting thoughts and reasoning can hardly be disputed. In September 1982, Father Seraphim rested from his earthly labors and gave up his soul to the Lord, which is why I would like to pay attention to some of his ideas. We will talk about the post-death experience of people who have experienced clinical death, or the near-death experience of people in the throes of death. This topic is mysterious and difficult, but let’s try to understand it a little, based on the testimony of Father Seraphim (Rose).

For a long time, the topic of post-mortem or near-death experiences was not of interest to doctors and psychologists at all. Genuine interest in it began to appear only at the end of the twentieth century. One of the brightest researchers on this topic is the American doctor Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Father Seraphim sees the reason for this change in the development of technologies that make it possible to make an already stopped heart beat again. At the same time, rationalists and atheists classify the evidence of many patients who have experienced clinical death as hallucinations or simply prefer not to notice them. It is very important to understand this experience precisely in the context of the Christian worldview, since representatives of esotericism and occultism often speculate on it.

Father Seraphim argues that the problem of post-mortem experience cannot be solved without the original Christian concept as some starting point of reflection. As an example, he cites the research of the American psychologist and physician Raymond Moody, who collected 150 similar testimonies from different people (and he personally interviewed 50 of them) and was confused even about the possibility of giving at least some classification to the cases he described.

Based on the evidence collected by Dr. Moody, Father Seraphim identifies several elements characteristic of the post-mortem experience and gives them special significance, seeking to characterize each of them from the point of view of Orthodox dogmatics.

The first and most incredible element is the “light being”. Most witnesses to this phenomenon describe this phenomenon as a kind of light that is perceived by a person as a person, that is, despite the lack of recognizable and precise outlines, this creature still has a recognizable appearance. As a rule, a “bright being” has a warm and attractive property, and the attribution of traits of a particular personality to it depends on the past religious experience of the witness himself. Another feature of this creature is that it never makes any judgments about the life of the observer, but only gives him the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of his existence and death.

The most common opinion of the witnesses themselves regarding this phenomenon is that they regard it as the appearance of an Angel who is full of understanding and love and instills in them the idea of ​​responsibility for life.

It must be said that the iconographic tradition of the Orthodox Church depicts Angels in the form of young men in white robes and with wings. However, if we turn to the evidence of angelic apparitions in the Holy Scriptures, we will see that there is not always a description of angelic wings: “When they entered into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe” (Mark 16:5); “Mary... leaned down into the tomb and saw two Angels sitting in white robes” (John 20:11-12): “His appearance [Angel. - Approx. auth.] like lightning, and his clothing is white as snow” (Matthew 28:2-3).

If we turn to the patristic tradition, we also will not find a description of the presence of wings. For example, St. Gregory the Theologian, speaking about the nature of Angels, writes the following: “They are simple, spiritual, imbued with light, do not originate from the flesh and do not acquire flesh, but remain as they were created. For them in virginity the path of Godlikeness is prepared, leading to God, in agreement with the intentions of the Immortal, Who wisely rules the helm of the great world.” We can find similar descriptions in other fathers. Thus, St. Basil the Great asserts that Angels do not have any cover similar to our flesh and do not undergo changes; St. John the Climacus says that they are incorporeal and “always receive glory to glory and mind to mind.” The fact that Angels serve man is clearly explained to us by St. John Chrysostom: “God commanded that the higher powers serve the one who is on earth (man) - because of the dignity of the image with which man is invested.”

Thus, without going into further considerations, we can assert that the phenomena, actions and influence of the “bright being”, regardless of the religious experience of the witness himself, can be fully correlated with the Orthodox teaching about Angels. The apologetic meaning of this conclusion is that it is Christian angelology that provides the necessary intellectual basis for explaining the evidence of the near-death phenomenon of a “light being”.

The next element of the post-mortem experience is meeting other people. Father Seraphim writes that there is not a single case when the human soul remained alone for a relatively long period of time. Some witnesses describe the experience of meeting their deceased relatives. It must be said that this phenomenon has been known to science for quite a long time and it is associated not only with the experience of clinical death, but also with the dying hours. “They,” Father Seraphim writes about learned psychologists, “state that the apparitions of deceased relatives and friends accompany the dying person for about an hour, but almost always during the day before death.”

Regarding this element of the post-mortem or near-death experience, it must be said that there may be a physiological factor at play, such as the effect of hallucinogenic drugs, high body temperature and disease or brain damage. However, Father Seraphim notes an important observation of specialists in this field, namely the fact that statistics tell us: “the most coherent and obvious otherworldly experiences occur in patients with the greatest degree of contact with reality, they are less susceptible to hallucinations.” Based on the described near-death experience recorded by competent specialists, it should be noted that in this context the most rational and logical conclusion seems to be the reality of the afterlife. But the question remains open: are these spiritual beings really who they say they are?

To begin with, it should be noted that the presented evidence does not pose any difficulty for the Christian worldview, since death is only the border between life and life, it is always accompanied by various kinds of visions and phenomena, regardless of the spiritual state of the dying person. It is here that Father Seraphim makes a clear differentiation between the so-called general experience of dying, which is of interest to the majority, and the grace-filled death of Orthodox Christians who strived for holiness throughout their earthly journey.

The first thing I would like to draw attention to is the fact that representatives of Hinduism, unlike witnesses of mortal experience from the USA, who are relatives, are visited by their Hindu gods.

Some doctors who point to this observation say that the difference in vision is the fruit of subjective cultural and religious views. However, the inconsistency of such an opinion is based on the basis that the religious views of a dying person would influence his near-death experiences only if they are considered as hallucinations, and even with a certain exaltation of consciousness.
To better clarify this problem, let us turn to the work of Dr. Moody, already mentioned by us. In the foreword to his book, Dr. Melvin Morse writes the following: “Many...researchers have documented that near-death experiences are real and not the product of hallucinations and pathological disturbances of brain activity.” Moody himself confirms this statement with the following conclusions:
1. There is great similarity in the descriptions of near-death experiences, despite the fact that these stories are not consistent with the generally accepted ideas of our cultural environment about life after death.
2. All of Dr. Moody's patients were not victims of psychosis, but were balanced and normal people who occupied a certain position in society, responsible positions.
3. In addition, all patients were able to distinguish dreams from reality and perceived their experience as reality.
Thus, based on the above facts, we can draw an intermediate conclusion that both the near-death experience of Christian righteous people and the same experience of other people (including Hindus) is an experience of non-material reality. All that remains is to indicate the nature of certain phenomena.

Let's turn to the Holy Scriptures. Regarding the pagan gods, the Apostle Paul writes: “For although there are so-called gods, either in heaven or on earth - for there are many gods and many lords - yet we have one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we are for Him and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him” (1 Cor. 8:5-6). In another place, he clearly says who is really behind the appearance of a pagan deity: “When the pagans make sacrifices, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. But I do not want you to have fellowship with demons” (1 Cor. 10:20).

In the patristic writings on the issue we have raised, we can find thoughts similar to the thoughts of the Apostle Paul. Thus, Abba Isaiah has the following reasoning: “When the soul leaves the body, the passions that it acquired during earthly life serve as the reason for its enslavement to demons; virtues, if she has acquired them, serve as protection from demons.” Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says that Holy Scripture teaches us that after separation from the body, the human soul cleaves either to the Angels of light or to the fallen angels, depending on the good or evil qualities acquired during earthly life.

Now it is necessary to say about the appearance of relatives. In this matter, Father Seraphim refers to the opinion of St. Gregory the Great, who in his “Dialogues” wrote that only after death the righteous and sinners can recognize each other. But the saints appear to the righteous during prayer, having the boldness to intercede for them before God. Father Seraphim points to this difference, arguing that it speaks of different experiences of death by the righteous and sinners, as well as different fates after the grave. The fact is that saints, as stated above, have the power to intercede for a person before God, while sinners, with the exception of special cases, do not come into contact with the living.

This logic of reasoning shows that behind the appearances of relatives, as well as behind the appearances of pagan gods, there are unclean spirits who take on the form that a person is best able to assume, while the cultural and religious ideological positions of one or another witness play only a secondary role. Thus, in the matter of the appearance of any “other” beings in a dying state, we see that the Christian experience of dying is fundamentally different from the non-Christian one in its integrity, spirituality and goodness, as well as from the appearance of a “light being”, which was discussed above.

The next and final element of the near-death experience that Father Seraphim talks about is the “out-of-body” experience. The term “out-of-body” itself means that a person feels outside his own body, he can see his own body from the outside, the people around him, but is not able to come into any physical contact with them. In addition, witnesses who have experienced clinical death report feelings of lightness, painlessness and warmth, as well as timelessness. “Time did not exist, it was not an element of out-of-body experience,” Dr. Moody said about this experience.

Here again it is necessary to address the issue of hallucinations, since visual-auditory hallucinations are partly similar to out-of-body experiences. Dr. Moody writes that even if we focused on the similarities and forgot about the differences between these phenomena, this would still not provide a full explanation of out-of-body experience with autoscopic hallucinations: “The whole point is that there is no explanation for them. There are many conflicting theories, but neurologists and psychiatrists cannot decide which theory to adhere to. Therefore, by explaining the experience of being “outside the body” with visual-auditory hallucinations, we are replacing one unknown with another.” Thus, we see that the attempt to explain the phenomenon we are considering from a materialistic point of view leads thought into a logical vicious circle, which gives rise to even more questions.

For the Christian worldview, it is not surprising that at the moment of death the soul is separated from the body and acquires an existence separate from it. On this occasion, Father Seraphim writes the following: “It is characteristic of our time of unbelief that people rarely use Christian concepts or realize that their soul is freed from the body and now experiences everything that happens; this new state in which they find themselves perplexes them.”

The evidence of the out-of-body experience of a person's soul described by Father Seraphim, Dr. Moody and other researchers refers to the first minutes or even moments after the death of a person. It must be said that in early Christian literature we will not find any explanations for this phenomenon, since the holy fathers usually focused on those events that happened later, and they relied on information from the Holy Scriptures and previous ascetics. Evidence of the state of the soul in the first minutes after death became possible only with the development of appropriate medical technologies that make it possible to bring a person back to life after cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, it is important to note that this question does not in any way contradict the Orthodox worldview; moreover, in the absence of a rational explanation, it is the Christian dogma about the dual unity of human nature that provides the necessary intellectual basis for this phenomenon.

We will not dare to give any theological assessment of the phenomena considered. Despite the above facts of post-mortem and near-death experience, we still know too little about it to intrude there with our rude mind. However, one obvious conclusion can be drawn: the Christian lifestyle allows you to prepare for the transition to the afterlife and not only not be afraid of death, but also find peace and bliss in it.

Archpriest Vladimir Dolgikh

Post-mortem experience.
Every decade, almost every new year, gives humanity more and more new discoveries, answers questions and mysteries that tormented people in the past. But one of the very first questions that a person asked himself as soon as he realized that he was a human being, what happens to all of us after death still remains unanswered. Moreover, in earlier times, under the influence of the church, people were confident that they knew the answer to this question, but with the development of science and the spread of atheism, debates on this topic flared up with renewed vigor.
The answer to the basic question of humanity sounds differently in different mouths. The church and sects interpret it in their own interests, scientists are trying, unfortunately so far unsuccessfully, to get to the bottom of the truth, and many atheists generally deny any life after death. But atheists are in the minority. And in our time, most of humanity (including myself) are still confident that life after death exists. But it’s hard to say what kind of life this is.
Long before Christ, a narrow circle of initiates knew the so-called “Book of the Dead,” which told us that death is not an instantaneous act, but a complex process of a certain duration. In Ancient Rome and Ancient India, mystery schools functioned, in which initiates gradually comprehended the techniques of dying, perceiving the latter not as the disappearance of a person in general, but as his transition to a different quality. Later this knowledge spread throughout Europe. People initiated into them were convinced that a person’s existence does not end with his death; physical death is not the end of existence at all, but only the liberation of the soul. For example, Goethe wrote: “When I think about death, I am completely calm, because I am convinced: our spirit is a being whose nature remains indestructible and will exist forever.”
Belief in eternal life was not tied only to official religion. Thus, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who was excommunicated from the church, also considered the soul to be immortal, having neither beginning nor end. Most great thinkers and scientists recognized the immortality of the soul and, to one degree or another, the existence of God. But not all of them believed that the Holy Scriptures reflected the undoubted truth.
In order to be convinced that eternal life exists, a thinking person needs irrefutable evidence. Such proof could be the facts of the return from the other world, at least temporarily, of some people who actually lived among us in the past.
Many mediums claim that they can conjure up phantoms of dead people. The famous Brazilian medium of the first half of the last century, Carlos Mirabelli, became very famous in this field. In bright daylight, he managed to summon material figures of long-dead people. At the same time, doctors and physiologists allegedly examined them for about half an hour and found in them all the organs and functions required of a person. Then the figures disintegrated before the eyes of astonished spectators. Skeptics reacted to K. Mirabelli's experiments with obvious distrust: they looked very much like a cheap sensation, and Mirabelli could not even present any photographs. Who knows, our Yuri Longo resurrected a dead man on live television! But that's another story.
However, in the legends of almost all nations, priests, with the help of special rituals, were able to talk with the dead, and sometimes even resurrect a dead person. Scientists consider such legends to be fiction, myths, and beautiful fairy tales.
But let's not dredge up the distant past. Quite a lot of evidence of post-mortem experiences began to appear after doctors learned to bring people back to life en masse from a state of clinical death. Previously, people had no idea what clinical death was, and the few stories “about dying” served as evidence for them of the existence of the other world.
One of the great scientists of the first half of the 18th century, physiologist Emmanuel Swedenborg, who himself experienced a state now called clinical death, wrote: “A person does not die, he is simply freed from the physical body that he needed when he was in this world. When dying, a person only passes from one state to another. I remember especially clearly the feeling of consciousness leaving my body, that is, my spirit.”
However, many modern scientists consider the evidence of Swedenborg and at the same time the ancient Roman, Indian, Egyptian and Tibetan texts about the immortality of the soul to be a figment of fantasy. Fierce debate around the “posthumous experience” resumed with renewed vigor in the last quarter of the last century, after the publication in 1976 of the book by American psychiatrist Raymond Moody “Life after life. The Eternity of the Soul” (in our country, this author’s book “Life after Death”, written in the 1980s, was better known). Moody's book caused a lot of noise. Moody collected testimonies from approximately 150 people who had either experienced near-death or near-death experiences themselves, or who reported to Moody the experiences of others during dying. Moody continued his research and soon published several more books on this topic.
Need I say that R. Moody’s books about “life after death” were a resounding success? Which is not surprising. Almost all inhabitants of the earth show interest in this issue to one degree or another.
Moody's books contain numerous testimonies of people brought out of a state of clinical death by resuscitators. These stories, according to Moody's conclusions, coincided in basic details. Dying, at a moment of extreme physical exhaustion, a person hears a doctor pronounce his death. A loud ringing or hum is heard by the dying person. At the same time, he feels that he is rushing through a long dark tunnel, and suddenly he feels outside his own body, which he can see from the side. He is met by some benevolent creatures, among whom the person recognizes his deceased relatives and friends. Then a being of light appears, a kind, loving spirit that the dying person has never seen before. This creature, without the help of words, asks a person to evaluate his life, instantly reproducing in front of him the main events of his life. The dying person then notices that he is approaching something that looks like a wall or line, and realizes that this is the border between earthly life and the afterlife. However, it is not possible to cross this border. A person feels that he must go back, that the time of his death has not yet come.
Testimonies of people who experienced clinical death were also recorded by other researchers. Thus, even before the release of R. Moody’s first book, Galina Vladimirovna Alekseeva, chief specialist in general resuscitation of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, began regularly recording the “posthumous” memories of her patients. The doctor immediately noticed that the stories of the “resurrected” had a lot in common. Moreover, as it turned out later, many of the stories coincided in basic features with the evidence collected by R. Moody. In addition to the tunnel and bright light, people talked about the same sensations in the first moments after cardiac arrest: a person seems to split into two, “comes out” of his body and watches what is happening on the operating table. Then the patients saw a mysterious luminous creature. It was this creature that decided the fate of the dying man. The creature radiated warmth and kindness. His voice was masculine, always calm and affectionate. Some patients told Alekseeva that the voice persistently advised them to return back to fulfill their duty to their relatives or complete their unfinished mission on earth.
In the same way, some people told Moody that a being from the light sometimes told them: “It is too early for you to leave this world, but you must think about how you live.” Religious Christians believe that the luminous being is Jesus Christ. In India they think that Krishna comes to the dying person.

An excerpt from my book was presented:
Bolshakov A.V. "The unknown. How to protect yourself."
The book has recently been published. You can get acquainted with it and buy it using the links at the end of this page.

At some point in life, often from a certain age, when relatives and friends pass away, a person tends to ask questions about death and about possible life after death. We have already written materials on this topic, and you can read the answers to some questions.

But it seems that the number of questions is only growing and we want to explore this topic a little deeper.

Life is eternal

In this article we will not give arguments for and against the existence of life after death. We will proceed from the fact that life exists after the death of the body.

Over the past 50–70 years, medicine and psychology have accumulated tens of thousands of written evidence and research results that make it possible to lift the veil from this mystery.

It is worth noting that, on the one hand, all recorded cases of post-death experiences or travel differ from each other. But, on the other hand, they all coincide in key points.

Such as

• death is simply a transition from one form of life to another;
• when consciousness leaves the body, it simply goes to other worlds and universes;
• the soul, freed from physical experiences, experiences extraordinary lightness, bliss and heightened all senses;
• feeling of flight;
• spiritual worlds are saturated with light and love;
• in the posthumous world, time and space familiar to humans do not exist;
• consciousness works differently than when living in the body, everything is perceived and grasped almost instantly;
• the eternity of life is realized.

Life after death: recorded real cases and recorded facts

The number of recorded accounts of eyewitnesses who have experienced out-of-body experiences is so great today that they could form a large encyclopedia. And perhaps a small library.

Perhaps the largest number of described cases about life after death can be read in the books of Michael Newton, Ian Stevenson, Raymond Moody, Robert Monroe and Edgar Cayce.

Several thousand transcribed audio recordings of regressive hypnosis sessions about the life of the soul between incarnations can only be found in the books of Michael Newton.

Michael Newton began using regression hypnosis to treat his patients, especially those for whom traditional medicine and psychology could no longer help.

At first, he was surprised to discover that many serious problems in life, including patients’ health, had their causes in past lives.

After several decades of research, Newton not only developed a mechanism for treating complex physical and psychological injuries that began in past incarnations, but also collected the largest amount of evidence to date for the existence of life after death.

Michael Newton's first book, Journeys of the Soul, was released in 1994, followed by several more books dealing with life in the spirit worlds.

These books describe not only the mechanism of the soul’s transition from one life to another, but also how we choose our birth, our parents, loved ones, friends, trials and circumstances of life.

In one of the forewords to his book, Michael Newton wrote: “We are all about to return home. Where only pure, unconditional love, compassion and harmony exist side by side. You need to understand that you are currently in school, the Earth school, and when the training is over, this loving harmony is waiting for you. It is important to remember that every experience you have during your current life contributes to your personal, spiritual growth. No matter when or how your training ends, you will return home to the unconditional love that is always available and waiting for us all.”

But the main thing is that Newton not only collected the largest amount of detailed evidence, he also developed a tool that allows anyone to gain their own experience.

Today, regressive hypnosis is also represented in Russia, and if you want to resolve your doubts about the existence of an immortal soul, now you have the opportunity to check it for yourself.

To do this, just find the contacts of a specialist in regressive hypnosis on the Internet. However, take the time to read the reviews to avoid unpleasant disappointment.

Today, books are not the only source of information about life after death. Films and TV series are being made on this topic.

One of the most famous films on this topic, based on real events, “Heaven is for Real” 2014. The film was based on the book “Heaven is Real” by Todd Burpo.

A book about the story of a 4-year-old boy who experienced clinical death during surgery, went to heaven and returned back, written by his father.

This story is amazing in its details. While out of his body, 4-year-old baby Kilton clearly saw what the doctors and his parents were doing. Which exactly corresponded to what was actually happening.

Kilton describes the heavens and their inhabitants in great detail, although his heart only stopped for a few minutes. During his stay in heaven, the boy learns such details about the life of the family that, according to his father’s assurances, he could not have known, if only because of his age.

The child, during his out-of-body journey, saw dead relatives, angels, Jesus and even the Virgin Mary, apparently due to his Catholic upbringing. The boy observed the past and the near future.

The events described in the book forced Father Kilton to completely reconsider his views on life, death and what awaits us after death.

Interesting cases and evidence of eternal life

An interesting incident happened several years ago with our compatriot Vladimir Efremov.

Vladimir Grigorievich experienced a spontaneous exit from the body due to cardiac arrest. In a word, Vladimir Grigorievich experienced clinical death in February 2014, which he told his relatives and colleagues about in every detail.

And it seemed like there was one more case confirming the presence of an otherworldly life. But the fact is that Vladimir Efremov is not just an ordinary person, not a psychic, but a scientist with an impeccable reputation in his circles.

And according to Vladimir Grigorievich himself, before he experienced clinical death, he considered himself an atheist and perceived stories about the afterlife as the dope of religion. He devoted most of his professional life to the development of rocket systems and space engines.

Therefore, for Efremov himself, the experience of contact with the afterlife was very unexpected, but it largely changed his views on the nature of reality.

It is noteworthy that in his experience there is also light, serenity, extraordinary clarity of perception, a pipe (tunnel) and no sense of time and space.

But, since Vladimir Efremov is a scientist, designer of aircraft and spacecraft, he gives a very interesting description of the world in which his consciousness found itself. He explains it in physical and mathematical concepts, which are unusually far from religious ideas.

He notes that a person in the afterlife sees what he wants to see, which is why there are so many differences in the descriptions. Despite his previous atheism, Vladimir Grigorievich noted that the presence of God was felt everywhere.

There was no visible form of God, but his presence was undeniable. Later, Efremov even gave a presentation on this topic to his colleagues. Listen to the story of the eyewitness himself.

Dalai Lama

One of the greatest proofs of eternal life is known to many, but few have thought about it. Nobel Peace Prize laureate, spiritual leader of Tibet Dalai Lama XIV, is the 14th incarnation of the consciousness (soul) of the 1st Dalai Lama.

But they began the tradition of reincarnation of the main spiritual leader, to preserve the purity of knowledge even earlier. In the Tibetan Kagyu lineage, the highest reincarnated Lama is called Karmapa. And now the Karmapa is experiencing his 17th incarnation.

The famous film “Little Buddha” was made based on the story of the death of the 16th Karmapa and the search for the child into whom he would be reborn.

In the traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism, in general, the practice of repeated incarnations is very widespread. But it is especially widely known in Tibetan Buddhism.

It is not only the supreme Lamas, such as the Dalai Lama or the Karmapa, who are reborn. After death, almost without interruption, their closest disciples also come to a new human body, whose task is to recognize the soul of the Lama in the child.

There is a whole ritual of recognition, including recognition among many personal belongings from a previous incarnation. And everyone is free to decide for themselves whether they believe or not in these stories.

But in the political life of the world, some are inclined to take this seriously.

Thus, the new reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is always recognized by the Pancha Lama, who, in turn, is also reborn after each death. It is the Pancha Lama who finally confirms that the child is the embodiment of the consciousness of the Dalai Lama.

And it so happened that the current Pancha Lama is still a child and lives in China. Moreover, he cannot leave this country, because the Chinese government needs him so that without their participation it would not be possible to determine the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

Therefore, in the past few years, the spiritual leader of Tibet sometimes jokes and says that he may no longer incarnate or incarnate in a female body. You can, of course, argue that these are Buddhists and they have such beliefs and this is not evidence. But it seems that some heads of state perceive this differently.

Bali - “Island of the Gods”

Another interesting fact takes place in Indonesia, on the Hindu island of Bali. In Hinduism, the theory of reincarnation is key and the islanders deeply believe in it. They believe so strongly that during the cremation of the body, the relatives of the deceased ask the gods to allow the soul, if it wants to be born again on earth, to be born again in Bali.

Which is quite understandable, the island lives up to its name “Island of the Gods”. Moreover, if the family of the deceased is wealthy, she is asked to return to the family.

When a child reaches 3 years of age, there is a tradition of taking him to a special clergyman who has the ability to determine which soul has come into this body. And sometimes it turns out to be the soul of a great-grandmother or uncle. And the existence of the entire island, practically a small state, is determined by these beliefs.

Modern science's view of life after death

Science's views on death and life have changed greatly over the past 50–70 years, largely due to the development of quantum physics and biology. In recent decades, scientists have come closer than ever before to understanding what happens to consciousness after life leaves the body.

If 100 years ago science denied the existence of consciousness or soul, today this is already a generally accepted fact, as is the fact that the consciousness of the experimenter influences the results of the experiment.

So does the soul exist, and is Consciousness immortal from a scientific point of view? - Yes

Neuroscientist Christoph Koch in April 2016, at a meeting of scientists with the 14th Dalai Lama, said that the latest theories in brain science consider consciousness as a property that is inherent in everything that exists.

Consciousness is inherent in everything and is present everywhere, just as gravity acts on all objects without exception.

The theory of “Panpsychism”, the theory of a single universal consciousness, has received a second life these days. This theory is present in Buddhism, Greek philosophy and pagan traditions. But for the first time, Panpsychism is supported by science.

Giulio Tononi, the author of the famous modern theory of consciousness “Integrated Information Theory” states the following: “consciousness exists in physical systems in the form of diverse and multilaterally interconnected pieces of information.”

Christopher Koch and Giulio Tononi made a statement that is astonishing for modern science:

"Consciousness is the fundamental quality inherent in reality."

Based on this hypothesis, Koch and Tononi came up with a unit of measurement for consciousness and called it phi. Scientists have already developed a test that measures phi in the human brain.

A magnetic pulse is sent to the human brain and how the signal is measured in the brain's neurons is measured.

The longer and clearer the brain reverberation in response to a magnetic stimulus, the more conscious a person is.

Using this technique, it is possible to determine what state a person is in: awake, asleep or under anesthesia.

This method of measuring consciousness has found widespread use in medicine. The phi level helps to accurately determine whether actual death has occurred or the patient is in a vegetative state.

The test helps to find out at what time consciousness begins to develop in the fetus and how clearly a person is aware of himself in a state of dementia or dementia.

Several proofs of the existence of the soul and its immortality

Here we are again faced with what can be considered proof of the existence of the soul. In court cases, witness testimony is evidence in favor of the innocence and guilt of suspects.

And for most of us, the stories of people, especially loved ones, who have experienced a post-mortem experience or the separation of the soul from the body will be evidence of the presence of a soul. However, it is not a fact that scientists will accept this evidence as such.

Where is the point at which stories and myths become scientifically proven?

Moreover, today we already know that many of the inventions of the human mind that we use now were present exclusively in science fiction works 200–300 years ago.

The simplest example of this is an airplane.

Evidence from psychiatrist Jim Tucker

So let's look at several cases described by psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker as evidence for the existence of the soul. Moreover, what could be a greater proof of the immortality of the soul if not reincarnation or the memory of one’s past incarnations?

Like Ian Stevenson, Jim spent decades researching the issue of reincarnation based on children's memories of past lives.

In his book Life Before Life: A Scientific Study of Children's Memories of Past Lives, he reviewed more than 40 years of reincarnation research at the University of Virginia.

The studies were based on children's exact memories of their past incarnations.

The book, among other things, discusses birthmarks and birth defects that are present in children and correlate with the cause of death in a previous incarnation.

Jim began studying this issue after he encountered quite frequent requests from parents who claimed that their children told very consistent stories about their past lives.

Names, occupations, places of residence and circumstances of death are given. What a surprise it was when some of the stories were confirmed: houses were found in which the children lived in their previous incarnations and graves where they were buried.

There were too many such cases to consider it a coincidence or a hoax. Moreover, in some cases, young children as young as 2-4 years old already possessed skills that they claimed to have mastered in past lives. Here are a few such examples.

Baby Hunter incarnate

Hunter, a 2-year-old boy, told his parents that he was a multiple golf champion. He lived in the United States of America in the mid-30s and his name was Bobby Jones. At the same time, at only two years old, Hunter played golf well.

So good that he was allowed to study in the section, despite the existing age restrictions of 5 years. It is not surprising that the parents decided to have their son checked. They printed out photographs of several competitive golfers and asked the boy to identify himself.

Without hesitation, Hunter pointed to the photograph of Bobby Jones. By the age of seven, memories of his past life began to blur, but the boy still plays golf and has already won several competitions.

Incarnation of James

Another example about the boy James. He was about 2.5 years old when he started talking about his past life and how he died. First, the child began to have nightmares about the plane crash.

But one day James told his mother that he was a military pilot and died in a plane crash during the war with Japan. His plane was shot down near the island of Iota. The boy described in detail how the bomb hit the engine and the plane began to fall into the ocean.

He remembered that in a previous life his name was James Houston, he grew up in Pennsylvania, and his father suffered from alcoholism.

The boy's father turned to the military archives, where it turned out that a pilot named James Houston really existed. He took part in air operations off the islands of Japan during the Second World War. Houston died off the island of Iota, exactly as the child described.

Reincarnation researcher Ian Stevens

The books of another no less famous reincarnation researcher, Ian Stevens, contain about 3 thousand verified and confirmed childhood memories of past incarnations. Unfortunately, his books have not yet been translated into Russian, and are currently only available in English.

His first book was published in 1997 and was entitled "Reincarnation and Stevenson's Biology: Contributions to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects."

In researching this book, two hundred cases of birth defects or birthmarks in children that could not be explained medically or genetically were examined. At the same time, the children themselves explained their origins by events from past lives.

For example, there have been cases of children with irregular or missing fingers. Children with such defects often remembered the circumstances under which these injuries were received, where and at what age. Many of the stories were confirmed by death certificates found later and even stories from living relatives.

There was a boy with moles that were shaped very much like the entry and exit wounds of a bullet wound. The boy himself claimed that he died from a shot in the head. He remembered his name and the house in which he lived.

The deceased's sister was later found and confirmed her brother's name and the fact that he shot himself in the head.

All the thousands and thousands of similar cases recorded today are proof not only of the existence of the soul, but also of its immortality. Moreover, thanks to many years of research by Ian Stevenson, Jim B. Tucker, Michael Newton and others, we know that sometimes no more than 6 years can pass between soul incarnations.

In general, according to the research of Michael Newton, the soul itself chooses how soon and why it wants to incarnate again.

Further proof of the existence of the soul came from the discovery of the atom.

The discovery of the atom and its structure led to the fact that scientists, especially quantum physicists, were forced to admit that at the quantum level everything existing in the universe, absolutely everything, is one.

An atom is 90 percent composed of space (emptiness), which means that all living and nonliving bodies, including the human body, consist of the same space.

It is noteworthy that more and more quantum physicists are now practicing Eastern meditation practices, because, in their opinion, they allow them to experience this fact of unity.

John Hagelin, a famous quantum physicist and popularizer of science, said in one of his interviews that for all quantum physicists, our unity at the subatomic level is a proven fact.

But if you want not just to know this, but to experience it yourself, take up meditation, because it will help you find access to this space of peace and love, which is already present inside everyone, but is simply not realized.

You can call it God, soul or higher mind, the fact of its existence will not change in any way.

Isn’t it possible that mediums, psychics and many creative personalities can connect to this space?

Religious opinions on death

The opinion of all religions about death agrees on one thing - when you die in this world, you are born in another. But the descriptions of other worlds in the Bible, Koran, Kabbalah, Vedas and other religious books differ in accordance with the cultural characteristics of the countries where this or that religion was born.

But taking into account the hypothesis that after death the soul sees those worlds that it is inclined and wants to see, we can conclude that all differences in religious views on life after death are explained precisely by differences in faith and beliefs.

Spiritualism: communication with the departed

It seems that humans have always had a desire to communicate with the dead. Because throughout the existence of human culture, there have been people who have been able to communicate with the spirits of deceased ancestors.

In the Middle Ages, this was done by shamans, priests and sorcerers; in our time, people with such abilities are called mediums or psychics.

If you watch television at least occasionally, you may have come across a television show that shows sessions of communication with the spirits of the deceased.

One of the most famous shows in which communication with the departed is a key theme is “Battle of Psychics” on TNT.

It is difficult to say how real what the viewer sees on the screen is. But one thing is for sure - it is now not difficult to find someone who can help you contact your deceased loved one.

But when choosing a medium, you should take care to obtain proven recommendations. At the same time, you can try to set up this connection yourself.

Yes, not everyone has psychic abilities, but many can develop them. There are often cases when communication with the dead occurs spontaneously.

This usually happens up to 40 days after death, until the time has come for the soul to fly away from the earthly plane. During this period, communication can occur on its own, especially if the deceased has something to tell you and you are emotionally open to such communication.