evidence of the soul
I’m reading two books right now: one is about gravesite discoveries in early Britain by an atheist archaeologist, and the other seeks to prove the existence of the soul and afterlife by a philosopher-psychiatrist. Both books are about life and they are also, of course, about death.
In a strange way, the books seem to be speaking to each other. The archaeologist finds it necessary to point out that although she studies death rituals, she’s not one of those silly people who believes in an afterlife. In fact, she chides the reader to admit that there is absolutely no proof of such a thing—that believing in the soul is the equivalent of believing in the Tooth Fairy!
The philosopher-psychiatrist, meanwhile, has been publishing books about near-death experiences since 1975 and is the one who coined the term. It’s often hard for skeptics—or anyone—to truly believe that consciousness continues after death, he writes, until they have experienced a near-death or shared death encounter themselves.
It is the shared death experiences that have led him to state that the soul’s continuation can be proven. As he writes, “Shared death experiences make it clear that consciousness is not just a chemical reaction in the brain, separate from the spiritual. Shared death experiences are proof that near-death experiences are more than oxygen deprivation to the brain. Bystanders to death can have the same transcendent experiences as those who are dying or who are retrieved from a close call with death. This new development—the aggressive study of shared death experiences—puts us at the frontier of the afterlife.”1
I can only imagine what the atheist archaeologist would say about this. But what I don’t totally understand is why—why is there comfort in believing that “nothing happens” when we die?
It makes sense that we reach for absolutes when we’re talking about death—of course it does. Death is the ultimate unknown. The (possibly) final frontier. It’s natural for humans, when confronted with a situation outside of their control, to try to impose control upon it, whether through the orthodoxy of heaven or the firm fact of nothingness.
Many things in life are deeply personal, but death may be the most personal. There are such a vast array of opinions about what happens when we die that I find myself wondering if they aren’t all possible. Why not? Perhaps some of us reincarnate and some enter a sweet sleep and others pass through pearlescent gates. Perhaps it is something else entirely depending on who you are!
If the near-death experiences I’ve read about are to be believed, after we shed our earthly bodies many possibilities become open to us—so many experiences that we struggle to categorize them in easy or meaningful ways. That’s why they are called near-death experiences, after all, not near-death truths or near-death beliefs. And there is something about these experiences that defies our sometimes narrow preconceptions, our carefully selected possibilities. Perhaps by limiting these possibilities to, say, heaven or hell, we once again find a way of exerting control over this ultimately uncontrollable situation.
Yet isn’t it more exciting—more empowering—to imagine a vast array of potentialities, as befits the vast array of humanity on this earth?
Near-death experiences indicate this complexity. Not everyone goes through a tunnel or returns with a born-again all-one message of love, though it is sometimes tempting to think so. And I tend to think that a lot of people who don’t have these grand, sweeping, cosmic love-and-connection NDEs don’t come forward about their experiences. Maybe their lives haven’t magically transformed, or their NDE was confusing and dark and mysterious. They don’t share, because they sense they won’t fit into the “hallelujah-heaven-is-real” type of NDEs that are…well…popular. Yet they underwent a deeply meaningful experience that was transformative in some way.2
I’ll use myself as an example. I had what I’d consider a near-death experience, but I didn’t return miraculously unafraid of death and filled with a message of cosmic love. My experience was beautiful, but also fleeting and mysterious. My fear of death actually intensified, as did my general anxiety around health. I didn’t tell anyone about my NDE for a long time because I feared a few responses: skepticism and dismissal; the “you weren’t clinically declared dead so it wasn’t really an NDE” thing; and a general disappointment that I did not come back with something profound to share.
But maybe the profound thing isn’t having a life review with a celestial being (because I didn’t have that) or having all the knowledge of the universe transferred into my consciousness (didn’t have that either). Maybe the profound thing is something a lot simpler. Maybe being open-minded is actually profound. Maybe it’s extraordinary to be able to say I don’t have the answers, so I shall not impose any upon you. I just have questions, and I bet you do too. And I love this.
I believe that we have souls, or consciousness if you prefer, that continues after our bodily homes die. I believe they can go to places that we can’t quite visit from here. And I believe we come back, in some way. We are all connected. The universe holds a vast intelligence that we will never be able to fully grasp.
But you know what? It’s okay that we can’t fully grasp it, because we are part of it all. It is in our DNA. It is in our souls. And we all need something to wonder about, that fills us with wonder.
Moody, Raymond; Perry, Paul. Proof of Life after Life: 7 Reasons to Believe There Is an Afterlife (p. 15). Atria Books/Beyond Words. Kindle Edition.
If you are one of these people, or you know someone who is, you’re not alone. Also, there has been research done that incorporates a wider array of responses to the near-death experiences—P.M.H. Atwater’s books are a great example.