What is a near-death experience?

A near-death experience occurs when someone is in a life-threatening situation and expects to die, but then manages to survive. For example someone might survive a horrific car crash, or a base jumper’s parachute fails to open but they nevertheless survive having believed death was inevitable.

It is a well recorded fact that the recollections of near-death experience survivors are extremely similar. Survivors recall that when they were convinced they were going to die, they experienced feelings of extraordinary euphoria, being enveloped in peace and radiance, and a sense of being ‘closer to God’ or ‘heaven’. American social psychologist Kenneth Ring has evidenced this, saying, ‘For 10 years I have studied cases of persons who have survived episodes of near death or clinical death only to tell of wonders in the land beyond the edge of life. One man speaks of being in a state of “total radiance from absolute knowledge”… One woman says: “I was enabled to look deeply inside myself. I saw…that my core was perfect love—and that applies to all human beings.” But it is not just that one experiences this truth; one becomes it. The meaning of life has something to do with realizing that our essence is perfect love, then going on to live our lives upon that truth, experiencing each day as a miracle and every act as sacred’ (Life mag. Dec. 1988). Vanessa Charland-Verville, a neuropsychologist heading current research at the University of Liege in Belgium says ‘People are transformed forever by the experience’ adding ‘it’s really something that stays in the mind of people as a clear trace, and it’s even more clear than a real memory’ (http://www.livescience.com/28472-near-death-experiences-vivid.html).

Despite these studies of near-death experiences clearly demonstrating that peoples’ experiences are too similar to be dismissed, as they sometimes are, as mere coincidence or even halluncinations, we have been unable to interpret and explain what survivors are accessing and feeling without the explanations becoming veiled with mystery. As the latest scientific study on near-death experiences published in March 2013, which Charland-Verville co-authored, confirms: ‘The present study showed that Near Death Experience memories contained more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon’ (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0057620).

Understanding the human condition enables us to understand near-death experiences

The honest explanation for near-death experiences is that we are flooded with ‘perfect love’ and ‘total radiance’, because at the moment when death appears imminent, there is no point in holding on to our narrow, self-centred preoccupations, no longer any reason to struggle with the agonies of life, and so the struggle ceases and suddenly we have access to all the real beauty and magnificence that exists in the world that our preoccupations with life have hidden from us.

In truth, this is an obvious explanation of near-death experiences, however we haven’t been able to access or cope with this explanation because it brings into focus the human condition. The dilemma of the human condition is that the universally accepted ideals or morals are to be cooperative, loving and selfless, and yet we humans are competitive, aggressive and selfish. For as long as we couldn’t explain why we weren’t behaving in accordance with these ideals , the whole issue of the human condition has been unbearably condemning, and so we have been unable to face it. The real explanation for near-death experiences brings the human condition into focus because it reminds us that we have an all-sensitive, all-loving self or soul buried beneath our everyday, superficial, preoccupied-with-proving-our-self-worth, competitive, aggressive and selfish selves.

The absolutely brilliant and overwhelmingly exciting news is that science has now progressed to a point where we can finally explain and understand our present non-ideal, human-condition-afflicted lives. Yes, most wonderfully, biologist Jeremy Griffith has explained the human condition, has synthesised the answer to the question of the origin of the psychologically upset state, which provides the ultimate defence for why we humans have had to bury that all-sensitive, all-loving side of ourselves beneath our preoccupied-with-proving-our-worth, competitive, aggressive and selfish selves. To see the full explanation of the human condition by Jeremy Griffith watch an Introductory Video series here or read his freely available online book Freedom: Expanded Book 1: The Biology.

Understanding the human condition allows us to access the ‘heavenly’ state without having to think we are about to die!

Using Griffith’s explanation, it is now possible to see that we are suffering from an upset state, characterised by angry, alienated and egocentric behaviour that is the result of a two million year old, unavoidable clash between our gene-based instincts and our emerging nerve-based consciousness. Using this explanation, it is now possible to admit that the ‘heavenly’ state people refer to in a near-death experience is a re-connection with the repressed world of our soul—our species’ instinctive memory of a time when our distant ancestors lived in a cooperative, selfless, loving, innocent state. Before we had the full explanation of and defence for our competitive, aggressive, selfish or ‘corrupted’ condition, any contemplation of this issue led to unbearable, in fact suicidal depression.

Understanding the human condition means it is now safe to admit the truth about near-death experiences, and in-fact with the human condition now explained, it gives reason to and makes sense of all our life experiences. This resolution of the human condition gives the human race the ability to at last understand and ameliorate or heal its upset condition and rejuvenate our wonderful all-sensitive, all-loving, cooperative, selfless soul. Most wonderfully, all the denial, repression and pain can now lift and the relief and freedom of no longer having to carry the agonising burden of the human condition will bring about a permanent state of euphoria, peace and radiance for all humans!!

You can read Griffith’s full explanation of near-death experiences here, in his freely available bestselling book A Species In Denial.

The former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, Professor Harry Prosen, recognises the thrilling breakthrough that Griffith’s explanation represents, saying, ‘I have no doubt this biological explanation of Jeremy Griffith’s of the human condition is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race.’ 

This Blog Post was written by Anthony L on August 8, 2013