A radiant light at the end of the tunnel, a feeling of joy and hope - all this was seen and experienced by people who survived cardiac arrest. They told British doctors about their impressions.
The sensational recognition by researchers from Southampton of the reality of post-mortem experiences that do not depend on the activity of the brain excited medical science around the world. What happens to a person after a cardiac arrest? What signs should be used to determine the death of a person? What is brain death? There is no single answer.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, author of Interviews with the Dying, was the first physician to publish back in 1969 the stories of the “returned from the dead”. At the same time, she noticed that there were many similarities in these stories: separation from her own body, flight through a tunnel, joyful approach to the light. The same experience was described by Raymond Moody in his book Life After Death, which was published in 1975 and became a bestseller. Both of these researchers are unanimous in assessing the impressions of dying patients: death is always beautiful.
Other conclusions were reached by the German sociologist Hubert Knoblauch, who outlined his observations and research in the book “News from the Other World. Myths and reality clinical death» (1999). Over the course of several years, he interviewed more than two thousand people who had the sad experience of near-death experience. Slightly more than four percent were able to recall some visions and sensations experienced by them after they lost consciousness. But with all his desire, Knoblauch did not find in these stories anything resembling a "beautiful death." The experiences of people were so different and individual that, according to the sociologist, it is even impossible to generalize them. Nor were they always pleasant: 60 percent of East Germans and 30 percent of their western compatriots suffered greatly - they went to hell!
Knoblauch believes that visions at the moment of cardiac arrest depend on the mentality of a person, on all his previous life experience and, ultimately, on the culture of the society in which he lived his life: “The whole structure of the “other world” that a person meets in the moment of dying, this is undoubtedly a reflection of "this light" known to him.
Scientists have not yet been able to figure out how visions and sensations arise after cardiac arrest and cessation of blood supply to the brain. None of the hypotheses provides a satisfactory explanation for these enigmatic stories. In the early 1990s, scientists focused on trying to prove that “post-mortem impressions” are the result of residual brain activity, that is, its reaction to abnormal concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
So, for example, in the Virchow clinic in 1994, experiments were carried out with healthy volunteers who were asked to breathe quickly and deeply in order to lose consciousness. Voluntary "martyrs of science" experienced about the same thing as patients in a state of clinical death. They "parted" with their mortal body and saw, as in the frames of a movie, the events of their own past life.
However, according to Dr. Sam Parnia, director of research at Southampton, insufficient oxygen to the brain could not be the cause of his patients' visions. In seven examined patients, who spoke about typical experiences at the moment of clinical death, the oxygen concentration was even higher than in those who did not feel or see anything.
Calling an incomprehensible phenomenon hallucinations would also be wrong. “All of these patients were able to recall and recount their experiences very accurately,” emphasizes Dr. Parnia. “That doesn’t happen with hallucinations.” It also eliminates the side effects of certain drugs and elevated carbon dioxide levels.
Perhaps such an amazing effect is exerted by some narcotic substances produced by the human body itself. Many dying people talk about the all-consuming feeling of happiness and peace of people who happened to experience situations associated with extreme stress of all the forces of the body (for example, sinking and swimming out of last strength), as well as in extreme athletes, a special hormone is released in the brain, which causes a feeling of pleasure and helps to fight and survive in a deadly situation.
American scientist Bruce Grayson of the University of Virginia found out for sure that people who have experienced "post-mortem experiences" are not mentally ill. Observing his patients, he became convinced that the change in consciousness associated with such a difficult event as clinical death does not lead to morbid states of the psyche.
Do the stories of people who have returned from the other world prove that there is life after death? modern science the answer is probably yes. It is necessary to continue observations and experiments, although we may not know the exact answer until our death.
The range of problems associated with clinical death also includes the question of when, in fact, one should consider man dead? After the heart has stopped, and the biocurrents of the brain are not recorded? If this is a sign of brain death, then such a person can be harvested for transplantation.
In former years, the bodies were kept for three days until the undoubted external signs body death. The so-called cadaveric spots appear about half an hour or an hour after the cessation of blood circulation. Rigor mortis occurs in 4-12 hours.
Such a concept as "brain death" did not exist before, it appeared relatively recently. After the world's first human heart transplant by surgeon Christian Bernard, many media, expressing the point of view of a significant part of society, demanded that he be put on trial on charges of murder. When such operations also began to be carried out in the United States of America, a special commission at Harvard medical school In 1968, she renamed her near-death coma "brain death."
This definition is now under sharp criticism. “Transplant surgeons are always sure (although in fact they cannot know this) that a patient diagnosed with brain death is really dead, because his brain has stopped working and he no longer feels anything,” writes Richard Fuchs in his book “Business with death. In Defense of a Dignified Death (2001). Even doctors who specialize in organ transplants admit that people who have been diagnosed with brain death may feel pain and may perceive reality in some way. After all, no one can guarantee that donors whose organs are cut out for transplantation do not feel anything. But on the other hand, there are cases when people regained consciousness after many years of coma and talked about various visions and sounds that reached them while they were unconscious.
Eric Melnikov
Death is a difficult and bitter test for any family, but grief becomes unimaginable when a person dies twice.
On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 in the United States, a family that filed a lawsuit against the pathologists of a mortuary at a Los Angeles clinic for freezing their relative alive, the court of appeals gave the green light to continue litigation.
In July 2010, doctors pronounced the death of 80-year-old patient Maria de Jesus Arroyo, who was admitted to the hospital with a heart attack. When, a few days later, the relatives took away the body of the deceased, they found that the woman's nose was broken, and her entire face was covered with cuts and bruises.
The husband and children of Maria de Jesus Arroyo sued the hospital staff for negligence and careless handling of the body, but it later turned out that the woman received injuries when she tried to get out of the freezer, where she was mistakenly placed while still alive.
Such cases, although rare, do occur, as the following seven stories show.
1. A South African woke up in a mortuary freezer after having an asthma attack.
In 2011, a man was admitted to a hospital in the Eastern Cape (South Africa) with an asthma attack. Some time later, doctors pronounced him dead. The pathologist examined the patient's body, but found no signs of life. Obviously, he was mistaken, because a few hours later the "corpse" came to life in the freezer of the morgue and called for help. Later, the doctors, having examined the man, recognized his condition as satisfactory and let him go home.
2. An elderly woman returned from the dead twice and spent three days in the morgue
61-year-old Lyudmila Steblitskaya, a resident of Tomsk, died twice and came back to life. The first time a woman was admitted to the hospital serious condition in 2011. The doctors "failed to save" her and she "died". The Steblitskaya family began to prepare for the funeral. When they arrived at the morgue three days later to pick up Lyudmila's body, the workers told them that, as it turned out, she was still alive.
In 2012, Steblitskaya again ended up in the hospital. A few days later, spent in the hospital, the woman died. But after just a few hours, the doctors still managed to bring her back from the other world.
SourcePhoto 3The baby was in the mortuary freezer for 12 hours and was woken up by his mother's touch.
In April 2012, a resident of Argentina gave birth, according to doctors, a dead premature baby. The baby was immediately taken away, not allowing the mother to even look at him.
The baby was sent to the morgue, after 12 hours the parents nevertheless insisted that they be allowed to see him. When the woman touched the child with her hand, he opened his eyes and screamed...
4. 95-year-old woman came back to life six days after she "died"
A Chinese woman rose from her grave on the seventh day after her death. Liu Xiufeng, 95, reportedly fell at home and suffered a head injury, which is believed to have caused her death. The woman was discovered some time later by a neighbor, Chen Qingwang, who tried to bring her to her senses, but in vain.
Qingwang made all the necessary preparations for the funeral and, according to Chinese tradition, left the coffin with Liu Xiufeng's body in her house for a few days so that relatives and friends could come and say goodbye to the deceased. Imagine his surprise when, the day before the funeral, he came to the house of his neighbor and found that her body had disappeared from the coffin.
Chen Qingwang found the woman in the kitchen preparing food. Liu Xiufeng later explained, "I slept so long and was very hungry, so I decided to cook myself something to eat."
SourcePhoto 5The man who was presumed dead woke up on the pathologist's table.
Carlos Camejo, 33, who was presumed dead by doctors, woke up during an autopsy when a pathologist cut open his face. “I woke up in unbearable pain,” the man told local publication El Universal (Venezuela).
6. A 2-year-old asked for water at his own funeral.
Two-year-old Calvin Santos from Brazil shocked relatives when he rose from the coffin during his own funeral and asked for a drink.
Prior to that, he was hospitalized with bronchial pneumonia and died from complications. The child's body was reportedly placed in a sealed bag for three hours after being declared dead.
During the funeral, it seemed to Aunt Kelvin that the boy had moved, after which he got up and asked his father for water. Just a few seconds later, the baby lost consciousness. The child's parents hurried to the hospital, where the doctors again pronounced him dead, now completely.
7. The waiter came to his senses at his own funeral
The funeral of 28-year-old Hamid Hafez Al-Nubi, an Egyptian waiter, turned into a celebration when he came to his senses. Al-Nubi reportedly suffered a heart attack at work. Arriving doctors were forced to ascertain the fact of death.
The man's relatives took his body home and began preparations for the funeral. When a doctor came to them to sign a death certificate, he examined the deceased again and found that his body was not cold, but warm. Al-Nubi was brought back to consciousness and given the necessary assistance.
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10. Luz Miraglos Veron.Analiya Buter was pregnant with her fifth child when she went into labor 12 weeks prematurely. After the doctors told her that the child she gave birth to was stillborn. The heartbroken woman and her husband went home with the child's death certificate. They decided to return 12 hours later to see the girl's body, which was kept in the morgue. The child was examined by obstetricians, gynecologists and even a neonatologist, and they all came to the conclusion that the girl had died. But when they opened the box, the baby started crying and they realized that their daughter was alive. The girl was named Luz Miraglos (wonder of the world). Judging by latest posts, the girl became stronger and healthier.
9. Alvaro Garza Jr.Alvaro Garza Jr. was 11 years old in 1987 when he fell through the ice on the Red River, which separates Minnesota from North Dakota. He played on frozen ice and failed when he tried to retrieve the body of a dead squirrel. The rescue operation was not particularly quick, and Alvaro spent a full 45 minutes completely underwater. When they pulled him out of the river, he was clinically dead: he had no pulse and his body temperature dropped to 25 degrees Celsius. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors revived him with a heart-lung machine that warmed his body, displaced water and pumped in air. The explanation for this whole story is that Alvaro struggled for several minutes before he was underwater, which authorities said allowed his body to cool down and reduce his need for oxygen.
After four days in the hospital, he was already able to communicate, blink. After spending in total 17 days in the hospital, he was discharged home. For some time he could not fully use his limbs, he needed orthodontic braces to walk. But, in the end, he came to his full senses and, apparently, he does not have long-term brain damage.
8. Michigan.Ty Houston, a Michigan nurse, was filling out his ballot in 2012 (many remember the whole Romney-Obama story) when he heard a woman cry for help. He approached and found that the woman's husband had no heartbeat and was not breathing. Houston laid the man on the floor and began CPR. After a few minutes, he managed to bring him back to life. Even though the man had just died, the first thing he asked after coming back to life was, "Did I vote?".
7. Johannesburg.In July 2011, the family of an 80-year-old South African called an employee funeral home stating that he had died. The company sent a driver, he examined the man, but felt no pulse or heartbeat, so he took the body to the morgue, where it was placed in a refrigerator. Twenty-one hours later, the dead man woke up and started screaming. It is clear that the employees of the morgue were alarmed in earnest. They thought the man was a ghost. Terrified, the owner, Ayanda Makolo, called the police and waited until she arrived at the scene to enter the morgue. Makolo said he felt more secure with firearms just in case what was screaming wanted to pounce on him. After the living dead was taken out of the refrigerator, he was sent to the nearest hospital, from where he was discharged after some time. Makalo says he recovered from the shock, but did not mention the apparent injury to the man who was escorted out of the morgue by armed police.
6 Calvin SantosCalvin Santos, a two-year-old boy from Brazil, died after complications from bronchial pneumonia that caused him to stop breathing. He was placed in a body bag (which was reportedly airtight) for three hours. On the same day, a memorial service was held in the family. His aunt was at the body when it seemed to her that he began to move, after which he sat in the coffin in front of the whole family and asked his father to bring him a sip of water. The family thought they were getting another chance, but unfortunately he immediately lay down and died again. He was taken to the hospital, but doctors pronounced him dead a second time. While some argue that this was a hoax, one might wonder who would have suggested something like this, and which family would have agreed to play along.
5. Carlos Camejo.Carlos Camejo was 33 when he was pronounced dead after a high speed collision on a Venezuelan highway and taken to the local morgue. At the same time, his wife was informed of her loss and asked to identify the body. Doctors at the morgue were preparing to autopsy Kamejo when they realized that something was wrong - the incision made began to bleed. The body began to be sewn up, and at that moment Kameho woke up, later stating that the reason for this was unbearable pain. Shortly thereafter, his wife arrived to identify the body and was overjoyed when she discovered her alleged dead husband alive.
4. Erica Nigrelli.Erica Nigrelli, teacher of English language from Missouri, was 36 weeks pregnant when she suddenly became ill and passed out. Her husband Nathan, a teacher at the same school, called 911, saying she was having a seizure. Colleagues began CPR and used a defibrillator in an attempt to restart her heart. Paramedics soon arrived at the scene and took Erika to the hospital, where the doctors stopped CPR to give her C-section and save the child. They then told Nathan that his wife had given birth and died, but after giving birth, Erica's heart began to beat again. She was kept in a medically induced coma for five days and was found to be suffering from a heart condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which required a pacemaker. Erica and her daughter Elania are alive and well.
3. Mandlo.In March of this year, a prostitute from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, died while "doing business" with one of her clients. Officials arrived at the hotel where she worked to collect the body. A crowd of onlookers gathered to watch what was happening, and while the police placed her body in a metal coffin, she came back to life and screamed "You want to kill me!". Naturally, the sight of the woman noisily jumping out of the coffin after coming back to life shocked many in the crowd. People started running in panic. Mandlo was driven home by one of her colleagues while her client quietly slipped out of the hotel room after the police had left. It is not known whether he received a discount or not.
2. Li Siufeng.When a person is 95 years old, probably no one is too surprised if he or she dies (although it's still very sad, of course). And when someone dies, usually everyone counts on the fact that he will remain dead. And when this person has been dead for six days, you certainly think that he will remain dead. So, Li Siufeng was 95 years old when her neighbor found her motionless, lifeless body in her bed, two weeks after suffering a head injury. After a neighbor, Mr. Qinwan, tried and failed to wake the woman, she was placed in a coffin, which remained in her house until the funeral, so that friends and family could visit her and pay their respects. The day before she was to be buried, Mr. Qinwan came to her home and found an empty coffin.
Ms. Xiufeng apparently took the expression "return to life" too literally. She woke up, got out of the closed coffin and went to the kitchen to cook. And although everything ended, it seems, pretty well, but how would this story turn if the granny woke up and found that, according to Chinese tradition, all her property had been burned? There are even wishes in the spirit of “Congratulations on not dying!” sound pretty disingenuous.
1. Ludmila Steblitskaya Ludmila Steblitskaya is another example of someone being declared dead, placed in a morgue, only to be later found alive. But what distinguishes her from the other sleeper in the morgue, which we have already mentioned, is that she spent not 21 hours there, but three whole days.
In November 2011, her daughter Nastya went to the hospital to visit Lyudmila and was told that she died the same day. The morgue was already closed, it was a Friday, which meant that Nastya wouldn't be able to see her mother until Monday (apparently, in Russia, no one dies on weekends knowing that morgues are closed). Frustrated, Nastya began to prepare for the funeral, deciding to do it on Monday. All this cost about $ 2,000, 50 people were supposed to come to the funeral. But when Monday came and she came to pick up the body, the woman told her that she had just spoken to Lyudmila. Nastya followed this woman into the bedroom, and, seeing that her mother was alive, she threw her bag and ran out of the ward screaming. The hospital management declined to comment on the incident, but Lyudmila was told she was actually in the morgue all weekend. And even though she now had to work to pay off the money she borrowed for the funeral, Nastya was very happy that her mother had returned. Once I recovered from the shock, of course.
Well, about a year after that, Lyudmila was again dead for several hours, after which she came back to life again. Apparently, the next time she dies, everyone will wait about a week to bury her. Just in case.
If you went to church as a child or opened the Bible at least once, then you probably know what Christians think happens to us after our death: we appear before the Creator and hold ourselves accountable for all our sins.
Scientists have a different point of view. Doctors have no questions about this: from the moment your heart stops beating, you enter the first stage of dying, which is otherwise called clinical death. And, although scientists continue to argue whether there is enough oxygen for brain cells, in general, the brain and other important organs continue to work and keep alive.
During the second stage of dying, the cells of the body begin to die, followed by the organs. Thanks to advances in medicine, people can be brought back to life after the heart stops beating. Again and again, near-death experiences have been reported by near death patients about their out-of-body experiences, sharing their memories of what they heard and saw while on the other side.
Science is currently trying to figure out what really happens to a person when they die.
Boy Colton Burpo was only 3 years old when his inflamed appendix ruptured. His parents Todd and Sonia Burpo initially thought the boy had the flu, so they treated him at home for a couple of days before taking him to the hospital.
Todd and Sonya still believed that their child had some kind of infectious disease, so they were shocked when Colton was sent for surgery. “It was painful to look at his lifeless body, because he was always such a lively, active boy,” Sonya recalls.
Colton was rushed to the operating room. The boy burst into tears and called for help from his father. His father, who was a pastor, was left alone in the room. He confesses that he was terribly angry with God.
"I said, 'God, after everything I've done for You, are you going to take my baby?'" Todd recalls. An hour and a half later, Colton still wanted to talk to his dad. When the nurses brought Todd into the boy's room, his first words were: "Daddy, do you know that I almost died?"
Todd admitted that it took him several months before he found time to listen to his son's story. Colton said that the first person he met in heaven was Jesus Christ himself, dressed in a white tunic, girded with a purple sash.
The boy saw Jesus' marks. Thinking that his son was talking about color prints, Todd asked him to clarify his answer. Colton talked about the red marks on his palms.
A couple of months later, the boy told Todd about his great-grandfather named Pop. Colton really liked his great-grandfather.
The boy reminded his father of the various things he did with his grandfather. Todd asked his son how he knew all this, to which he replied: "Great-grandfather told me everything himself."
But Todd did not believe his son and showed him a photograph of his great-grandfather, and the boy recognized him as the one he was talking to.
Sonya had a similar conversation with her son when he told her that he had another sister besides the eldest. Sonya was actually pregnant with a girl, but she had a miscarriage, which, of course, Colton was never told about.
The boy not only described what his unborn sister looked like, he even conveyed a message from her to his mother. "She's just waiting for us to join her in heaven," he said.
Colton said that Jesus told him to go back. The boy confessed to his father that he did not want to return at all.
But Jesus continued that he must fulfill his father's prayer. “I remember that prayer. That irreverent, inappropriate, angry prayer,” recalls Todd. “Does He really answer such prayers?”
Colton states, "Paradise is real and you're bound to love it." Remembering his vision, the boy says that everyone in paradise had wings, he met angels and a horse painted in the colors of the rainbow.
The book was on the New York Time bestseller list for over a year. In April 2014, the book was made into a movie of the same name starring Greg Kinnear and Margot Martindale.
However, many people, including those who Christian faith, doubt the reality of what Todd and Colton said. First of all, the boy did not experience clinical death.
His father is a pastor, which means that a child with early years the idea of a Christian paradise was formed. In addition, Todd uses his son's example to preach love for Jesus as the only way to be saved in heaven.
However, Christians make up only 31% of the world's population. In his book, Todd acknowledges that his son did not die, but explains his unusual spiritual experience by the fact that the Bible describes cases of being taken to heaven alive.
In the book, Todd writes that Colton described Jesus as white man With blue eyes. However, if we turn to historical sources we can learn that Jesus was a Mediterranean Jew and not a European.
Dr. David Kyle Johnson, professor at King's College in Pennsylvania, believes that the brain is a very plastic organ, its structures can change amazingly, resulting in bizarre images that we perceive as reality.
“Just as the story being told is constantly updated with new details, so our memory throws us new details every time we try hard to remember something,” says Dr. Johnson. However, science has yet to find out what a person experiences when approaching the border that separates life from death.
Near-death survivors often recall their out-of-body experiences. They tell the doctors that they have seen and heard what is happening in the room, hovering under the ceiling.
Dr. Johnson says we should take Colton's story with caution. He was only 3 years old when he underwent surgery, he was under the influence of anesthesia, and several months passed before the boy began to talk about what had happened to him.
Dr. Johnson says there is a more plausible explanation for what Colton thinks happened to him: “The boy had a dream while he was under anesthesia, which he first forgot (as dreams often do), but then remembered. And the plot of the dream has evolved significantly from what Colton actually dreamed of, under the influence of many hours of directed reminiscences, questions from parents and journalists.
Stories of those who have been to Hell
Most often, after clinical death, people remember something pleasant: extraterrestrial light, communication with benevolent beings, a feeling of happiness.
But, sometimes there are stories that describe a terrible place full of suffering and despair, i.e. hell.
Clinical death Assistant engineer Thomas Welch from Oregon stumbled and fell from a height, hitting the rungs of the scaffolding, into the water while working on a future sawmill. This was seen by several people, and a search was immediately organized. About an hour later he was found and brought back to life. But, the soul of Thomas in this period of time was far from the place of the tragedy. Having fallen from the bridges, he unexpectedly found himself near a huge fiery ocean.
This sight struck him, inspired horror and reverence. A lake of fire stretched around him and occupied all space, it seethed and rumbled. There was no one in it, and Thomas himself watched him from the side. But, around, not in the lake itself, but next to it, there were quite a lot of people. Thomas even recognized one of those present, although he did not speak to him. They once studied together, but he died as a child from cancer. The people around were in some kind of thoughtfulness, as if they were confused, puzzled by the spectacle of a terrible lake of fire, next to which they found themselves. Thomas himself realized that together with them he was in a prison from which there was no way out. He thought that if he had known in advance about the existence of such a place, he would have tried during his lifetime to do everything in his power not to return here. As soon as these thoughts flashed through his head, Jesus himself appeared before him. Thomas was delighted, because he believed that he would help him get out of there, but he did not dare to ask for help. Jesus passed by without paying any attention to him, but before leaving, he turned and looked at him. This look returned Thomas' soul to his body. He heard the voices of people nearby, and then he was able to open his eyes and speak.
This case was described in the book Moritz S. Roolings "Beyond the threshold of death." There you can also read a few more stories about how, during clinical death, souls ended up in hell.
Another patient started severe pain due to inflammation of the pancreas. He was given medication, but they did not help much, he lost consciousness. At that moment, he began to leave through a long tunnel, surprised that he did not touch his feet, moved as if floating in space. This place was very similar to a dungeon or a cave, filled with eerie sounds and smells of decay. He forgot part of what he saw, but villains emerged in his memory, whose appearance was only half human. They spoke their own language and mimicked each other. In despair, the dying man exclaimed: "Jesus, save me!" Immediately a Man in shining white robes appeared and looked at him. He felt an indication that it was necessary to live differently. The man didn't remember anything else. Perhaps consciousness did not want to keep in memory all the horrors that he saw there.
Kenneth E. Hagin, who became a minister after a near-death experience, described his visions and experiences in the booklet My Testimony.
April 21, 1933 his heart stopped beating and his soul separated from his body. She began to descend lower and lower until the light of the earth completely disappeared. At the very end, he found himself in pitch darkness, absolute blackness, where he could not even see the hand raised to his eyes. The further he descended, the more hot and stuffy the space around him became. Then he found himself in front of the road to the underworld, where the lights of hell were visible. A fiery sphere with white crests was approaching him, which began to attract him to itself. The soul did not want to go, but could not resist, because. attracted like iron to a magnet. Kenneth was engulfed in heat. He ended up at the bottom of the hole. There was a creature next to him. At first he paid no attention to him, fascinated by the picture of hell spread out before him, but, this creature put a hand between his elbow and shoulder to guide him to hell itself. At that moment, a voice was heard, the voice of God himself. The future priest did not understand the words, but he felt his strength and power: “His voice resounded throughout this accursed place, shaking it like that; like the wind shakes the leaves. At that moment, his companion loosened his grip, and some force pulled him up. He found himself in his room and slipped into his body the same way he had come out, through his mouth. The grandmother with whom he spoke, waking up, admitted that she thought he was already dead.
There are descriptions of hell in Orthodox books. One man, tormented by an illness, prayed to God to deliver him from suffering. The angel sent by him suggested to the sufferer that instead of one year on earth, spend 3 hours in hell in order to cleanse his soul. He agreed. But, as it turned out, in vain. It was the most disgusting place that can be imagined. Everywhere there was crowding, darkness, spirits of malice hovered, the cries of sinners were heard, there was only suffering. The patient's soul experienced inexpressible fear and languor, but no one responded to his cries for help except for the infernal echo and the bubbling of the flame. It seemed to him that he was there for an eternity, although the Angel who visited him explained that only an hour had passed. The sufferer begged to be taken away from this terrible place, and was released, after which he patiently endured his illness.
According to the ideas of the church, hell is the place where the souls of the dead are distant from God, sinners are tormented by remorse and unsatisfied passions, so weeping and gnashing of teeth are constantly heard there. The same needs that a person had on earth will torment even more in the underworld, and will not be satisfied. A drug addict will have eternal withdrawal, a drunkard will have a hangover, a smoker will have a craving for tobacco, a glutton will suffer without food, and a fornicator will suffer from the desires of the flesh. But, oddly enough, hell was not created for punishment. It turns out that for a sinful soul, being close to God is also a kind of torture, because. she, immersed in darkness, cannot rejoice in light and grace.
Pictures of hell are scary and unattractive, but they give a reason to think about a lot, to reconsider your attitude to life, to your desires and goals.
Journey to the next world
Clinical death "Once I had a heart attack. I suddenly found that I was in a black vacuum, and I realized that I had left my physical body. I knew I was dying and I thought, "God, I wouldn't live like this if I knew what was going to happen now. Please help me." And immediately I began to come out of this blackness and saw something pale gray, and I continued to move, to slide in this space. Then I saw a gray tunnel and went towards it. It seemed to me that I was not moving towards it as fast as I would like, because I realized that by moving closer, I could see something through it. Behind this tunnel I saw people. They looked the same as on the ground. There I saw something that could be mistaken for mood pictures.
Everything was permeated amazing light: life-giving, golden yellow, warm and soft, quite unlike the light that we see on earth. As I got closer, I felt like I was going through a tunnel. It was an amazing, joyful feeling. On the human language there are simply no words to describe it. Only my time to cross this fog has probably not yet come. Right in front of me, I saw my uncle Carl, who died many years ago. He blocked my way, say: "Go back, your work on earth is not finished yet. Now go back." I didn't want to go, but I had no choice, so I returned to my body. And again I felt that terrible pain in my chest and heard my little son crying and shouting: "God, bring mommy back!".
“I saw how they lifted my body and pulled it out from under the steering, I felt like I was being dragged through some kind of limited space, something like a funnel. It was dark and black, and I quickly moved through this funnel back to my body. When I was "infused" back, it seemed to me that this "infusion" began from the head, as if I was entering from the head. I did not feel that I could somehow reason about it, there was not even time to think. Before that, I was a few yards from my body, and all of a sudden everything took a reverse course. I did not even have time to figure out what was wrong, I was "poured" into my body. "
"I was taken to the hospital in a critical condition. They said that I would not survive, they invited my relatives because I should die soon. The relatives entered and surrounded my bed. At the moment the doctor thought that I had died, my relatives became distant to me, as if Clinical Death, they began to move away from me. It really looked as if I was not moving away from them, but they began to move further and further away from me. It was getting darker, and, nevertheless, I saw Then I lost consciousness and couldn't see what was going on in the ward. seams. I began to enter this tunnel, moving forward. It was as dark as it gets dark. I moved down through it. Then I looked ahead and saw a beautiful polished door without any handles. From under the edges of the door I saw very bright light. Its rays came out in such a way that it was clear that everyone there, behind the door, was very happy. These beams kept moving and rotating. It seemed that there, behind the door, everyone was terribly busy. I looked at all this and said: "Lord, here I am. If you want, take me!" But the owner brought me back, and so quickly that it took my breath away."
"I heard how the doctors said that I had died. And then I felt how I began to fall or, as it were, to swim through some kind of blackness, some kind of closed space. Words cannot describe it. Everything was very black, and only in the distance I could see this light. Very, very bright light, but at first small. It got bigger as I got closer to it. I tried to get closer to this light, because I felt that it was Christ. I longed to get there. It's not I was afraid. It was more or less pleasant. As a Christian, I immediately connected this light with Christ, who said: "I am the light of the world." I said to myself: "If this is so, if I must die, I know what awaits me in end, there, in this light."
"I got up and went to another room to pour something to drink, and at that very moment, as they later told me, I had a perforation of the appendix, I felt very weak and fell. Then everything seemed to float strongly, and I felt the vibration of my rushing from the body, and heard beautiful music. I floated around the room and then through the door I was transported to the veranda. And there it seemed to me that some kind of cloud began to gather around me through the pink mist. And then I floated past through the partition, as as if it were not there at all, towards a transparent clear light.
It was beautiful, so brilliant, so radiant, but it didn't blind me at all. It was an unearthly light. I did not really see anyone in this light, and yet there was a special individuality in her ... It was the light of absolute understanding and perfect love. In my mind I heard: "Do you love me?" It wasn't put in the form of a specific question, but I think the meaning could be expressed like this: "If you really love me, come back and finish what you started in your life." And all the while, I felt surrounded by all-consuming love and compassion."
The phenomenon of post-mortem visions in people who were in a state of clinical death is not denied by anyone. The question is in the interpretation of the nature of these visions. The president of the French Tantalogical Association, Louis-Vincent Thomas, believes that both fanatical mystics who are trying to use the OBC phenomenon to propagate their ideas and those who simply reduce the phenomenon to hallucinations are wrong. Most of the patients interviewed by Moody are religious people, usually Christians. Their existential experience seems to testify to the unconditional existence of God and to the fact that our soul is immortal. Dr. Karlis Osis, who collected data on 3800 patients who were on the verge of death, notes that believers have visions more often than non-believers. At the same time, obvious elements of Buddhism are woven into the Christian experience of the "returnees".
However, Moody, as a conscientious researcher, also considers other explanations for OVS, dividing them into three types: supernatural, natural (scientific), and psychological. I have already spoken about the supernatural. As scientific, Moody offers pharmacological, physiological, and neurological explanations. Let's consider them in order.
*Moody, however, is forced to point out that his RVO patients described their experiences in terms that are only analogies or metaphors. Due to the different nature of the “other world”, these sensations cannot be adequately conveyed.
The story of a four year old boy
This amazing real mystical story happened seven years ago. During family vacation in Colorado. Colton Burpo, 4, has a burst appendix. As the doctors said, peritonitis has begun and the child's condition is critical. The operation was very difficult, even the doctors did not strongly believe in a successful outcome.
His parents Todd and Sonya constantly prayed, asking the Lord for the health of their son. It was theirs only child, a year before the birth of Corlton, Sonya had a miscarriage, then heartbroken Mother doctors said that it was a girl. Some time after the operation, waking up, the son told them an amazing, real full of mysticism history.
In his story, he told why the angel is dreaming. At first, for some time, he watched as if from the side of praying parents, and then found himself in an incredibly beautiful place. The first person he met there was his unborn sister. She explained to him that this amazing place is called paradise, that she does not have a name, since her parents did not give her one. The boy then said that he met his great-grandfather, who died more than 30 years before the birth of Corlton. Grandpa was young, and not the way the boy remembered in the photographs recent years life.
The child said that he saw Jesus, who took him on his lap, about the incredibly beautiful streets of gold, and what struck him most of all was that the inhabitants of this city have wings and can fly. There is never night, and the sky plays with all the colors of the rainbow. Each inhabitant has an incredible radiance above their heads and they dress in long white robes with multi-colored ribbons.
