I think the bit about family members pushing the newly dead back into the bodily world is very important. We have to be here to do or understand "something." An overconfidence in material and an overindulgence in the spiritual are a two opposing sides of a spectrum that have to be avoided while we are here. We need to sit and cherish the imperfections of communication/idea-translation. There's a reason true descriptions of the spirit realm are ineffable
Thank you for writing this Tao. I love everything you wrote. I’m reflecting on some NDE experiences I learned about in the documentary “After Death”—which I have some doubts about due to it’s Christian overtones—in which people who seemed to commit really horrific things in life or died in a place of extreme darkness, end up experiencing a kind of prolonged fall, sometimes arriving into an underworld populated with demon like creatures, only to receive a sort of salvation by the angel/light being/god through crying out for help to god/proclaiming their love to god. All of the people in the doc eventually went on to experience the usual NDE events, only after this experience of the terrifying fall.
I actually wonder if not all deaths result in the ultimate-loving-freeing of the embodied soul, even if it’s a small minority who don’t, or don’t right away. I wonder if some souls cannot accept the light, and end up in a sort of limbo, but perhaps not the dogmatically bleak and oversimplified version of “limbo” popularized by so much human myth and religion.
I am curious to see you research and write about things like ghosts, demon beings, tormented souls… because these things appear to be very real. They are at least part of the story of the afterlife. Though perhaps these things aren’t ensouled beings but energy imprints of suffering during life. Who knows! We shall see.
Great piece. I became obsessed with NDE's after my father had a random heart attack. Was 22 at the time, first encounter with real death, couldn't explain it, but there were these profound moments of peace that washed over me in between the hurt. I like to think I'll see them again some day
I shouldn’t be awake going down your delicious rabbit holes but here I am. Feral pigs, NDE’s & all. TY Tao Lin, via Delicious Tacos, via Steve Sailer ;) Substack isn’t ALL Rw-ranting (tho I do enjoy a good one on occasion:)
Thank you for sharing your journey with us, lots of great thoughts. I've come to similar conclusions as you, although I grew up in a conservative Christian household and have not partaken in any psychedelics yet.
I listened to a podcast with Dr. Bruce Greyson on the Tim Ferriss Show about NDEs and it was very interesting.
Along similar lines, have you looked to astral projection? I went down a rabbit hole on it recently and read several books. It seems like if you could master it, it would offer a way to have similar experiences as NDEs and DMT trips but on command. I've tried different techniques but so far have not been able to accomplish anything.
Another aspect I've looked into recently that supports there being more than meets the eye is the study of reincarnation. The University of Virginia has a department that looks into this type of thing, with several papers going over cases from children:
Thank you for this essay. I have a "friendly" feeling towards death that only increased after my father passed away. I know he is not gone but somewhere I am not able to access. I was visited by insects and animals around the time he passed, including a white rabbit and an owl. Shorlty after he passed I met a ladybird, in the middle of winter in Canada, in the kitchen and my dad and I were happy snackers and it felt so "right".
It is life that I am struggling with, that I have less of a friendly feeling with. My mother, who I finally realized was a covert narcissist, ended up blowing up my life after I moved internationally to support the family through my father's passing. Now somehow, by the power of the narcissist's ability to "colonize" perception, I am the family scapegoat and have no contact with any of them. It has all been so terrible and terribly confusing.
This long dark night of the soul is bringing me back home spiritually, but it has been a slow journey where I can not seem to get traction in the material world, which I am less and less interested in. I don't know how to be here, and I don't know how to not be here.
I am heartened to read of the experiences of the NDEs though and when I am not trapped in my trauma prison I feel the expansion of the EveryWhen. I know that trauma is often a portal to greater spiritual awakening.
I think the bit about family members pushing the newly dead back into the bodily world is very important. We have to be here to do or understand "something." An overconfidence in material and an overindulgence in the spiritual are a two opposing sides of a spectrum that have to be avoided while we are here. We need to sit and cherish the imperfections of communication/idea-translation. There's a reason true descriptions of the spirit realm are ineffable
Thank you for writing this Tao. I love everything you wrote. I’m reflecting on some NDE experiences I learned about in the documentary “After Death”—which I have some doubts about due to it’s Christian overtones—in which people who seemed to commit really horrific things in life or died in a place of extreme darkness, end up experiencing a kind of prolonged fall, sometimes arriving into an underworld populated with demon like creatures, only to receive a sort of salvation by the angel/light being/god through crying out for help to god/proclaiming their love to god. All of the people in the doc eventually went on to experience the usual NDE events, only after this experience of the terrifying fall.
I actually wonder if not all deaths result in the ultimate-loving-freeing of the embodied soul, even if it’s a small minority who don’t, or don’t right away. I wonder if some souls cannot accept the light, and end up in a sort of limbo, but perhaps not the dogmatically bleak and oversimplified version of “limbo” popularized by so much human myth and religion.
I am curious to see you research and write about things like ghosts, demon beings, tormented souls… because these things appear to be very real. They are at least part of the story of the afterlife. Though perhaps these things aren’t ensouled beings but energy imprints of suffering during life. Who knows! We shall see.
One of the most interesting and moving things i’ve read in a long time
Great piece. I became obsessed with NDE's after my father had a random heart attack. Was 22 at the time, first encounter with real death, couldn't explain it, but there were these profound moments of peace that washed over me in between the hurt. I like to think I'll see them again some day
I finished reading this important and compelling eassay without stopping.
I shouldn’t be awake going down your delicious rabbit holes but here I am. Feral pigs, NDE’s & all. TY Tao Lin, via Delicious Tacos, via Steve Sailer ;) Substack isn’t ALL Rw-ranting (tho I do enjoy a good one on occasion:)
Mind-blowned by your essay. Thanks for that!!!
Thank you for sharing your journey with us, lots of great thoughts. I've come to similar conclusions as you, although I grew up in a conservative Christian household and have not partaken in any psychedelics yet.
I listened to a podcast with Dr. Bruce Greyson on the Tim Ferriss Show about NDEs and it was very interesting.
Along similar lines, have you looked to astral projection? I went down a rabbit hole on it recently and read several books. It seems like if you could master it, it would offer a way to have similar experiences as NDEs and DMT trips but on command. I've tried different techniques but so far have not been able to accomplish anything.
Another aspect I've looked into recently that supports there being more than meets the eye is the study of reincarnation. The University of Virginia has a department that looks into this type of thing, with several papers going over cases from children:
https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/publications/academic-publications/
Books on astral projection:
The Projection of the Astral Body By Sylvan J. Muldoon and Hereward Carrington (1929)
Astral Dynamics: The Complete Book of Out-Of-Body Experiences By Robert Bruce
The Phase By Michael Raduga
Thank you for this essay. I have a "friendly" feeling towards death that only increased after my father passed away. I know he is not gone but somewhere I am not able to access. I was visited by insects and animals around the time he passed, including a white rabbit and an owl. Shorlty after he passed I met a ladybird, in the middle of winter in Canada, in the kitchen and my dad and I were happy snackers and it felt so "right".
It is life that I am struggling with, that I have less of a friendly feeling with. My mother, who I finally realized was a covert narcissist, ended up blowing up my life after I moved internationally to support the family through my father's passing. Now somehow, by the power of the narcissist's ability to "colonize" perception, I am the family scapegoat and have no contact with any of them. It has all been so terrible and terribly confusing.
This long dark night of the soul is bringing me back home spiritually, but it has been a slow journey where I can not seem to get traction in the material world, which I am less and less interested in. I don't know how to be here, and I don't know how to not be here.
I am heartened to read of the experiences of the NDEs though and when I am not trapped in my trauma prison I feel the expansion of the EveryWhen. I know that trauma is often a portal to greater spiritual awakening.
I read it without stopping, so compelling and important!