The concept of near-death experiences became well known in the mid-1970's with the publication of the book Life After Life by Raymond Moody Jr. But elements of near-death experiences were reported long before the 1970's. For example, in the 1898 book Glimpses of the Unseen by B. F. Austin, the author refers to "hypermnesia, or exaltation of memory," stating the following:
"It is also frequently present in case of imminent death, when the whole life passes in review in a few seconds, facts and events long forgotten rushing with incalculable speed through the consciousness. During fever, the language of childhood, long disused and forgotten, has been recalled. A man of remarkably clear head was crossing a railway in the country, when an express train, at full speed, appeared closely approaching him. He had just time to throw himself down in the centre of the road between the two lines of rails, and as the train passed over him the sentiment of impending danger to his very existence, brought vividly to his recollection every incident of his former life in such an array as that which is suggested by the promised opening of ' the Great Book at the last great day.' "
This is an early reference to the "life review" very often reported during near-death experiences. An 1889 book reports an account of someone very near death, who is visited by a daughter who died very young. The book then states this: "The testimony of those who have approached nearest to death, and have been brought back to life, favors, if not proves, that at that great crisis, as the senses fail, spiritual sensitiveness becomes acute, and the perceptions merge into a universal consciousness." The nineteenth century book then cites an account of a "life review" occurring for a man who almost drowned:
"Then he saw, as if in a wide field, the acts of his own being, from the first dawn of memory until the time he entered the water. They were all grouped and ranged in the order of the succession of their happening, and he read the whole volume of existence at a glance : nay, its incidents and entities were photographed on his mind, illumined by light, the panorama of the battle of life lay before him."
In the same nineteenth century book Hudson Tuttle gives this account he heard of a near-death experience:
"A gentleman in Iowa related to me his experience while insensible from the effect of cold. He was overtaken by a fearful storm, such as sometimes sweep across the prairies, and, losing his way after hours of vain struggling, sank exhausted in a drift of snow. The past events of his life came in a panoramic show before him, but so rapidly moving, that from boyhood until that moment was as an instant ; then came a sense of perfect physical happiness, and he began dimly to see the forms of those whom he had known while living, but were now dead. They grew more and more distinct, but just as they came near and were, as he thought, overjoyed to receive him, darkness came suddenly and great pain ; the vision faded, and he became conscious of the presence of his friends who had rescued him, and were applying every measure to restore him to life. How near he had reached the boundary line, the ' dead line' beyond, from which there is no return to the body, was shown by his crippled hands and feet."
The post here discusses out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences reported before 1975, some dating from the nineteenth century. In my previous post "Four Near-Death Experiences of the Nineteenth Century," I described four near-death experiences that had been written before the year 1900. In the post here I describe two other near-death experiences of the nineteenth century.
Below are some similar accounts not mentioned in those posts. In the 1919 book "A True Record of My Psychic Dreams and Visions," Florence May Bailey tells us on page 33 of one paranormal experience quickly followed by another. While feeling very ill, she suddenly saw an apparition of her husband's deceased father, dressed in an odd black suit, who offered words of comfort and encouragement. She then describes an out-of-body experience:
"Just then the doctor came in, and saw at a glance that quick action was necessary. First he called mother out into the hall and told her she might as well prepare for a funeral Sunday, but on reflection agreed to call another physician and perform a slight operation. They came at nine o'clock and administering the anesthetic, I fell asleep. I had not been asleep over twenty minutes when my astral body became free, and floating about the room I could see my body still lying on the bed and the operation going on while I listened to every word they were saying. I saw mother standing outside the door as if fearing to enter. Then I left the house and sailing through the air made a trip to the city of Lawrence, a distance of thirty miles."
Florence recalls seeing her husband near Lawrence, and remembering specific details:
"I saw him and another man hitching a horse to a buggy, which at that time of night surprised me. I hovered over them all the time they were thus engaged, and heard every word of their conversation, which I afterwards recollected distinctly. I even approached so near that I saw the time, twenty minutes to ten, as my husband pulled his watch from his pocket. I reached out to touch him on the hand. Just then they got in the buggy to drive away, but they, of course, did not notice me, nor did they have the slightest idea that I was there."
Florence records these eerie details about her out-of-body experience:
"I then looked at my astral body to note its appearance. It was all blue and white like the clouds in the sky. I was able to see my face and body as plainly as though looking in a mirror. I remember distinctly looking down at my feet, or where I expected my feet to be, and apparently I had none. My body seemed to taper down, and to be like a veil floating in the breeze. I had an exquisite sensation of pleasure in not being hampered with an unwieldy body. Looking about, I saw that the men had already gone a good ways down the road, so I decided to go back home."
Upon describing this experience to her husband, Florence found that the details she described were verified by the husband:
"On Sunday my husband came home and I told him of my astral visit, repeating the conversation that I had heard. He declared that every word of it was correct, and that even the time was as I had observed it to be. The description I gave of his father, he said, was perfect in every detail, and that the peculiar black suit I described was the very one in which he was buried. This experience corroborated what I had long known to be true, viz., that we inhabit two bodies simultaneously, and that death consists merely in the separation of these bodies. This separation, as in my experience, may frequently take place without death ensuing."
This is one of the earliest cases of a phenomenon that may be called veridical near-death experiences, in which observational details reported by someone being out of his body are later verified. In my post "The Enigma of Veridical Near-Death Experiences," I list dozens of such cases, in which observational details reported by someone being out of his body were found to be true. In each of these cases, the witness reported seeing something that he did not know about before his out-of-body experience, something that was later established to be correct. Here are two examples from that post:
Case 2.11: a woman reported floating out of her body during a cardiac arrest, and that during such an experience she rose up through the hospital's floors, rising up above the roof, where she saw the skyline and a red shoe. A search of the hospital's roof found a red shoe on the roof.
Case 3.33: A man who underwent cardiac arrest reported an out-of-body experience in which he felt himself "rising up through the ceiling" and then seeing some hospital area in which there were mannequins. Above the ICU he was in was a CPR training area in which there were dummies (resembling mannequins) used for CPR training.
Another case of a near-death experience occuring years before the term became commonly used (in the late 1970's) was a case reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1971. In the report (entitled "Cardiac Arrest Remembered") a patient gives this account:
"Then I am looking at my own body from the waist up, face to face (as through a mirror in which I appear to be in the lower left corner). Almost immediately I saw myself leave my body, coping out through the head and shoulders. (I did not see my lower limbs). The 'body' leaving me was not yet exactly a vapour form, yet it seemed to expand very slightly once it was clear of me. It was somewhat transparent, for I could see my other 'body' through it."
In a 19th century work we read this 1897 account about a near-death experience involving a Mr. Weeks:
"But the most remarkable thing was his apparent death and coming to life again. Some time before I knew him he was very sick, the bowels were mortified and to all appearance he died. The body had been 'laid out' some little time, when suddenly he sat up and called for his trowsers, saying he wanted to go to the window to see the angel go back. The physician chanced to be in the room, and said : ' Put him back, he is a dead man.' But he insisted that he should get well, and proceeded to tell them what to do to cure the mortification....Mr. Weeks told me that he was surely dead, and that his spirit was escorted away by a bright spirit, told of some things which he saw and of his reluctance to return, when the spirit told him he must do so. He spoke of seeing his dead body as he looked in at the window on his return, at the time his escort left him."
We have here three things very commonly reported in modern accounts of near-death experiences: (1) a person viewing his own body from outside it; (2) a reluctance to return to that body after briefly outside it; (3) an encounter with some supernatural or religious or ethereal figure.
On page 205 of the 1919 document here, May Crommelin describes hearing about an out-of-body experience:
" 'Do you know I died then, I believe ! Oh, of course, as you see, I am back again.' Pressed to explain himself, he confided under the seal of secrecy, which his later death has released, what he really believed had happened. 'It was when I had been very bad, but was slightly better, and they left me alone in my room to sleep, or be quiet for a while...Then somehow— I can’t tell how— I found myself outside of myself and standing on the floor. There was my body lying on the bed and I looked down at it, and said : "'Thank goodness ! I ’ve done with you." It looked worn-out. With that I walked out of my bedroom and went down the corridor till I came to the lift. There I stopped, and for what reason I can’t tell, I said to myself, " No. It won’t do. I ’ve got to go back !" So I went back to my room— saw my body as I had left it— and found myself, rather against my wish, in it again.' Once more he quietly but earnestly, even solemnly, repeated to me his conviction that that was death. He seemed to be satisfied (perhaps pleased) that there was nothing else to fear in the final severance of soul and spirit from the outer body."
On page 209 of the same 1919 document, we hear of a doctor who tried some experimental injection treatment on a man who seemed to have died. We read this:
"Nurse, intensely surprised, hurried after, being at his orders. Then she realized that the energetic surgeon was bent on an experiment ! At his elbow she stood, carrying out directions rapidly given and obeyed. He made injections ; they both watched. It seemed past belief— but the heart of the dead man began to beat faintly; increased in strength. Slowly the old tramp ' came back,' as the watchers said. Next day, when Geordie had recovered from his weakness, and saw an opportunity to speak with Nurse Ierne alone, he signed to her. ' I say ! I’ve got a queer thing I ’d like to tell you, Nurse. . . . You know yesterday . . . well, I thought I was in heaven. I was in just the loveliest place ever anyone could think of— and I was so happy ! Then somehow it seemed as how I’d got to come back here— and I can tell you I was sorry.' ”
The account matches many near-death experiences in recent decades, in which a common element is a person expressing sorrow that he was brought back from death. On page 211 of the same document, we read the following account of someone's experience near death:
"After intense agony following a severe operation he mercifully became unconscious for a time. Rousing then, his nurse was surprised to see him smiling with a look of radiance and utter happiness on his face. Aloud he said, as if his gladness must find expression : ' How lovely 1 . . . I could be happy for ever in so lovely a place. . . . Oh, how lovely! ' "
Hi, Recently I’ve been reading up on IQ and it’s heritable factors, most of the studies centre around twins as far as I know and for some it’s given as strong evidence of the materiality of the mind. wondering what is your take on IQ being inherited.
ReplyDeleteSee my post below ("8 Reasons for Doubting Claims of the Heritability of Intelligence") that discusses this question, specifically addessing such twin studies: https://futureandcosmos.blogspot.com/2019/08/8-reasons-for-doubting-claims-of.html
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, it’s certainly helped with keeping a more skeptical approach to some of the research claims. From what I can tell the “gene for intelligence” is a myth. So what the researchers claim is that intelligence is a complex trait so multiple genes are in play, each contributes only a small overall effect to intelligence. but no genes have been conclusively found.
ReplyDeleteSo how then can they give estimates of 50-80% heritable (maybe I’m missing something). In any case thanks again for the link.