Ispectrum Magazine Ispectrum Magazine #11 | Page 11

a middle ground to ‘examine one’s own mind’ touches on the idea of spiritual explanations for near death experiences, proceed further into religious ideas of ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ and deciding ‘where they want to go next’. Janice Holden esized afterlife experience might change drastically once one is physically irreversibly dead. Research with irreversibly dead people is challenging--though perhaps the most promising is research using mediums, such as that being conducted at the Wind bridge Institute.“ Other opinions on the afterlife can vary, some people believe an afterlife is merely a myth such as Dr Kevin Williams who explains the afterlife as a ‘void’ that is visited briefly in Near Death Experiences. He suggests that “the general consensus among near-death reports is that the void is totally devoid of love, light, and everything. It is a realm of complete and profound darkness where nothing exists but the thought patterns of those in it. It is a perfect place for souls to examine their own mind, contemplate their recent Earth experience, and decide where they want to go next.”6 This idea of ‘the void’ and also suggests that “The limits of NDEs to inform about an afterlife being acknowledged, I concur with cardiologist and NDE researcher Pim van Lommel who has asserted that a “convergence of evidence” from research on several phenomena point to the existence, if not the specific nature, of an afterlife. These phenomena include NDEs; nearing-death phenomena such 10