[Bob Campbell]

Originally Posted by dipayankar

I dont think out of body experiences really work. They are basically just a state of the mind...

Hi Dipayankar,

As yes, but what is the mind? The physical and biological sciences as they have developed in the last century and a half and especially in the last few decades, would have us believe that the evolution of life can be reduced to a fortuitous series of molecular and atomic accidents going all the way back to the Big Bang. Does anyone seriously believe that a collection of molecules can accidently organize themselves into a conscious intelligence? Are molecules conscious? Can molecules think? Can they learn to cooperate without aid from some active organizing principle that is implicit in the nature of the cosmos? Can they span space and time and spontaneously integrate a history of experience into a sentient creature?

The simplest bacterial cells must have a couple thousand complex enzymes that must be encoded for in DNA, with RNAs, Robosomes, histones and a host of other complicated features in the cell in order for it to work as a whole. It is like pregnancy. It is an all or none process. There is no evidence that a part cell can work. A woman can't be a little bit pregnant. All the needed apparatus must be there for it to work at all and the incredibly complex mechanism is driven by organized energy processes that science thus far has no paradigm that can relate to or make sense of how it all works as a whole. A lot of the pieces of the puzzle are being collected but the picture on the cover of the jigsaw box is missing.

So some scientists actively preach the blind belief that it all happened by accident. There is no evidence whatever to support this wild supposition that has evidently become fixed in the minds of many mainstream scientists. It is by no means a universal consensus but the peer review process seems to weed out any suggestion that there may be more to it than this hopelessly simplistic and morally and spiritually bankrupt view of the whole universe.

I do not mean to be critical of the peer review process in this regard. The doors of science can hardly be opened to wild spiritual speculations either. And the current paradigm is at least gathering a great deal of valuable knowledge. But there is a large and growing body of data relating to out of body and near death experiences and they are relatively common. In a sequel to his book "Life after Life," Dr. Moody a medical doctor who happened to be presented with many such accounts in the course of his practice was flooded with a deluge of more reports from readers. He identified 15 points of similarity between the near death reports in his original book, even though the fifty or so people that reported them had no contact with one another. The many hundreds of additional people who wrote to him reported the same main points of similarity.

One feature is confirmation. A person may be clinically dead on an operating table, no heart or brain activity, a flat liner for up to ten minutes, then return to their body and tell the doctors and nurses exactly what happened, what they did and said while they were dead. They say they were floating above the room and could both see and hear everything going on. A corpse can hardly report in detail on events that actually happened. By a conservative estimate this must have occurred to tens of millions of people world wide, including others who have them in a waking state. Most people know of someone who has had one. I know several although I have never had one of this kind myself. These people are certainly not all deranged.

Think about it. We are indebted to our entire evolutionary history reaching back hundreds of millions of years for our every thought and feeling. We look at the stars and see them with the naked eye as they were up to many hundreds of thousands of years ago. With this mind and our instruments we can probe the deepest reaches of the universe going back billions of years. Yet the cells in our body renew their molecular constituents in just a few years, even brain cells. And we all believe that there is such a thing as truth that transcends our brief sojourn on Earth. Even if we believe that we face utter extinction at death we believe this is true for everyone who has ever lived. So this mind is not confined to the physical limits and physical perceptions of this molecular corpse we are obliged to walk around in.

The problem for science is it has no paradigm of how the whole cosmic order works. Accidental cause will not do any more. Neither will creation myths. The picture on the box is missing. Science has no practical methodology that can study how biologically living processes are meaningfully integrated in a disciplined way. Scientists must reject rampant superstition and unsubstantiated conjecture or it would fragment into meaningless babble in endless machinations of conflicting linguistic opinions.

And yet the existing paradigm that has worked well for centuries is being rapidly exhausted in its ability to produce meaningful results too. The physics theories that are being presented are generally mutually exclusive conjectures of fantasy. The practice of physics has been formally divorced from the philosophy of physics and this inherently precludes an integrated methodology that can relate pragmatically to the biological sciences as well. Science needs a new paradigm that can expand its horizons. It needs the coherent picture on the cover of the box so the pieces of the puzzle can begin to be assembled in more meaningful ways.

So then what does this mind come down to? Are we each separate minds? Is consciousness just a private accidental affair? Can we share in conscious experience? Are we mutually exclusive beings, just collections of molecules? Can we transcend our mutual physical separation? Can we share in the recognition of truth, or love, or beauty, or justice or compassion? Can we feel another’s suffering or joy?

Universal values like truth are not physical things. And yet they are what we seek as means of making realistic value judgments in living. They transcend this physical body. So mind itself must transcend this physical body. It follows that there is no compelling reason to believe that OOBs are invariably aberrant hallucinations of an individual’s mind. This is a belief that can find no confirmation in either the private or public domain. Think about it. You are entitled to believe whatever you want to if course, but it is rather an arbitrary stance to take. I venture to say that if you had such an experience you would change your opinion.

Forgive me for going on at some length. I am just writing this in the hope that you and perhaps others will see that the matter deserves a little more consideration.

Very best wishes,
Bob

www.cosmic-mindreach.com