I väntan på Jesus

Ekoteologen Lars Larsens blogg

Something on hellish near-death experiences

Publicerad 2023-07-29 03:31:00 i Andevärlden, Döden, Dödsriket, Hades, Sheol, Guds försyn och omsorg, Helvetet, Kyrkohistoria, Lidande, Livet efter döden, Mary Baxter, Nära-döden upplevelser, Självbiografiska notiser, Smiths vänner, Synd och ondska, Syner, Teologins historia, Tortyr, Universalismen, eller läran om allas slutliga frälsning, Utbildning och folkbildning, Visioner,

One of the most disturbing facts of life for me are hellish near-death experiences and my own nightmares that I am eternally lost, without hope forever, my most common nightmare (it tells me how big trauma the traditional hell dogma is for me, as I was raised to believe in it, and scared to obedience with it in my childhood. It also tells me how merciless to their enemies those are who believe in it). 
 
I have tried to understand these facts. My hell-nightmares are in fact teaching me something about myself and my innermost fears. In that way I am thankful for them, because they help me understand myself and my history, maybe more than anything else. Understand how horrible my mother congregation Smith's Friends really was, where the traditional hell dogma was central. Or isn't it central when their whole scheme of salvation is dependent upon it, and would fall like a house of cards without it? And truly, when I abandoned this dogma, I got a completely different spirituality than that in Smith's Friends. I could go on, free to think for myself, free to make mistakes and learn from my mistakes, not longer scared into a lifelong spiritual stagnation and mental slavery and captivity and submission to a horrible cult because of the hell dogma (the leaders of this cult has really profited from the hell dogma, have enrichened themselves on it, receiving their salary in this life, like Jesus said about the pharisees). And this has made me develop as a human being to something much more beautiful than being a cult victim and a slave and a captive under a cult; I have been adopted by the animals and by Nature itself, becoming an ecotheologian. Something like that is unheard of in Smith's Friends, it's unthinkable among them, so narrow a spirituality they have, suspicious of all spirituality that is not as their own, typical for cults. They simply cannot grow spiritually, not in the sense of becoming inspired to completely new thoughts and ideas, they speak the same things during their whole life, scared of the hell dogma into submission to the cult. Horrible. But they profit from this submission, albeit not spiritually, more like materially. They could never think of abandoning everything and follow in the footsteps of Christ into utter poverty and homelessness. This isn't even on their radar. They are utterly materialistic, building their small earthly empires thanks to their submission to their cult, with a lot of children, big houses and splendid cars. They have received their salary. But they miss out on the spiritual treasures, those that we build in heaven. 
 
But now back to the first theme:
 
Could the hellish near-death experiences also exist to teach us something? Like nightmares do? Could they in fact be nightmares, albeit lucid nightmares (see what a lucid dream is, here)? The existence of astral experiences like Mary Baxter's 30 visits to hell (see also a debunking of her experience by a conservative Christian, here*), where Jesus was horrible, like a sadistic antichrist (very much like the Jesus that the Christian fundamentalists are worshiping as God), could indicate this. Baxter's experience is so crazily crazy, that it could serve as the archetype of a lucid nightmare, full of the crazyness that normal nightmares in sleep contains. 
 
If these hell fantasies of fundamentalist Christian astral travelers and near-death experiencers (these aspects of their experiences is why I refrain from studying fundamentalist Christian near-death experiences. So horrible they often are) have served to awake Christians to the crazyness of their hell dogma, then they have in fact served their purpose, then it was worth it, then they have been a part of God's plan. Then it is true what Saint Paul says, that "we have known that to those loving God all things do work together for good, to those who are called according to purpose;" (Rom. 8:28, Young's literal version)
 
Remember then that all are called by God. This will be fervently denied by Christian fundamentalists, so full of hate to the ungodly most of them are. 
 
Then we have nothing to fear, or, as a near-death experience researcher said, we have nothing to fear except fear itself, except our hellish imaginations and stupid illusions, of things that doesn't exist. Those illusions which dissipate like fog before the sun's rays on a warm day in June. Those who can be easily dispelled, just by the love of a dog or cat, which are earthing us and helping us to see clearly, with a peasant commonsense.  
 
This idea of mine, that hellish near-death experiences are in fact nightmares, is proposed by others as well. See for example the following essay on Reddit: 
 
 
"Problems In Near Death Experience's. There is No Hell.

I wanted to talk about NDE's and how some people have bad experience's in them. Some people say that they witness hell or see other variations of what they think us hell. Like complete blackness, people suffering and other strange things, but after some thought I've come to an idea that may give some in sight in those bad experience's. This is an idea that I came to realize back in 2016. I think that those experience's are spiritual hallucination's. I believe what is happening is that the physical body maybe causing these problems. The physical body is still alive. In the living world we spend time worrying and struggling with life issues. As we live these problems become deeper in grained in us. Almost as if developing our personality and beliefs. Dictating our actions and emotions. A dream to me is like a safe mini NDE. When we a sleep we have dreams about our anxieties, fears, and desires that we have when we are awake. The reason why we have dreams at all is because the spirit and body are interwoven as we live our lives on earth. As we sleep the spirit receives those living thoughts and is almost forced to live out those concepts and ideas in the dreams which is our living obligations and so on. This is what is happening in a bad near death experience. Since the body just died there is still faint neurological and physical energy flowing inside. This is the only way a NDE can work. Because the spirit and body are still quantumly connected. This causes the spirit to be stuck between two worlds experiencing the living and the dead. So the message that the after life wants to give you is being disrupted with the physical mind and body. Its almost like two different people arguing. In a NDE you temporally separate into two parts. One is the real you (spirit) and the other is the old you. This old you (body dying on the ground) is still in that mode of struggling, worrying and fearing. It send's these old anxieties and fears to the spirit as it try's to receive the message from the after life. So the message becomes mixed and distorted. If you believed in hell and the clichés of the bible then you will have these subconsciously inserted in you NDE. Its like a bad dream, but its occurring during the process of dying. When you fully die. Meaning the body completely dies. These bad experiences will dissipate into nothing. Because the spirit is released from old obligations (living body..life). Only in real death can you full see the reality of the after life. With no boundaries from the living world. So it's the body and the physical mind causing these bad experiences in NDE's. Your old self giving you a bad dream.. even while dying! ;) So there is nothing to fear. I believe there's no hell as I explained. There maybe a bad experience that we may have to go through before we fully die, but its all caused by the dying body, but will not last long and before we know it we will be in a nice hammock relaxing with our deceased relatives. So to speak ;)

P. S - I think that the spirits in the after life know this and used this NDE to give us messages to improve our lives. So when we return to life we can make changes and help others."

(from this article on Reddit in 2018)

It can be added that hellish NDE:s are not at all strange, thinking about how much pain the body of the NDE:er endures during the experience. Yet the hellish NDE:s are a tiny minority among all NDE:s (1), which speaks even more for the suggestion that they are nightmares, because nightmares are also only a tiny minority of our dream life at night. If they would be real experiences of a real world, then they would be more common, one would think, because so many bad people are out there in the world today, destroying nature and plaguing animals. But not even an American Vietnam warrior got a hellish near-death experience, and now I speak about the legendary Dannion Brinkley. Shouldn't he have been cast into hell, if hell existed? He who had tortured vietnamese men with gun bullets? No, he wasn't cast into hell, he met God's love and heavenly angels instead, and was completely changed by the experience. 

 

* in this article, Paul Cohen says:

" “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head have all been numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7 EMTV).

If God doesn’t forget the sparrows, but takes care of them, how much less does He cast off mankind, who is made in His image? God doesn’t consider mankind valuable because He looks forward to torturing the majority in an endless fiery hell. He Who knows you down to the smallest detail looks forward to the end He has in mind, a good and not the evil one liars and sinners have insisted on in their bitterness, trying to control others for their own gain.

Mary Baxter and company, you preach another Jesus, and another Gospel, and have received another spirit, other than the Jesus Christ and the Gospel Paul the apostle and all true messengers of God preach.

“For if, indeed, the one coming proclaims another Jesus, whom we have not proclaimed, or if you receive another spirit, which you did not receive, or another gospel, which you never accepted, you might well endure these” (2 Corinthians 11:4 MKJV).

Orthodox Christianity, you are foul! You are the mother of harlots, the dwelling place of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean bird. You have been drunk with the blood of all the prophets and martyrs of Jesus slain from the beginning of the world. At last, after so long a time, your time is finished.

“Rejoice over her, heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets; for God has avenged you on her” (Revelation 18:20 KJV).

Paul Cohen"

 

(1) "Near-death experiences (NDEs) with hellish content have been reported, although they are rare. The overwhelming majority of NDEs are not hellish. I would estimate that less than 2% of all NDEs shared with NDERF are hellish", this article says. It is posted at NDERF:s homepage, and this organization, NDERF, is the largest Near-Death Experience (NDE) website in the world. They have over 5000 Experiences from all over the world. So they know what they're talking about. 

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Lars Larsen

Född 1984 i Finland. Norrman, bor i Stockholm, Sverige. Poet, ekoteolog och ekofilosof (dock inte en akademisk någondera, fastän han studerade teologi i nästan tre år vid Åbo Akademis universitet), kallas också allmänt "Munken" (han är munk i en självgrundad klosterorden, "Den Heliga Naturens Orden"), han kallar sig själv "Skogsmannen Snigelson" och "Lasse Lushjärnan" på grund av vissa starka band till naturen och djuren, grundade bland annat genom många år av hemlöshet boende i tält, kåta, grotta och flera hyddor i Flatens naturreservat, Nackareservatet och "Kaknästornsskogen" utanför Stockholm. Han debuterade som poet 2007 med "Över floden mig", utgiven av honom själv, han har även gett ut ett ekoteologiskt verk, "Djurisk teologi. Paradisets återkomst", på Titel förlag 2010. Han har gett ut diktsamlingen "Naturens återkomst" på Fri Press förlag 2018 tillsammans med sin före detta flickvän Titti Spaltro. Lars yrken är två, städare och målare (byggnader). Just nu bor han på Attendo Herrgårdsvägen, ett psykiatrisk gruppboende för mentalsjuka i Danderyd, Stockholm. Hans adress är: Herrgårdsvägen 25, 18239 Danderyd, Sverige. Man kan nå honom i kommentarsfältet på denna blogg. Hans texter på denna blogg är utan copyright, tillhörande "Public Domain" Han är författare till texterna, om ingen nämns.

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