A Special Monthly Feature

Spirtualists International Magazine Special Feature- Death and Rebirth

     What really happens after you die? What happens when you sleep and dream? What actually leaves your physical body during an Out of Body Experience (OBE) Astral Projection or Near Death Experience (NDE)? And more importantly, how are these things connected? Theories and myths concerning the afterlife abound, based on religious beliefs and mythologies. The best evidence we have to support the possibility of an afterlife is anecdotal, including the study of NDE where people temporarily die but are then revived, sometimes with tantalizing memories of experiencing the beginnings of spectacular afterlife experiences.

     As human beings, we tend to align our personal spiritual beliefs with the consensus beliefs of our culture, so we can fit in. Beliefs and expectations have a great deal to do with the afterlife experience, even if this is only brief, as in Near Death Experience. Survivors of NDE often experience a tunnel of light and see deceased loved ones, often with religious overtones matching their beliefs. Devout Christians may see Jesus, but they will never have a Buddhist, Islamic, or Hindu themed NDE, and vice-versa. Heartfelt spiritual beliefs are deeply rooted in the subconscious mind and will always colour the NDE or afterlife experience. What kind of afterlife experience do Stone Age hunter-gatherers hidden from the modern world and its religions have? Beliefs and expectations generate individual afterlife experiences, and are not the actual truth. The afterlife environment is fluid and changeable and there is no set way that it unfolds. So in this sense everyone is right, even the atheists.