Probably, among the adult population of the entire planet, you cannot find even one person who has not thought about death in one way or another.
We are not now interested in the opinions of skeptics who question everything that they have not touched with their own hands and have not seen with their own eyes. We are interested in the question, what is death?
Quite often, surveys cited by sociologists show that up to 60 percent of respondents are sure that the afterlife exists.
Just over 30 percent of respondents take a neutral position regarding the Kingdom of the Dead, believing that most likely they will experience reincarnation and rebirth in a new body after death. The remaining ten do not believe in either the first or the second, believing that death is the final result of everything. If you are interested in what happens after death to those who sold their soul to the devil and gained wealth, fame and honor on earth, we recommend that you refer to the article about. Such people gain prosperity and respect not only during life, but also after death: those who sell their souls become powerful demons. Leave a request to sell your soul so that demonologists will perform a ritual for you: [email protected]
In fact, these are not absolute numbers; in some countries, people are more willing to believe in the other world, relying on the books they have read from psychiatrists who have studied issues of clinical death.
In other places, they believe that they need to live to the fullest here and now, and they are of little concern about what awaits later. Probably, the diversity of opinions lies in the field of sociology and living environment, but this is a completely different problem.
From the data obtained in the survey, the conclusion is clear that the majority of the planet’s inhabitants believe in an afterlife. This is a truly exciting question, what awaits us at the second of death - the last exhalation here, and a new breath in the Kingdom of the Dead?
It’s a pity, but no one has a complete answer to such a question, except perhaps God, but if we accept the existence of the Almighty in our equation as faithfulness, then of course there is only one answer - there is a World to Come!
Raymond Moody, there is life after death.
Many prominent scientists at different times wondered: is death a special transitional state between life here and moving to the other world? For example, such a famous scientist as the inventor even tried to establish contact with the inhabitants of the afterlife. And this is just one example of thousands of similar ones, when people sincerely believe in life after death.
But what if there is at least something that can give us confidence in life after death, at least some signs indicating the existence of an afterlife? Eat! There is such evidence, assure researchers of the issue and psychiatry specialists who have worked with people who have experienced clinical death.
As Raymond Moody, an American psychologist and doctor from Porterdale, Georgia, assures us, such a well-known expert on the issue of “life after death”, there is an afterlife beyond any doubt.Moreover, the psychologist has many adherents from the scientific community. Well, let's see what kind of facts they give us as evidence of the fantastic idea of the existence of an afterlife?
Let me make a reservation right away, we are not now touching on the issue of reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul or its rebirth in a new body, this is a completely different topic and God willing and fate allows it, we will consider this later.
I will also note, alas, despite many years of research and travel around the world, neither Raymond Moody nor his followers were able to find at least one person who lived in the afterlife and returned from there with the facts in hand - this is not a joke , but a necessary note.
All evidence about the existence of life after death is based on the stories of people who have experienced clinical death. This is what has been called “near-death experience” for the last couple of decades and has gained popularity. Although there is already an error in the definition itself - what kind of near-death experience can we talk about if death did not actually occur? But well, let it be as R. Moody says about it.
Near-death experience, journey to the afterlife.
Clinical death, according to the conclusions of many researchers in this area, appears as an exploratory path to the afterlife. What does it look like? Resuscitation doctors save a person’s life, but at some point death turns out to be stronger. A person dies - omitting the physiological details, we note that the time of clinical death ranges from 3 to 6 minutes.
The first minute of clinical death, the resuscitator carries out the necessary procedures, and meanwhile the soul of the deceased leaves the body and looks at everything that is happening from the outside. As a rule, the souls of people who have crossed the border of two worlds for some time fly to the ceiling.
Further, those who have experienced clinical death see a different picture: some are gently but surely pulled into a tunnel, often a spiral-shaped funnel, where they pick up crazy speed.At the same time, they feel wonderful and free, clearly realizing that a wonderful and wonderful life awaits them. Others, on the contrary, are frightened by the picture of what they saw, they are not drawn into the tunnel, they rush home, to their family, apparently looking there for protection and salvation from something bad.
The second minute of clinical death, the physiological processes in the human body freeze, but it is still impossible to say that this is a dead person. By the way, during a “near-death experience” or foray into the afterlife for reconnaissance, time undergoes noticeable transformations. No, there are no paradoxes, but the time that takes a few minutes here, in “there” stretches to half an hour or even more.
Here is what a young woman who had a near-death experience said: I had the feeling that my soul had left my body. I saw the doctors and myself lying on the table, but it didn’t seem scary or frightening to me. I felt a pleasant lightness, my spiritual body radiated joy and absorbed peace and tranquility.
Then, I went outside the operating room and found myself in a very dark corridor, at the end of which there was a bright white light. I don’t know how it happened, but I was flying along the corridor in the direction of the light at great speed.
It was a state of amazing lightness when I reached the end of the tunnel and fell into the arms of the world surrounding me from all sides... a woman came out into the light, and it turned out that her long-dead mother was standing next to her.
The third minute of resuscitators, the patient was snatched from death...
“Daughter, it’s too early for you to die,” my mother told me... After these words, the woman fell into the darkness and remembers nothing more. She regained consciousness on the third day and learned that she had acquired a clinical death experience.
All the stories of people who experienced the borderline state between life and death are extremely similar. On the one hand, this gives us the right to believe in an afterlife. However, the skeptic sitting inside each of us whispers: how is it that “the woman felt her soul leaving her body,” but at the same time she saw everything? It’s interesting whether she felt it or did she look, you see, these are different things.
Attitude to the issue of near-death experience.
I am never a skeptic, and I believe in the other world, but when you read the full picture of a survey of clinical death from specialists who do not deny the possibility of the existence of life after death, but look at it without liberty, then the attitude towards the issue changes somewhat.
And the first thing that amazes is the “near-death experience” itself. In most cases of such an event, not those “cut-ups” for books that we love to quote, but a full survey of people who experienced clinical death, you see the following:
It turns out that the group surveyed includes all patients. All! It doesn’t matter what the person was sick with, epilepsy, fell into a deep coma, etc... it could generally be an overdose of sleeping pills or drugs that inhibit consciousness - in the overwhelming majority, for the survey it is enough to declare that he experienced clinical death! Marvelous? And then, if doctors, when recording death, do this based on the lack of breathing, blood circulation and reflexes, then this does not seem to matter for participation in the survey.And another strange thing that little attention is paid to when psychiatrists describe the borderline states of a person close to death, although this is not hidden. For example, the same Moody admits that in the review there are many cases where a person saw/experienced a flight through a tunnel to the light and other paraphernalia of the afterlife without any physiological damage.
This really comes from the realm of the paranormal, but the psychiatrist admits that in many cases when a person “flew into the afterlife,” nothing threatened his health. That is, a person acquired visions of flying into the Kingdom of the Dead, as well as a near-death experience, without being in a near-death state. Agree, this changes the attitude towards theory.
Scientists, a few words about near-death experiences.
According to experts, the above-described pictures of “flight to the next world” are acquired by a person before the onset of clinical death, but not after it. It was mentioned above that critical damage to the body and the inability of the heart to ensure the life cycle destroys the brain after 3-6 minutes (we will not discuss the consequences of the critical time).
This convinces us that having passed the mortal second, the deceased has no opportunity or way to feel anything. A person experiences all the previously described conditions not during clinical death, but during agony, when oxygen is still carried by the blood.
Why are the pictures experienced and told by people who have looked “on the other side” of life very similar? This is fully explained by the fact that during the death throes, the same factors influence the brain function of any person experiencing this state.
At such moments, the heart works with great interruptions, the brain begins to experience starvation, the picture is complemented by surges in intracranial pressure, and so on at the level of physiology, but without an admixture of the otherworldly.
The vision of a dark tunnel and flying to the other world at great speed also find scientific justification, and undermine our faith in life after death - although it seems to me that this only breaks the picture of the “near-death experience”. Due to severe oxygen starvation, so-called tunnel vision can manifest itself, when the brain cannot correctly process signals coming from the periphery of the retina, and only receives/processes signals received from the center.The person at this moment observes the effects of “flying through the tunnel towards the light.” Hallucinations are enhanced quite well by a shadowless lamp and doctors standing on both sides of the table and in the head - those who have had similar experience know that vision begins to “float” even before anesthesia.
The feeling of the soul leaving the body, seeing doctors and oneself as if from the outside, finally getting relief from pain - in fact, this is the effect of medications and a malfunction of the vestibular apparatus. When clinical death occurs, then in these minutes a person sees and feels nothing.
So, by the way, a high percentage of people who took the same LSD admitted that at these moments they acquired “experience” and went to other worlds. But shouldn’t we consider this the opening of a portal to other worlds?
In conclusion, I would like to note that the survey figures given at the very beginning are only a reflection of our belief in life after death, and cannot serve as evidence of life in the Kingdom of the Dead. Statistics from official medical programs look completely different, and may even discourage optimists from believing in the afterlife.
In fact, we have very few cases where people who actually experienced clinical death could say anything at all about their visions and encounters. Moreover, this is not the 10-15 percent that they are talking about, it is only about 5%. Among whom are people who have suffered brain death - alas, even a psychiatrist who knows hypnosis cannot help them remember anything.The other part looks much better, although of course there is no talk of complete restoration, and it is quite difficult to understand where they have their own memories and where they arose after conversations with a psychiatrist.
But the instigators of the idea of “life after death” are right about one thing; clinical experience really does greatly change the lives of people who have experienced this event. As a rule, this is a long period of rehabilitation and restoration of health. Some stories say that people who have experienced a borderline state suddenly discover previously unseen talents. Allegedly, communication with angels who meet the dead in the next world radically changes a person’s worldview.
Others, on the contrary, indulge in such grave sins that you begin to suspect either those who wrote were distorting facts and kept silent about it, or...or some fell into the underworld and realized that nothing good awaits them in the afterlife, so that’s what we need here and now.” get high" before dying.
And yet it exists!
As the ideological inspirer of biocentrism, Professor Robert Lantz, from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said, a person believes in death because he is taught so. The basis of this teaching lies on the foundations of the philosophy of life - if we know for sure that in the World to Come life is arranged happily, without pain and suffering, then why should we value this life? But this tells us that the other world exists, death here is birth in the Other World!
Human nature will never be able to accept the fact that immortality is impossible. Moreover, the immortality of the soul is an indisputable fact for many. And more recently, scientists have discovered evidence that physical death is not the absolute end of human existence and that there is still something beyond the boundaries of life.
One can imagine how such a discovery delighted people. After all, death, like birth, is the most mysterious and unknown state of a person. There are a lot of questions associated with them. For example, why a person is born and starts life from scratch, why he dies, etc.
A person throughout his entire adult life has been trying to deceive fate in order to prolong his existence in this world. Humanity is trying to calculate the formula for immortality in order to understand whether the words “death” and “end” are synonymous.
Scientists have found evidence that there is life after death
However, recent research has brought science and religion into one: death is not the end. After all, only beyond life can a person discover a new form of being. Moreover, scientists are sure that every person can remember his past life. And this means that death is not the end, and there, beyond the line, there is another life. Unknown to humanity, but life.
However, if the transmigration of souls exists, it means that a person must remember not only all his previous lives, but also deaths, while not everyone can survive this experience.
The phenomenon of the transfer of consciousness from one physical shell to another has been exciting the minds of mankind for many centuries. The first mentions of reincarnation are found in the Vedas - the oldest sacred scriptures of Hinduism.
According to the Vedas, any living being resides in two material bodies - the gross and the subtle. And they function only due to the presence of the soul in them. When the gross body finally wears out and becomes unusable, the soul leaves it in another - the subtle body. This is death. And when the soul finds a new physical body that is suitable for its mentality, the miracle of birth occurs.
The transition from one body to another, moreover, the transfer of the same physical defects from one life to another, was described in detail by the famous psychiatrist Ian Stevenson. He began studying the mysterious experience of reincarnation back in the sixties of the last century. Stevenson analyzed more than two thousand cases of unique reincarnation in different parts of the planet. While conducting research, the scientist came to a sensational conclusion. It turns out that those who have survived reincarnation will have the same defects in their new incarnations as they had in their previous life. These could be scars or moles, stuttering or another defect.
Incredibly, the scientist’s conclusions can only mean one thing: after death, everyone is destined to be born again, but in a different time. Moreover, a third of the children Stevenson studied had birth defects. Thus, a boy with a rough growth on the back of his head, under hypnosis, remembered that in a past life he was hacked to death with an ax. Stevenson found a family where a man who had been killed with an ax actually once lived. And the nature of his wound was like a pattern for a scar on the boy’s head.
Another child, who seemed to have been born with chopped off fingers, said that he was injured during field work. And again there were people who confirmed to Stevenson that one day a man died in a field from loss of blood when his fingers got caught in a threshing machine.
Thanks to the research of Professor Stevenson, supporters of the theory of transmigration of souls consider reincarnation to be a scientifically proven fact. Moreover, they claim that almost every person is able to view their past lives even in their sleep.
And the state of déjà vu, when suddenly there is a feeling that somewhere this has already happened to a person, may well be a flash of memory of previous lives.
The first scientific explanation that life does not end with the physical death of a person was given by Tsiolkovsky. He argued that absolute death is impossible because the Universe is alive. And Tsiolkovsky described the souls that left their corruptible bodies as indivisible atoms wandering throughout the Universe. This was the first scientific theory about the immortality of the soul, according to which the death of the physical body does not mean the complete disappearance of the consciousness of the deceased person.
But for modern science, belief in the immortality of the soul alone is, of course, not enough. Humanity still does not agree that physical death is invincible, and is strenuously looking for weapons against it.
Proof of life after death for some scientists is the unique experiment of cryonics, where the human body is frozen and kept in liquid nitrogen until techniques are found to restore any damaged cells and tissues in the body. And recent research by scientists proves that such technologies have already been found, although only a small part of these developments is publicly available. The results of the main studies are kept confidential. One could only dream of such technologies ten years ago.
Today, science can already freeze a person in order to revive him at the right moment, creates a controlled model of a robot-Avatar, but he still has no idea how to resettle a soul. This means that at one point humanity may face a huge problem - the creation of soulless machines that will never be able to replace humans.
Therefore, today, scientists are sure, cryonics is the only method for the revival of the human race.
In Russia, only three people used it. They are frozen and awaiting the future, eighteen more have signed a contract for cryopreservation after death.
Scientists began to think that the death of a living organism can be prevented by freezing several centuries ago. The first scientific experiments on freezing animals were carried out back in the seventeenth century, but only three hundred years later, in 1962, the American physicist Robert Ettinger finally promised people what they had dreamed of throughout human history - immortality.
The professor proposed freezing people immediately after death and storing them in this state until science finds a way to resurrect the dead. Then the frozen ones can be thawed and revived. According to scientists, a person will retain absolutely everything, it will still be the same person who was before death. And the same thing will happen to his soul that happens to it in the hospital when the patient is resuscitated.
All that remains is to decide what age to enter in the new citizen’s passport. After all, resurrection can occur either after twenty or after a hundred or two hundred years.
The famous geneticist Gennady Berdyshev suggests that the development of such technologies will take another fifty years. But the scientist has no doubt that immortality is a reality.
Today Gennady Berdyshev has built a pyramid at his dacha, an exact copy of the Egyptian one, but from logs, in which he is going to lose his years. According to Berdyshev, the pyramid is a unique hospital where time stops. Its proportions are strictly calculated according to the ancient formula. Gennady Dmitrievich assures: it is enough to spend fifteen minutes a day inside such a pyramid, and the years will begin to count down.
But the pyramid is not the only ingredient in this eminent scientist’s recipe for longevity. He knows, if not everything, then almost everything about the secrets of youth. Back in 1977, he became one of the initiators of the opening of the Institute of Juvenology in Moscow. Gennady Dmitrievich led a group of Korean doctors who rejuvenated Kim Il Sung. He was even able to extend the life of the Korean leader to ninety-two years.
Just a few centuries ago, life expectancy on Earth, for example in Europe, did not exceed forty years. A modern person lives on average sixty to seventy years, but even this time is catastrophically short. And recently, the opinions of scientists converge: the biological program for a person is to live at least one hundred and twenty years. In this case, it turns out that humanity simply does not live to reach its true old age.
Some experts are confident that the processes occurring in the body at the age of seventy are premature old age. Russian scientists were the first in the world to develop a unique medicine that prolongs life to one hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty years, which means it cures old age. The peptide bioregulators contained in the medicine restore damaged areas of cells, and a person’s biological age increases.
As reincarnation psychologists and therapists say, a person’s lived life is connected with his death. For example, a person who does not believe in God and leads a completely “earthly” life, and therefore is afraid of death, for the most part does not realize that he is dying, and after death he finds himself in a “gray space.”
At the same time, the soul retains the memory of all its past incarnations. And this experience leaves its mark on a new life. And training on memories from past lives helps to understand the causes of failures, problems and illnesses that people often cannot cope with on their own. Experts say that after seeing their mistakes in past lives, people in their present lives begin to be more conscious about their decisions.
Visions from a past life prove that there is a huge information field in the Universe. After all, the law of conservation of energy says that nothing in life disappears anywhere or appears from nothing, but only passes from one state to another.
This means that after death, each of us turns into something like a clot of energy, carrying all the information about past incarnations, which is then again embodied in a new form of life.
And it is quite possible that someday we will be born in another time and in another space. And remembering your past life is useful not only to remember past problems, but also to think about your purpose.
Death is still stronger than life, but under the pressure of scientific developments its defenses are weakening. And who knows, the time may come when death will open the way for us to another - eternal life.
Nikolai Viktorovich Levashov in the early 90s of the 20th century described in detail and accurately what Life (living matter) is, how and where it appears; what conditions must be on planets for the origin of life; what is memory; how and where it functions; what is Reason; what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the appearance of Mind in living matter; what emotions are and what their role is in the evolutionary development of Man, and much more. He proved inevitability and pattern appearance of Life on any planet on which the corresponding conditions simultaneously occur. For the first time, he accurately and clearly showed what Man really is, how and why he is embodied in a physical body, and what happens to him after the inevitable death of this body. has long given comprehensive answers to the questions posed by the author in this article. Nevertheless, quite sufficient arguments have been collected here indicating that modern science knows practically nothing about either Man or real the structure of the World in which we all live...
There is life after death!
The view of modern science: does the soul exist, and is Consciousness immortal?
Every person who has encountered the death of a loved one asks the question: is there life after death? Nowadays, this issue is of particular relevance. If several centuries ago the answer to this question was obvious to everyone, now, after a period of atheism, its solution is more difficult. We cannot simply believe hundreds of generations of our ancestors, who, through personal experience, century after century, were convinced that man has an immortal soul. We want to have facts. Moreover, the facts are scientific. From school they tried to convince us that there is no God, there is no immortal soul. At the same time, we were told that this is what he says. And we believed... Note that exactly believed that there is no immortal soul, believed that this is supposedly proven by science, believed that there is no God. None of us has even tried to figure out what impartial science says about the soul. We simply trusted certain authorities, without particularly going into the details of their worldview, objectivity and interpretation of scientific facts.
And now, when the tragedy happened, there is a conflict within us. We feel that the soul of the deceased is eternal, that it is alive, but on the other hand, the old stereotypes instilled in us that there is no soul drag us into the abyss of despair. This struggle within us is very difficult and very exhausting. We want the truth!
So let's look at the question of the existence of the soul through real, non-ideologized, objective science. Let's hear the opinions of real scientists on this issue and personally evaluate the logical calculations. It is not our FAITH in the existence or non-existence of the soul, but only KNOWLEDGE that can extinguish this internal conflict, preserve our strength, give confidence, and look at the tragedy from a different, real point of view.
The article will talk about Consciousness. We will analyze the question of Consciousness from the point of view of science: where is Consciousness located in our body and can it stop its life?
What is Consciousness?
First, about what Consciousness is in general. People have thought about this question throughout the history of mankind, but still cannot come to a final decision. We know only some of the properties and possibilities of consciousness. Consciousness is awareness of oneself, one’s personality, it is a great analyzer of all our feelings, emotions, desires, plans. Consciousness is what sets us apart, what makes us feel that we are not objects, but individuals. In other words, Consciousness miraculously reveals our fundamental existence. Consciousness is our awareness of our “I”, but at the same time Consciousness is a great mystery. Consciousness has no dimensions, no form, no color, no smell, no taste; it cannot be touched or turned in your hands. Even though we know very little about consciousness, we know with absolute certainty that we have it.
One of the main questions of humanity is the question of the nature of this very Consciousness (soul, “I”, ego). Materialism and idealism have diametrically opposed views on this issue. From point of view materialism Human Consciousness is the substrate of the brain, a product of matter, a product of biochemical processes, a special fusion of nerve cells. From point of view idealism Consciousness is the ego, “I”, spirit, soul - an immaterial, invisible, eternally existing, non-dying energy that spiritualizes the body. Acts of consciousness always involve a subject who is actually aware of everything.
If you are interested in purely religious ideas about the soul, then it will not provide any evidence of the existence of the soul. The doctrine of the soul is a dogma and is not subject to scientific proof. There are absolutely no explanations, much less evidence, for materialists who believe that they are impartial scientists (although this is far from the case).
But how do most people, who are equally far from religion, from philosophy, and from science too, imagine this Consciousness, soul, “I”? Let's ask ourselves, what is “I”?
Gender, name, profession and other role functions
The first thing that comes to mind for most is: “I am a person”, “I am a woman (man)”, “I am a businessman (turner, baker)”, “I am Tanya (Katya, Alexey)”, “I am a wife ( husband, daughter)”, etc. These are certainly funny answers. Your individual, unique “I” cannot be defined in general terms. There are a huge number of people in the world with the same characteristics, but they are not your “I”. Half of them are women (men), but they are not “I” either, people with the same professions seem to have their own “I”, not yours, the same can be said about wives (husbands), people of different professions, social status , nationalities, religion, etc. No affiliation with any group will explain to you what your individual “I” represents, because Consciousness is always personal. I am not qualities (qualities only belong to our “I”), because the qualities of the same person can change, but his “I” will remain unchanged.
Mental and physiological characteristics
Some say that their "I" are their reflexes, their behavior, their individual ideas and preferences, their psychological characteristics, etc. In fact, this cannot be the core of the personality, which is called “I”. Why? Because throughout life, behavior, ideas, preferences, and, especially, psychological characteristics change. It cannot be said that if these features were different before, then it was not my “I”.
Realizing this, some people make the following argument: “I am my individual body”. This is already more interesting. Let's examine this assumption as well. Everyone knows from a school anatomy course that the cells of our body are gradually renewed throughout life. Old ones die (apoptosis), and new ones are born. Some cells (the epithelium of the gastrointestinal tract) are completely renewed almost every day, but there are cells that go through their life cycle much longer. On average, every 5 years all the cells of the body are renewed. If we consider the “I” to be a simple collection of human cells, then the result will be absurd. It turns out that if a person lives, for example, 70 years, during this time all the cells in his body will change at least 10 times (i.e. 10 generations). Could this mean that not one person, but 10 different people lived their 70-year life? Isn't that pretty stupid? We conclude that “I” cannot be a body, because the body is not permanent, but “I” is permanent. This means that the “I” cannot be either the qualities of cells or their totality.
But here the particularly erudite give a counter-argument: “Okay, with bones and muscles it’s clear, this really cannot be the “I”, but there are nerve cells! And they are alone for the rest of their lives. Maybe “I” is the sum of nerve cells?”
Let's think about this question together...
Does consciousness consist of nerve cells? Materialism is accustomed to decomposing the entire multidimensional world into mechanical components, “testing harmony with algebra” (A.S. Pushkin). The most naive misconception of militant materialism regarding personality is the idea that personality is a set of biological qualities. However, the combination of impersonal objects, be they even neurons, cannot give rise to a personality and its core - the “I”.
How can this most complex “I”, feeling, capable of experiences, love, be simply the sum of specific cells of the body, along with the ongoing biochemical and bioelectric processes? How might these processes shape the self? Provided that nerve cells constituted our “I”, then we would lose part of our “I” every day. With each dead cell, with each neuron, the “I” would become smaller and smaller. With cell restoration, it would increase in size.
Scientific studies conducted in different countries of the world prove that nerve cells, like all other cells of the human body, are capable of regeneration (restoration). This is what the most serious international biological journal writes: Nature: “Employees of the Californian Institute for Biological Research. Salk discovered that in the brains of adult mammals, fully functional young cells are born that function on a par with existing neurons. Professor Frederick Gage and his colleagues also concluded that brain tissue renews itself most rapidly in physically active animals...”
This is confirmed by publication in another authoritative, peer-reviewed biological journal Science: “Over the past two years, researchers have discovered that nerve and brain cells renew themselves, just like the rest of the human body. The body is capable of repairing disorders related to the nervous tract itself.”, says scientist Helen M. Blon."
Thus, even with a complete change of all (including nerve) cells of the body, the “I” of a person remains the same, therefore, it does not belong to the constantly changing material body.
For some reason, in our time it is so difficult to prove what was obvious and understandable to the ancients. The Roman Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus, who lived in the 3rd century, wrote: “It is absurd to assume that, since not one of the parts has life, then life can be created by their totality... moreover, it is completely impossible for life to be produced by an accumulation of parts, and that the mind was generated by that which is devoid of mind. If anyone objects that this is not so, but that in fact the soul is formed by atoms coming together, that is, bodies indivisible into parts, then he will be refuted by the fact that the atoms themselves only lie one next to the other, not forming a living whole, for unity and joint feeling cannot be obtained from bodies that are insensitive and incapable of unification; but the soul feels itself” (1).
“I” is the unchanging core of personality, which includes many variables but is not itself a variable.
A skeptic can put forward a last desperate argument: “Maybe “I” is the brain?” Is Consciousness a product of brain activity? What does he say?
Many people heard the fairy tale about the fact that our Consciousness is the activity of the brain in school. The idea that the brain is essentially a person with his “I” is extremely widespread. Most people think that it is the brain that perceives information from the world around us, processes it and decides how to act in each specific case; they think that it is the brain that makes us alive and gives us personality. And the body is nothing more than a spacesuit that ensures the activity of the central nervous system.
But this tale has nothing to do with science. The brain is currently being studied in depth. The chemical composition, parts of the brain, and the connections of these parts with human functions have been well studied for a long time. The brain organization of perception, attention, memory, and speech has been studied. Functional blocks of the brain have been studied. A huge number of clinics and research centers have been studying the human brain for more than a hundred years, for which expensive, effective equipment has been developed. But, opening any textbooks, monographs, scientific journals on neurophysiology or neuropsychology, you will not find scientific data about the connection of the brain with Consciousness.
For people far from this field of knowledge, this seems surprising. In fact, there is nothing surprising about this. Just no one ever didn't find it connections between the brain and the very center of our personality, our “I”. Of course, materialist scientists have always wanted this. Thousands of studies and millions of experiments have been conducted, many billions of dollars have been spent on this. The efforts of scientists were not in vain. Thanks to these studies, the parts of the brain themselves were discovered and studied, their connection with physiological processes was established, a lot was done to understand neurophysiological processes and phenomena, but the most important thing was not achieved. It was not possible to find the place in the brain that is our “I”. It was not even possible, despite extremely active work in this direction, to make a serious assumption about how the brain can be connected with our Consciousness?..
There is life after death!
English researchers Peter Fenwick from the London Institute of Psychiatry and Sam Parnia from Southampton Central Clinic came to the same conclusions. They examined patients who returned to life after cardiac arrest and found that some of them exactly recounted the contents of conversations conducted by medical personnel while they were in a state of clinical death. Others gave exact a description of the events that occurred during this time period.
Sam Parnia argues that the brain, like any other organ of the human body, is composed of cells and is not capable of thinking. However, it can work as a thought detecting device, i.e. like an antenna, with the help of which it becomes possible to receive a signal from the outside. Scientists have suggested that during clinical death, Consciousness, acting independently of the brain, uses it as a screen. Like a television receiver, which first receives the waves entering it, and then converts them into sound and image.
If we turn off the radio, this does not mean that the radio station stops broadcasting. That is, after the death of the physical body, Consciousness continues to live.
The fact of the continuation of the life of Consciousness after the death of the body is confirmed by Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Director of the Research Institute of the Human Brain, Professor N.P. Bekhterev in her book “The Magic of the Brain and the Labyrinths of Life.” In addition to discussing purely scientific issues, in this book the author also cites his personal experience of encountering posthumous phenomena.
The other world is a very interesting topic that everyone thinks about at least once in their life. What happens to a person and his soul after death? Can he observe living people? These and many questions cannot but worry us. The most interesting thing is that there are many different theories about what happens to a person after death. Let's try to understand them and answer the questions that concern many people.
“Your body will die, but your soul will live forever”
Bishop Theophan the Recluse addressed these words in his letter to his dying sister. He, like other Orthodox priests, believed that only the body dies, but the soul lives forever. What is this connected with and how does religion explain it?
The Orthodox teaching about life after death is too large and voluminous, so we will consider only some of its aspects. First of all, in order to understand what happens to a person and his soul after death, it is necessary to find out what the purpose of all life on earth is. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Apostle Paul mentions that every person must die someday, and after that there will be judgment. This is exactly what Jesus Christ did when he voluntarily surrendered to his enemies to die. Thus, he washed away the sins of many sinners and showed that the righteous, like him, would one day face resurrection. Orthodoxy believes that if life were not eternal, it would have no meaning. Then people would really live, not knowing why they would sooner or later die, there would be no point in doing good deeds. That is why the human soul is immortal. Jesus Christ opened the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom for Orthodox Christians and believers, and death is only the completion of preparation for a new life.
What is the soul
The human soul continues to live after death. She is the spiritual beginning of man. A mention of this can be found in Genesis (chapter 2), and it sounds approximately as follows: “God created man from the dust of the earth and blew the breath of life into his face. Now man has become a living soul.” Holy Scripture “tells” us that man is two-part. If the body can die, then the soul lives forever. She is a living entity, endowed with the ability to think, remember, feel. In other words, a person’s soul continues to live after death. She understands everything, feels and - most importantly - remembers.
Spiritual Vision
In order to make sure that the soul is really capable of feeling and understanding, you only need to remember cases when a person’s body died for some time, and the soul saw and understood everything. Similar stories can be read in a variety of sources, for example, K. Ikskul in his book “Incredible for many, but a true incident” describes what happens after death to a person and his soul. Everything that is written in the book is the personal experience of the author, who fell ill with a serious illness and experienced clinical death. Almost everything that can be read on this topic in various sources is very similar to each other.
People who have experienced clinical death describe it as a white, enveloping fog. Below you can see the body of the man himself, next to him are his relatives and doctors. It is interesting that the soul, separated from the body, can move in space and understands everything. Some say that after the body ceases to show any signs of life, the soul passes through a long tunnel, at the end of which there is a bright white light. Then, usually over a period of time, the soul returns to the body and the heart begins to beat. What if a person dies? What then happens to him? What does the human soul do after death?
Meeting others like yourself
After the soul is separated from the body, it can see spirits, both good and bad. The interesting thing is that, as a rule, she is attracted to her own kind, and if during life any of the forces had an influence on her, then after death she will be attached to it. This period of time when the soul chooses its “company” is called the Private Court. It is then that it becomes completely clear whether this person’s life was in vain. If he fulfilled all the commandments, was kind and generous, then, undoubtedly, next to him there will be the same souls - kind and pure. The opposite situation is characterized by a society of fallen spirits. They will face eternal torment and suffering in hell.
First few days
It is interesting what happens after death to a person’s soul in the first few days, because this period is for it a time of freedom and enjoyment. It is in the first three days that the soul can move freely on earth. As a rule, she is near her relatives at this time. She even tries to talk to them, but it is difficult, because a person is not able to see and hear spirits. In rare cases, when the connection between people and the dead is very strong, they feel the presence of a soul mate nearby, but cannot explain it. For this reason, the burial of a Christian takes place exactly 3 days after death. In addition, it is this period that the soul needs in order to realize where it is now. It’s not easy for her, she may not have had time to say goodbye to anyone or say anything to anyone. Most often, a person is not ready for death, and he needs these three days to understand the essence of what is happening and say goodbye.
However, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, K. Ikskul began his journey to another world on the first day, because the Lord told him so. Most of the saints and martyrs were ready for death, and in order to move to another world, it took them only a few hours, because this was their main goal. Each case is completely different, and information comes only from those people who have experienced the “post-mortem experience” themselves. If we are not talking about clinical death, then everything can be completely different. Proof that in the first three days a person’s soul is on earth is also the fact that it is during this period of time that relatives and friends of the deceased feel their presence nearby.
Next stage
The next stage of transition to the afterlife is very difficult and dangerous. On the third or fourth day, trials await the soul - ordeal. There are about twenty of them, and all of them must be overcome so that the soul can continue its path. Ordeals are entire pandemoniums of evil spirits. They block the way and accuse her of sins. The Bible also talks about these trials. The mother of Jesus, the Most Pure and Reverend Mary, having learned about her imminent death from Archangel Gabriel, asked her son to deliver her from demons and ordeals. In response to her requests, Jesus said that after death he would take her by the hand to Heaven. And so it happened. This action can be seen on the icon “Assumption of the Virgin Mary”. On the third day, it is customary to pray fervently for the soul of the deceased, in this way you can help it pass all the tests.
What happens a month after death
After the soul has gone through the ordeal, it worships God and goes on a journey again. This time, hellish abysses and heavenly abodes await her. She watches how sinners suffer and how the righteous rejoice, but she does not yet have her own place. On the fortieth day, the soul is assigned a place where it, like everyone else, will await the Supreme Court. There is also information that only until the ninth day does the soul see the heavenly abodes and observe righteous souls who live in happiness and joy. The rest of the time (about a month) she has to watch the torment of sinners in hell. At this time, the soul cries, mourns and humbly awaits its fate. On the fortieth day, the soul is assigned a place where it will await the resurrection of all the dead.
Who goes where and
Of course, only the Lord God is omnipresent and knows exactly where the soul ends up after the death of a person. Sinners go to hell and spend time there waiting for even greater torment that will come after the Supreme Court. Sometimes such souls can come to friends and relatives in dreams, asking for help. You can help in such a situation by praying for a sinful soul and asking the Almighty for forgiveness of its sins. There are cases when sincere prayer for a deceased person really helped him move to a better world. For example, in the 3rd century, the martyr Perpetua saw that the fate of her brother was like a filled pond that was located too high for him to reach. Days and nights she prayed for his soul and over time she saw him touch a pond and be transported to a bright, clean place. From the above, it becomes clear that the brother was pardoned and sent from hell to heaven. The righteous, thanks to the fact that they did not live their lives in vain, go to heaven and look forward to the Day of Judgment.
Teachings of Pythagoras
As mentioned earlier, there are a huge number of theories and myths regarding the afterlife. For many centuries, scientists and clergy studied the question: how to find out where a person ended up after death, looked for answers, argued, looked for facts and evidence. One of these theories was the teaching of Pythagoras about the transmigration of souls, the so-called reincarnation. Scientists such as Plato and Socrates shared the same opinion. A huge amount of information about reincarnation can be found in such a mystical movement as Kabbalah. Its essence is that the soul has a specific goal, or a lesson that it must go through and learn. If during life the person in whom this soul lives does not cope with this task, it is reborn.
What happens to the body after death? It dies and it is impossible to resurrect it, but the soul is looking for a new life. Another interesting thing about this theory is that, as a rule, all people who are related in a family are not connected by chance. More specifically, the same souls are constantly looking for each other and finding each other. For example, in a past life, your mother could have been your daughter or even your spouse. Since the soul has no gender, it can have both a feminine and masculine principle, it all depends on what body it ends up in.
There is an opinion that our friends and soul mates are also kindred spirits who are karmically connected to us. There is one more nuance: for example, the son and father constantly have conflicts, no one wants to give in, until the last days two relatives are literally at war with each other. Most likely, in the next life, fate will bring these souls together again, as brother and sister or as husband and wife. This will continue until they both find a compromise.
Pythagorean square
Supporters of the Pythagorean theory are most often interested not in what happens to the body after death, but in what incarnation their soul lives and who they were in a past life. In order to find out these facts, a Pythagorean square was drawn up. Let's try to understand it with an example. Let's say you were born on December 3, 1991. You need to write down the received numbers on a line and carry out some manipulations with them.
- It is necessary to add up all the numbers and get the main one: 3 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 1 = 26 - this will be the first number.
- Next, you need to add the previous result: 2 + 6 = 8. This will be the second number.
- In order to get the third, from the first it is necessary to subtract the double first digit of the date of birth (in our case, 03, we do not take zero, we subtract three times 2): 26 - 3 x 2 = 20.
- The last number is obtained by adding the digits of the third working number: 2+0 = 2.
Now let’s write down the date of birth and the results obtained:
In order to find out what incarnation the soul lives in, it is necessary to count all the numbers except zeros. In our case, the soul of a person born on December 3, 1991 lives through the 12th incarnation. By composing a Pythagorean square from these numbers, you can find out what characteristics it has.
Some facts
Many, of course, are interested in the question: is there life after death? All world religions are trying to answer it, but there is still no clear answer. Instead, in some sources you can find some interesting facts regarding this topic. Of course, it cannot be said that the statements that will be given below are dogma. These are most likely just some interesting thoughts on this topic.
What is death
It is difficult to answer the question of whether there is life after death without finding out the main signs of this process. In medicine, this concept refers to stopping breathing and heartbeat. But we should not forget that these are signs of the death of the human body. On the other hand, there is information that the mummified body of the monk-priest continues to show all signs of life: soft tissues are pressed, joints bend, and a fragrance emanates from it. Some mummified bodies even grow nails and hair, which perhaps confirms the fact that certain biological processes do occur in the deceased body.
What happens a year after the death of an ordinary person? Of course, the body decomposes.
Finally
Taking into account all of the above, we can say that the body is just one of the shells of a person. In addition to it, there is also a soul - an eternal substance. Almost all world religions agree that after the death of the body, the human soul still lives, some believe that it is reborn in another person, and others believe that it lives in Heaven, but, one way or another, it continues to exist . All thoughts, feelings, emotions are the spiritual sphere of a person, which lives despite physical death. Thus, it can be considered that life after death exists, but it is no longer interconnected with the physical body.
