Beyond the Grave – Part Three
People who report having had near-death experiences all tell of the dramatic sense of reality which characterise their experiences. When they subsequently return to their physical bodies, the waking world seems utterly drab by comparison. These experiences leave deep impressions on their minds, and often lead to dramatic changes from their former style of living.
While it might be supposed that the five stages referred to in the previous instalment are common to all people, there is evidence to suggest that the nature of the near-death-experience varies with the culture of the subject concerned.
In the first investigation of its kind in India, Satwant Pasricha and Ian Stevenson published a preliminary report on several NDE’s which had come to their attention. 17
All the subjects who reported these experiences were Hindu-speaking people, who lived in the states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in northern India. Although the number of cases referred to by Pasricha and Stevenson was not large, comprising eleven males and five females, the stories reported by these subjects showed surprising consistency.
Furthermore, although these cases were consistent among themselves, they showed marked variations from those cases reported in the West. Four cases in particular highlighted the nature of these differences.
Vasudev Pandey was born in 1921 and had a near-death-experience when he almost died of a paratyphoid disease when he was about ten years old. According to the strange tale which Vasudev described to the two investigators, he was abducted by two people and taken before a fierce looking being clothed entirely in black. Vasudev identified this being as Yamraj, the Hindu God of Death.
Having been brought before this fearsome deity, Vasudev was astonished to hear Yamraj curse and rage at the two attendants who had brought him there. “I had asked you to bring Vasudev the gardener,” Yamraj cried. “Our garden is drying up. You have brought Vasudev the student.”
With that, Vasudev remembered nothing more until he regained consciousness. Lying on his sickbed, he was surprised to find that among the crowd assembled at his bedside was another man named Vasudev, who happened to be a gardener by profession. Although this Vsudev appeared to be in excellent health, he died unexpectedly the following day.
Chhajju Bania had his near-death-experience in 1975, when he was about thirty-four years old. At that time he had been stricken with fever, and his condition had deteriorated steadily until all hope of his recovery seemed lost.
Like Vasudev, Chhajju suddenly found himself confronted by several messengers, who captured him and took him before Yamraj. On this occasion Yamraj was seated on a high chair, and wore yellow clothes. At his side sat a clerk with a pile of books in front of him.
Then pointing to Chhajju the clerk said, “We don’t need Chhajju Bania (Trader), we have asked for Chhajju Kunhar (Potter). Push him back and bring the other man.” Again, like Vasudev, this was the last thing Chhajju recalled before regaining consciousness.
Mangal Singh was about seventy-three years old when he had his near-death-experience in 1977. Unlike Vasudev or Chhajju, he had not been ill prior to this experience. In his case he happened to experience a sudden vision while he was lying on his bed.
In this vision Mangal was approached by two people who lifted him from his bed, and took him into the presence of a daunting looking man. This man looked closely at Mangal and then reprimanded the two messengers, saying, “Why have you brought the wrong person? Why have you not brought the man you had been sent for?”
With that the two messengers ran off leaving Mangal alone to face this imperious entity. Then looking sternly at Mangal he said, “You go back”. Mangal meanwhile had noticed that two large pots lay by the side of this man, both containing boiling water. This surprised him, because there was no sign of any fire, nor was there any other source of heat that would account for the boiling water.
It was then that he noticed that heat was coming from the hands of this strange being. “You had better hurry up and go back,” the man repeated and touched Mangal on the arm. When he subsequently regained consciousness, he felt a severe burning sensation on his left arm, which later developed the appearance of a boil. Although it healed within a few days, it left a scar which was still visible when he was interviewed by the two investigators six years later.
The fourth case described by Pasricha and Stevenson involved a man by the name of Durga Jatav, who was born in 1929. When Jatav was about twenty years of age he fell ill for several weeks, suffering from typhoid. When his body “became cold for several hours” his family thought that he had died.
Jatav did not die, but recovered to tell an extraordinary story. He said that he had been abducted by no less than ten people. When he tried to evade them they cut off both his legs at the knees. He was then taken before a gathering of some fifty people who were all unknown to him.
These strangers, who were seated on chairs at various tables, then consulted their papers and said to his captors, “Why have you brought him here? Take him back.” When Durga complained that he was unable to return because he had no feet, he was shown several pairs of legs. He happened to recognise one pair of legs as being his own, and these were somehow re-attached to his knee stumps. He was then sent back with instructions not to “stretch” his knees, so that they could mend properly.
When Jatav later recounted this story, his sister and another neighbour noticed that there were marks on his knees, although neither had been aware of any marks located there before. These marks seemed to be folds, or deep fissures in the skin that covered his knees.
When Jatav was interviewed some thirty years after this incident took place, the folds of skin were still visible. When the investigators conducted X-ray tests of his knees, there was no indication of any abnormality beneath the skin.
Taken on the face of it, these four accounts of near death-experiences in India serve only to confirm one’s worst fears about the nature of the after-life. If these people are to be believed, it would seem that the next world is ruled by a bureaucracy that is as prone to error as any in our waking world of experience.
Furthermore, when mistakes are made, just as happens in this life, no apologies are made or compensation given.
Pasricha and Stevenson noted that these four cases were typical of those NDE cases which they surveyed. They pointed out that Yamraj, the King of the Dead, was a well-known figure in Hindu mythology, and was considered to have various messengers called Yamdoots, and a keeper of records called Chitragupta.
Although the four people whose cases have been quoted here were all from northern India, and would therefore have been well aware of these guardians of the afterlife, the investigators were unable to say whether these NDE’s might be representative of all cases in India.
It is interesting to note however, that in a separate incident reported from southern India, the same basic features occurred, although the nature of the characters conformed to the beliefs of that region.
In this case a Brahmin boy went to sleep and dreamed that he was dying. He felt his Prana or vital energy draining away through his mouth and nostrils. When his body was dead, the boy’s soul was taken to Vaikunta, the traditional abode of the God Vishnu.
The boy was brought before Vishnu, who was surrounded by other Gods and their devotees. All were decorated with the traditional marks of Vishnu (vertical stripes) upon their foreheads. Then Vishnu spoke to the gathered assembly and said, “This man should be brought here at two o’clock tomorrow. Why has he been brought here now?” With that the boy awoke to find himself back in his bed.
The next morning he related his unusual dream to his family. Although he had hitherto been in robust health, the boy died suddenly on the following day at two o’clock in the afternoon. 18
It is clear that the main ingredients of this case parallel those described by Pasricha and Stevenson, but the place of the northern Indian King of Death, Yamraj, was taken by the God Vishnu, who is widely revered in the South.
In their report on NDE’s, the two investigators commented on several other cases which had come to their attention, which also suggested a link between cultural beliefs and after death experiences.
One of their Indian subjects described having had an NDE while he was holidaying in Rome. In this instance, although the event took place in Western Europe, the actual content of the near-death-experience was typical of the Indian mistaken identity cases described previously.
They also came across a case where a Western subject, who had subsequently come to adopt Oriental beliefs, had experienced an NDE of the mistaken identity variety. In this particular case an American devotee of Sai Baba of South India, had an NDE when he became extremely ill while staying in a hotel in Madras.
According to his account, he found himself in a large hall in a “Court of Justice” where he was brought before the presiding judge. Sai Baba was present at this tribunal. As the case of the Westerner was discussed, records of the subject’s previous lives were called for, and “armloads of scrolls” were brought in and read before the judge.
Finally Sai Baba himself intervened, and pleaded with the judge to allow his disciple to continue living under his supervision. To this the judge agreed, and the American returned somewhat reluctantly to his physical body.
An interesting aspect of this incident was that, shortly before regaining consciousness, the subject recalled being able to look down on his physical body, which as we have seen, tends to be a common feature of Western near-death-experiences.
What is of considerable significance in the cases investigated by Pasricha and Stevenson, is that two subjects reported acquiring physical marks on their bodies which seemed to be directly related to circumstances which had occurred to them in their near death-experiences.
In the case of Mangal Singh, he was touched by a man with burning hands. When he awoke, he experienced a burning sensation on his left arm, which later left a permanent scar.
In the case of Durga Jatav, his recollection of having had his legs cut off and subsequently re-attached, was followed by the discovery of deep folds in the skin covering his knees, in the exact place where his severed limbs had been rejoined. These marks were still present many years later, and were personally witnessed by the two investigators.
Now the ability of the mind to produce physical effects in the human body which directly match those circumstances which exist in the subject’s mind, is a phenomenon that is well-known to the Western researcher. The most frequent evidence of this phenomenon is provided by that state of mind known as hypnosis.
Under hypnosis, if a person is given the suggestion that a burning object is being applied to the skin, a blister will form at the exact spot of the imagined burn. The object that was actually applied to the skin may simply have been a pencil, or some other innocuous object, but the hypnotised subject will react as if the object was a branding iron.
The resultant blister will be indistinguishable from any normal blister, and will produce just as much pain and inflammation as any real burn. In contrast to this, if a hypnotised subject is burnt by a cigarette, but is given the suggestion that the cigarette is merely a harmless object, there will be no blister and no accompanying pain or subsequent inflammation. The subject reacts just as if he or she had been touched by a pencil.
Although incidents such as these are commonplace under hypnosis, a person does not have to be hypnotised in order to influence the functioning of the physical body. The suggestion of burning can equally well be given in the waking state.
If a subject who is in a normal state of consciousness truly believes that he or she has been burnt, the attendant blister, pain and inflammation will automatically appear, even though no burn has actually taken place.
In a series of experiments reported in the medical journal Lancet, J. A. Hadfield reported how he had given a suggestion of burning to a patient who was in a normal state of consciousness. Immediately a corresponding blister appeared at the place where the burn had been suggested. Hadfield then bandaged the blister.
It so happened that due to the movement of the bandages, this blister became infected, leading to greater pain and aggravated inflammation. When Hadfield later suggested to this same person, again in a waking condition, that the blister had healed, the pain immediately vanished and the inflammation and hyperaemia quickly disappeared. Hadfield also found that he could resurrect both the pain and the inflammation simply by suggesting to the patient that it had recurred. 19
All that is necessary for physical effects to be induced in the body, is for the subject to believe that what has been suggested has actually taken place. The physical effects then follow automatically.
Whereas in the conscious state this sense of conviction is sometimes difficult to generate, in a state of hypnosis the suggestion given is almost always assimilated immediately and acted upon. Hypnotherapy has therefore proved to be an effective method of inducing desired physical changes.
It has for example been used increasingly in women to achieve successful breast augmentation. In an experiment reported by Staib and Logan, selected women were not only able to increase the size of their breasts by means of hypnotic suggestion, but were able to retain these gains after many months. 20
The key factor in the ability of the mind to influence the physical body is belief. The person must however be totally convinced of the substance of a particular belief in order for it to be effective. When this is the case the necessary physical changes follow, whether or not there is any pathology or physical cause to warrant these changes.
When a person truly believes that a certain set of circumstances exists, then the physical body of that person acts as if these circumstances actually do exist. Physical changes or symptoms then appear which can be validated by medical doctors.
Undoubtedly the most extreme application of the power of suggestion over the functioning of the human body is the power of belief to induce death itself. Numerous cases exist on record where individuals have been subject to powerful suggestions, often in the form of voodoo curses, and have simply “willed” themselves to death.
In shamanistic societies these death-induced suggestions have been a time-worn method of combating crime. The subject succumbs even though no physical cause may be found to account for death. The only valid form of treatment for people who have allowed themselves to become victims of this extreme form of suggestion, lies in the form of a counter-suggestion.
For this to be effective, the counter belief has to be powerful enough to overcome the original belief. But because this original belief is usually the product of long years of conditioning, it seldom happens that a counter-belief is able to be induced successfully within the short space of time available to the ailing patient.
One case where this abrupt conversion was achieved successfully involved Doctor You Chan Yang, a physician in Honolulu prior to the outbreak of World War II, and who subsequently became South Korea’s first Ambassador to the United States.
In this case Dr. Yang was called out of bed at two o’clock one morning by a hysterical woman, who claimed that her husband was dying. As Yang did not know the woman or her husband, he recommended that she call their regular physician.
The woman explained that their regular doctor had given up on the case as her husband was the victim of a voodoo curse. She had called upon him as her last hope, as she had heard that Yang had successfully saved another voodoo victim in the past.
Yang finally agreed to examine the woman’s husband, and as she had indicated he found that the terrified man was close to death, even though he was unable to find any contributing physical cause.
Recognising the true nature of the problem, Yang gravely announced to the husband, “There is only one chance in a million that you can be saved but I will do my best. Take these two pills and in a little while you will pass water. If it is the usual colour you will die. But if it is blue, you will be well. The voodoo spell will be broken.” 21
The man recovered within a few hours. The pills which Doctor Yang had given him were diuretics containing a harmless blue dye. In healing the man, Yang not only proved himself to be a fine physician, but he also exhibited a deep understanding of the profound impact which the mind can exert over the functioning of the human body.
The efficacy of his treatment hinged on the dramatic change in colour of the patient’s urine. The fact that it changed to blue, in complete contrast to all previous experience, was the clinching evidence which led the man to overcome the deep conditioning of his prior belief, and to replace it with a belief in the superior “magic” of the Western doctor.
Had he not achieved this mental transformation, the patient would almost certainly have died.
References:
17 Satwant Pasricha and Ian Stevenson, “Near-Death Experiences in India – A Preliminary Report“, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol. 174, No.3, 1986, pp. 165-170.
18 “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi”, recorded by Swami Saraswathi, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, 1968, p. 435.
19 J. A. Hadfield, “The Influence of Suggestion on Body Temperature”, Lancet, 68-69, 1920.
20 A. R. Staib and D. R. Logan, “Hypnotic Stimulation of Breast Growth”, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, Vol.19, 1977, pp. 195-208.
21 Raymond Otto, “Voodoo vanquished”, Fate magazine, January, 1977, p. 66.
