Books

Non smoking gun

Honorable
I had some insomnia so I started reading Bellg's book and must say that two anecdotes in and she writes well, explains herself with complete clarity and is believable. Zero woo-woo, no chatter about vibrational energies or levels or any of that. So far I prefer it to other similar books I've read. She's just relating the accounts and dos it well.
Yep, exactly, her prose is a great help.
Another aspect to all this, is a phrase I've come across it a couple of times:
'not your time'
It suggests that we are here for certain purposes / experiences (also that the future may be fixed).
If it's for a purpose / experience, might it then follow that once they have occurred, that's it, our time is up, the program is ended? Unless the saga of dying is one of them.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
I look at this as two parts, same as UFOs and a lot of other things really.

First is that the phenomenon is actually occurring. Second is what is it ? May not seem like much but there is a big difference between the two, the second being subjective interpretation.

Bellg says that it matters only to the person who had the experience and cites examples of people who have been profoundly affected. Also that physicians should listen to what their patients tell them and that being dismissive is a disservice. I like that quite a bit - true in general when it comes to doctors.

Yes, this phenomenon is really occurring. I've read and listened to accounts of fighter pilots who have out of body experiences under heavy G forces. No doubt there are physiological reactions that have similar effects; they seem to be of a different stripe though, lacking the depth and clarity and lasting impact that NDEs have.

What the hell is it? If I see a UFO, maybe even take a picture or use some 'sensor' to record apparently impossible movements, it's still a stretch to say it's an alien spacecraft. Could very well be but by definition it's unknown and not easy to quantify for a lot of reasons - it's rare and there is a stigma surrounding the topic that makes collecting enough data and using it effectively problematic. NDEs certainly seem to suggest survival of consciousness on a vast scale. I'd certainly like to believe it is, personally actually do, but how often have things turned out to be not what they seem? Like a lot of things belief calls for a leap of faith.

Bellg - so far anyway - is really only relaying the experiences as a physician without weighing in on any particular theory or opinion beyond that it is really happening. She sounds a lot like the shrink I mentioned that I was chatting with not too long ago about all this. Again, she's a friend and I wasn't there for a check up from the neck up :)
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
interesting excerpts:

“You can’t prove or disprove that a person is in pain, nauseated or fatigued, and to deny that a person has a subjective symptom when (as is often the case) a physical cause for it cannot be identified is a violation of the trust patients place in us. We take patients at their word and set about offering relief of their discomfort.”

“Perhaps conscious perception from outside our body travels a ribbon of energy particles that is still connected to our physical self–a phenomenon that could possibly be scientifically detected and verified. In times of crisis, maybe consciousness can protectively hold our perception at a distance in such a way that we can witness what is happening to our physical body safely and remotely–a function that may have some survival benefit and be part of the process of natural selection and evolution.”


— Near Death in the ICU: Stories from Patients Near Death and Why We Should Listen to Them by Laurin Bellg MD
 

The shadow

The shadow knows!
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Our 11 year old son just discovered this wonderful series of books!
 

The shadow

The shadow knows!
BriefHistoryTime.jpg
I had feared that the love for science had faded. The fact Ian owns and reads this book shows it has not. I still see him with his brother looking at the stars in his telescope. As long as there is growth and wonder there is hope.
 

Non smoking gun

Honorable
Perhaps conscious perception from outside our body travels a ribbon of energy particles that is still connected to our physical self–a phenomenon that could possibly be scientifically detected and verified. In times of crisis, maybe consciousness can protectively hold our perception at a distance in such a way that we can witness what is happening to our physical body safely and remotely–a function that may have some survival benefit and be part of the process of natural selection and evolution.
I believe most creatures are self aware, but perhaps only humans have a brain interface for the connection of a mind (hubris?).
I like the analogy of a magnetic power connector, holding the conscious mind to the brain.
As the brain begins to die, the 'magnetic lock' begins to fail and the mind starts to move away, or is pulled back towards the 'tunnel' often reported.
As brain scans get more revealing, I guess we will probably be able to manually detach the mind and reattach it to another body.
Maybe many alien species do not have said interface and it makes us unusual and subject to hybridization experiments.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
The old bookshelf in my den is providing some entertainment

Haven't looked at this this for years, easy breezy read. Brings you right back 'you are there'.



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Standingstones

Celestial
The old bookshelf in my den is providing some entertainment

Haven't looked at this this for years, easy breezy read. Brings you right back 'you are there'.



View attachment 16751
I wonder what Roddenberry would think about all these Star Trek spin-offs these days. All I know is that Patrick Stewart looks like an old grandpa in the “Picard” series. Did he really need the money that badly?
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
That book looks at the production of the original series through rose colored glasses, which is why I like it. Don't want my icons screwed with thank you. It's written in a different era and in some parts you just sort of have to remind yourself of that and move on.

Roddenberry had his vision but I know he wasn't happy with how things went with the movies and TNG. Wasn't happy for the militarism at all and considering what he had in mind when he created it that's understandable. But if Wrath of Khan hadn't taken it in that direction it would have ended the franchise.
 

Non smoking gun

Honorable
Near Death in the ICU, L. Bellg

Have been plodding on with this and whatever is going on, I don't think it is anything to do with the divine, more like imperfect technology.
Here is an experience from a woman who nearly died giving birth:
While she was still aware on some level of what was
happening below her, it seemed to recede farther and farther away and she
began to have a sensation of ascending.
Just as Howard had experienced, she felt a density difference as she moved
through the ceiling of the delivery room. She saw large silver pipes and industrial
wiring as she moved through the spaces in between floors then briefly paused in
another patient’s room. There she saw a man sitting up in his hospital bed. Hewas eating a meal from a narrow, wheeled tray table while a woman, reclining in
a chair beside the bed, was reading a magazine.
She noted a couple of vases of flowers on the windowsill and perceived,
more than actually smelled, their intoxicating fragrance. The flowers were the
most vivid colors she had ever seen and the petals, stems and leaves all seemed
to be made up of tiny particles that vibrated very fast. Remarkably, there was a
palpable, humming energy emanating from the flowers that vibrated across the
atmosphere, entered into her body, if she could call it that, and presented itself
in such a way that she could feel the flowers.
After lingering in the room for just a few seconds, she and her amorphous
companion began to move again through other floors and finally to the roof.
She saw the flat, pebbled surface and the tar patching that reached out in streaks
and twists along seams and in circles around pipes and supporting structures.
There was a three-dimensional effect where the pebbles seemed to loom toward
her with incredible detail while the black tar appeared to deepen and recede.
She saw the parking lot several stories below and was aware of a delivery
truck, with caution lights flashing, where it was temporarily parked for
unloading. Again she homed in on the blinking lights, noticing that the colors
and motion of the illuminated blinkers were so intense. Once more, she
perceived the sound a blinker would make even though she was too far away to
actually hear it. She observed that when she looked at the blinkers she could hear
them and when she looked away the sound faded. She saw the deliveryman
come back to the truck and, when she looked at him, she could hear his padding
footsteps on the pavement. When she looked away, the sound was gone.
So it would seem that whatever she visually locked in on – from the hospital
room where she had seen the flowers, to the roof and then the parking lot
below – she gained an instant awareness of t
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Near Death in the ICU, L. Bellg

Have been plodding on with this and whatever is going on, I don't think it is anything to do with the divine, more like imperfect technology.
Here is an experience from a woman who nearly died giving birth:

You beat me to the punch here, I finished her book in an insomniac stint overnight. NSG - thanks. I enjoyed that one so much I bought a paperback just to have on the shelf. She manages to nicely put into words very much my own thoughts. Of course there are several cases of NDE descriptions and I don't generally bother reading books like those anymore. Specifically I'm talking about ones like Dr.Janice Holden has written - the one that wrote the Afterward. She did say though that she considers her own work to be 'the head' and Bellg's book to be 'the heart' of the topic and I think that's aptly put.

Basically the book is saying that the phenomenon is real and to deny it does a disservice to the patient and the profession. The speculation as to the source is extremely minimal and she offers cases to show that there is likely a natural physiological component that can be induced by stress or medication. Also that veridical evidence has been provided. One of the descriptions hit very, very close to home with me because it described about what happened when my mother died. She isn't skeptical and isn't dismissive at all and makes her case succinctly. Very professional about it all. What she says mirrors very closely what a doctor friend who has been in a very similar profession with extensive experience in end of life for many, many years has already said to me recently - that I've written about here on AE.

As for the source, she mentions an Eastern parable about a group of blind men feeling up an elephant (which they have never encountered before) trying to figure out what it is and each one bases his theory about the larger whole based on his experience. Of course each are accurate but different meaning nobody's wrong wrong they just don't have the correct perspective. The one thing she does make crystal clear is that listening is important and I think what she's had to say could be applied equally to a lot of the topics that interest us.

I'd say before anyone dismisses this out of hand that it's worth a couple of bucks to actually read.
 
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Non smoking gun

Honorable
Basically the book is saying that the phenomenon is real and to deny it does a disservice to the patient and the profession. The speculation as to the source is extremely minimal and she offers cases to show that there is likely a natural physiological component that can be induced by stress or medication. Also that veridical evidence has been provided. One of the descriptions hit very, very close to home with me because it described about what happened when my mother died. She isn't skeptical and isn't dismissive at all and makes her case succinctly. Very professional about it all.
Nail on head PF. My neural net needs more training data so Bruce Greyson's 'A Doctor Explores what near death experiences reveal about life and beyond' is next
The person who came back with precognition raises questions, such may explain oracles of the past and unexpected military victories.
I am surprised the modern military are not more involved.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
am surprised the modern military are not more involved.
That's where the remote viewing comes in and when you take the time to dig into that it is very interesting but after many years deemed too random to be of practical value, at least from a their point of view. Unfortunately that whole topic's grown expensive legs .

I may check out Grayson but I am nearing saturation point on the topic - that's why Bellg's book was so refreshing. I'll just say "what she said"
 

Non smoking gun

Honorable
After by Dr Bruce Greyson

An in depth evidence-based study of NDEs drawing on hundreds of accounts from his work at the psychiatric emergency service at the University of Virginia and colleagues at other universities. It divides into chapters on particular aspects of NDEs:

Speed of thought and time
Among all the experiencers I’ve interviewed, half described their thinking during the NDE as clearer than usual, and almost as many described it as faster than usual.

Rob’s description of time slowing, which gave him time to plan for the best way to survive, reminded me of Albert Heim’s account of falling off a mountain. There may be an interesting scientific spin-off from Heim’s description of his NDE. Psychologist Joe Green has raised the question of whether Heim’s account of his fall played a role in Einstein’s theory of relativity. Heim wrote in his 1892 article that as he fell, “Time became greatly expanded.” In other words, time seemed to slow down for him, allowing him to think through his situation. Heim often shared his NDE account with his students at Zurich’s Polytechnic Institute, where he taught geology. One of those students was a teenage Albert Einstein, who took at least two classes from Heim that he later described in a letter to Heim’s son as “magical.” A decade later, Einstein published a revolutionary paper describing his theory of relativity, which proposed that time slows down the faster you travel. It’s impossible to know for certain whether this is anything more than coincidence, but it started me wondering whether Heim’s account of time slowing as he fell faster and faster lay quietly in the back of Einstein’s mind and eventually influenced his idea that time is not constant, but varies according to how fast you are moving
Life review
Beaufort described his thoughts not only speeding up but encompassing every single incident in his life and judging every action as right or wrong. Many of the experiencers who shared their stories with me described this kind of life review.

Knowing
In my NDE, I met Nurse Anita on the other side. ‘What are you doing here, Anita?’ I asked. ‘Why, Jack, I’ve come to fluff up your pillows, of course, and to see that you are all right. But, Jack, you must return, go back. Tell my parents I’m sorry I wrecked the red MGB. Tell them I love them.’
“Then Anita was gone—gone through and over a very green valley and through a fence, where, she told me, ‘there is a garden on the other side. But you cannot see it. For you must return, while I continue through the gate.’
“When I recovered, I told a nurse what Anita had said. This girl burst out into tears and fled the ward. I later learned that Anita and this nurse had been great friends. Anita had been surprised by her parents, who loved her dearly and had presented her with a red MGB sports car. Anita had jumped into the car, and in her excitement raced down the highway, De Waal Drive, along the slopes of Table Mountain, into ‘Suicide Corner’ and a concrete telephone pole.
“But I was ‘dead’ when all that happened. How could I possibly know these facts? I knew them as stated above. I was told by Anita in my experience.”
Heaven and Hell
Instantly I started plummeting downward, falling into darkness, a horrible endless black space. Imagine standing in an elevator and all of a sudden the floor drops out and down you go, that terrible sensation of falling. I was terrified in the darkness that surrounded me but very aware of the horrible pain burning and searing my entire body, agonizing pain beyond description that would never leave. There were the tortured screams of others but I could see nothing but the darkness. There was no fire, just this dreadful burning pain over every part of me and I knew that this was hell.
“I felt hopelessness—knowing this was for eternity! There was no escape from the nightmare: I wouldn’t wake up; I wouldn’t hit bottom and die; I wouldn’t be rescued by anyone. I would fall and burn in this gruesome place forever and ever and ever, screaming out with all these other lost souls crying out in the darkness, totally helpless as we fell further into the pit of hell. Not even God entered into this place and the torture would go on forever and ever and ever. There is no way to describe the terror that filled me, realizing that I actually sent myself to hell through my choice of not believing. I had chosen this. I had chosen not to believe in God.
“I felt a separation, as if I had never existed. There is no lonelier place than separation from God. I saw no flames, just total darkness and the sensation of burning. I heard many people screaming but I saw no one. It was a dark, desolate, horrible place with no hope of escape. I felt the hopelessness of being lost in torment, separated from God for eternity.”
But Kat’s experience didn’t end there. As with many frightening NDEs, hers eventually turned around and became peaceful. In Kat’s case, even though she had been an atheist for her previous twenty-six years, she cried out for help from God:
“As I was falling, burning in this horrifying place, I cried out to God, begging him to forgive me. I pleaded that he would release me from this place. Then the torture stopped. It just stopped! The loud, piercing, howling noise that rang through my ears and the horrendous feeling of burning and tearing through the middle of my body stopped, and I knew without any doubt: ‘There is a God.’ I was filled with the perfect peace of God, a peace that cannot ever be described, peace that transcends all understanding. There was no fear, pain, anxiety, or emotions of any kind. Everything was overcome by a feeling of worship towards God and of really knowing Him. So I went from being a total nonbeliever to a person who has no doubt.”
God
Tracy, a twenty-seven-year-old agnostic who had an NDE when she skidded on black ice and crashed into a tow truck, described to me her sense of merging with a divine presence:
“I felt completely surrounded and taken up in an indescribably warm and loving Omnipresence of Light. The serenity and unconditional love emanating from it through me is beyond verbal description. Direct, unimpeded transference of thought, more like a shared knowingness, was washing through every cell of my being. IT was me and IT was not me. I was IT and I was not IT. I was in IT, of IT, yet still simultaneously my individual unique beingness. I knew myself to be preciously priceless to this Presence of Light and Sound, as if I was an atom of IT. A drop of the ocean is the essence of the ocean, though not the ocean; the ocean is not complete except for the existence of the presence of every single drop of which it is composed. That is how I related to the Light and Sound in which I was immersed.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Well, this guy is a double helping of Nazi with extra Nazi sauce on the side. But, he was also an impressive combat pilot specializing in dive bombing and tank hunting. How this man's Stuka ever got off the ground with his gigantic iron cahones is a mystery. I gather this account was given some scrubbing before publication during the Cold War to make it palatable. His post war activities in South America are disturbing but that's not in the book.

Personal accounts so close to the event tend to be self serving and skewed. I have a book by Saburō Sakai I've been meaning to get to and it has the same basic problem. But if you're interested in history you have to look at it from all angles minus the moral indignation if you want to get a more complete picture in your head.

That said, even if you divide everything he says by two you still have a helluva story. Gets better in the second half. This guy literally knew and interacted with all the major players. Not many people openly defied orders given by Hitler personally and lived to talk about it.


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Standingstones

Celestial
Around this time every year I begin to purchase books I will read over the winter. I have been watching videos of Jordan Peterson as of late. He continually mentions Solzhenitsyn. I purchased volume one of the “Gulag Archipelago”. This could be a daunting read for me. Gulag is actually three volumes of around 700 pages each. I tend to peter out on long books such as these but I am going to try getting to the end of book one.
 

wwkirk

Divine
This is the best place I'm currently aware of for "bootleg" PDFs and eBooks. They have a very large library on many subjects. Mostly items originally from notable publishers. (For really obscure documents, a good option is archive.org.) I've been utilizing them since 2019 with no virus or any other problem.

You can download a certain number of titles for free daily. If you want more, then a donation will empower you for a month. I do believe you have to register to access the content they provide.

I am not at all averse to purchasing physical books, and don't even like reading a screen. But I don't really need or want a physical copy of everything that I might have a limited interest in, or want to consult for reference purposes. Also, as I listen to a lot of audiobooks, I often like to get an e-copy to go along with them, to check spelling, review details, etc.

 

nivek

As Above So Below
This is the best place I'm currently aware of for "bootleg" PDFs and eBooks. They have a very large library on many subjects. Mostly items originally from notable publishers. (For really obscure documents, a good option is archive.org.) I've been utilizing them since 2019 with no virus or any other problem.

You can download a certain number of titles for free daily. If you want more, then a donation will empower you for a month. I do believe you have to register to access the content they provide.

I am not at all averse to purchasing physical books, and don't even like reading a screen. But I don't really need or want a physical copy of everything that I might have a limited interest in, or want to consult for reference purposes. Also, as I listen to a lot of audiobooks, I often like to get an e-copy to go along with them, to check spelling, review details, etc.


Surprisingly they have the Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll, all the volumes as well...

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