Merkabah

[sprinkles]

Moreover I would argue that you are Buddha. Everyone is. I'm not even a Buddhist but I'm still Buddha. It's more about the awareness than the end result.

It is as simple as taking your natural place because your spiritual nature is already there and ready to go.

 

[apemon]

Moreover I would argue that you are Buddha. Everyone is. I'm not even a Buddhist but I'm still Buddha. It's more about the awareness than the end result.

It is as simple as taking your natural place because your spiritual nature is already there and ready to go.

Yepper. Just get rid of the crap that's in the way.

 

[sprinkles]

Yepper. Just get rid of the crap that's in the way.

Yeah. You don't even technically need the 5 precepts. Though they certainly don't hurt anything. And as guidelines they can assist you. Technically speaking I do follow all five of them (avoiding intoxicants more recently) but still, they're only to help me along. Following them doesn't guarantee anything.

 

[Skarekrow]

Here is good article on Swedenborg’s view on spirituality…it’s an interesting read.

SPIRITUALITY IN A NEW LIGHT
​

David J. Fekete, Ph.D.

Emanuel Swedenborg offers a new approach to spirituality for free thinking individuals. Swedenborg was a highly respected Swedish scientist-nobleman of the eighteenth century. His years are 1688-1772. His father was a Lutheran bishop. After extensive schooling in Sweden and England, Swedenborg was appointed Extraordinary Assessor of the Swedish mines to the Swedish House of Nobles. This was an important position because iron was Sweden’s primary economic product.

Swedenborg published prolifically. His first major work was a book of physics called The Principia. He then turned his intellect to a search for the human soul. Influenced by Aristotle, who held that the human soul was the organizing power of the human body, Swedenborg, accordingly, began an extensive study of human anatomy. His first publication on anatomy was a two volume work entitled The Workings of the Soul’s Kingdom. This wasn’t enough for him, and he next turned out another thorough study of anatomy called The Soul’s Kingdom.

In 1745 he had a mystical experience of God’s presence that dramatically influenced his later life and writings. To illustrate how profound this experience was we can consider a work of theology he wrote but never published. The work I am referring to is three volumes of scripture interpretation. He entitled it The Word Explained. In this work, he followed traditional Lutheran theology, including the doctrine of the Trinity. But he abandoned this three volume work and never sought to publish it. The manuscript still survives and it shows how radically his theological views changed after his visionary encounter with God.

Swedenborg spent the rest of his life writing theology. He completed thirty volumes, which I will try to condense in this brief essay. Although Swedenborg often uses terms from traditional Christianity, his use of them almost always requires redefinition. His ideas differed so much from Swedish Lutheranism that the Swedish Church summoned a council to examine Swedenborg’s ideas. He was declared heretical and forbidden to publish in Sweden. Swedenborg continued to publish theology primarily in England.

Some of the key doctrines that caused such an outcry from the Swedish Lutheran Church were Swedenborg’s position on Justification and his idea of the Godhead. The doctrine of Justification by faith alone was Luther’s key contribution to Christian thought and Swedenborg rejects this entirely. The doctrine states that God the Father was angry with the human race for all their sins, caused by Adam’s original disobedience and passed down to all humanity from him. So God sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice on the cross. By Christ’s innocent death on the cross, all human sin was justified to God for those who have faith that Christ died for them.

Swedenborg rejects this doctrine. God’s infinite love for the whole human race is perpetual. God never was, never is angry with humanity. God always looks upon the human race with love. According to Swedenborg, God came down to earth as Jesus when the world was in need of healing. Jesus taught the ways of love and restored order to creation. God is now immediately present to the whole human race through the human body taken on at birth in Bethlehem which was made fully divine. As the Divine-Human, God brings healing love to us in our own form.

Swedenborg also rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. He considers the idea that there are three persons of God who are one in essence polytheism. No one can understand three persons who are one. And those who hold to the trinity inevitably claim it has to be taken on faith, since the mind can’t understand it. When I was in graduate school, I had a friend who held the traditional Christian doctrine of the trinity. I confess to feeling a little perverse one day and I decided to press my friend’s theology to its logical extreme. I said, “It’s time for you to come clean. How many feet does God have?” He thought for a few minutes and then said with complete conviction, “six”. In other words, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–three persons, six feet.

But Swedenborg rejects blind faith or mystery as religious methodologies. If a person doesn’t understand a given belief, it never becomes a part of their soul. And a large part of spiritual growth for Swedenborg is growing in one’s understanding of theology and how to live lovingly. One phrase from his theology that captures this perspective is, “now it is permitted to enter the mysteries of faith with the intellect.” Swedenborg is at pains to reason out all of his theological assertions. A God that can’t be understood is as if God isn’t there.

For Swedenborg, there is one God who is the perfect union of infinite love acting through infinite wisdom. We are created in the image and likeness of God and accordingly have a love and wisdom component to our lives. Swedenborg also uses the terms good and truth almost analogously to love and wisdom. When he talks about the human soul, Swedenborg uses the terms will and understanding. These latter two terms refer to our emotional component and our judging ability. As we grow spiritually, our will, or emotions become God and neighbor centered. Our understanding teaches our emotions how to love intelligently.

Human life for Swedenborg is to be lived in freedom in accordance with reason. God zealously guards human freedom. But with our freedom comes the injunction to live rationally. Our rational mind is formed by study of the Bible, theology and by our life’s experience. This wisdom works on our emotions and modifies them into spiritual loves. Swedenborg claims that from childhood, we have certain experiences of nearness with God through the innocence of childhood. These early experiences of godliness can become eclipsed in adult life as our ego develops. We can become driven by love of self and a love of worldly honor, reputation, and profit. While psychology today teaches that we should love ourselves, for Swedenborg this can become spiritually harmful. In the Gospels, we are taught to love the neighbor as ourselves. This balanced self-love is in order with spirituality. But when we put our personal interests above others this can impede our love for our fellows. The height of self love is to have contempt for others compared with ourselves and we may desire to compel others to bend to our will. It takes continual spiritual nourishment to keep our loves on good will for others and a love of service.

For Swedenborg, we are created to be useful to the world and to our neighbors. Spiritually healthy people love to perform useful acts for society and for people individually. Swedenborg adopts the traditional Protestant doctrine that through our occupations we serve society and the neighbor. A love of useful work is the same as love for the neighbor. I think in our society today, this is an idealistic doctrine. Few of us actually have the good fortune to work at an occupation that we love to do. Mostly we work to pay bills. Those who find Robert Frost’s position of uniting their vocation with their avocation are lucky indeed. But Swedenborg still claims that if we work in order to be useful to society we are loving the neighbor. But he is not against wealth. In fact, he claims that many wealthy people have a spiritual disposition and they do not dwell on their riches. The only problem he has with wealth is when one sets one’s heart on the perpetual accumulation of wealth as an end in itself. Then profit becomes the heart and soul of the individual, with the consequence of neglecting the neighbor and the joy of useful work.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was intrigued by Swedenborg’s doctrine of “correspondences”. Swedenborg sees the whole natural world as a symbol for spirituality and the human soul. The sun represents God. The east represents spiritual rebirth as it is the dawn of a new day. But here I need to define rebirth. It has nothing in common with “born again” Christianity. Rebirth is rather growth over a lifetime as we care less about self-interest and become more and more centered on God and the neighbor. Light corresponds to truth. Stars represent faith, which for Swedenborg is the internal assent to theological ideas that our intellect has reasoned out. Heat corresponds to love. Harmless animals represent all the many good affections one possesses as a part of their emotional makeup. Savage animals represent destructive and harmful passions. Trees represent truths with all the many ancillary branches of knowledge that go into making a whole system of truth.

With nature identified with parts of the human soul, Swedenborg interprets the Bible symbolically, using the imagery in it to represent spiritual growth. One interesting application of this symbolic interpretation of the Bible is how Swedenborg handles the creation story. For him, it represents the process of spiritual development each individual goes through. First there is light, which is the dawning in our consciousness that there is a God. Separating the waters above from the waters below is a re-ordering of our priorities from self-interest to God-interest, which is the sky. The tender herb that first grows on the earth is the beginning of our good works. The stars are faith, which is the intellectual assent to truth, wherever it is found. The animals are affections in accord with godliness. The creation of man and woman is the perfection of religious life, when a person acts spontaneously according to love through truth that has become a part of one’s makeup.

With this metaphorical interpretation of the Bible, Swedenborg retains the whole Bible. A lot of Christians hold that Christ undid all of the Old Law and instituted a New Law. For them, the Old Testament is more or less null and void. But for Swedenborg, the Old Testament is still theologically valid. The battles that are recorded in it are symbolic of the internal conflict a growing individual faces as one wrestles with the seductions of worldliness versus the call of the spirit. And Swedenborg details with a tediousness the various temptations a spiritually growing person faces--seductions of sensuality, pride, selfishness and the many experiences that come between love for the neighbor and love of God.

Swedenborg’s theology takes two forms. One form is carefully reasoned theology and psychological insight. This rigorous Eighteenth-Century influence, although controversial to traditional Christianity, can at least be defended intellectually. But the other form his theology takes is a series of visionary accounts of the spiritual world, life after death. This brilliant scientist made the striking claim that he saw into the spiritual world and narrated its nature. His descriptions of the world after life can be considered empirical if one can accept the notion that they are based on his experience. This is an exceptional claim that leaves many people behind. Whether or not Swedenborg saw into the spiritual world or not is a leap of faith. But what he came up with I find appealing and utterly different than what traditional Christians believe.

We can begin by considering human nature here. For Swedenborg, we are spiritual beings with a material body. Our material body is activated by our spiritual souls. When we die, our matter is separated from our soul. But we don’t end up clouds or energy or ghosts. Since it activated our whole material body, our souls are in complete bodily form. We have hands and feet, heart and lungs, organs of generation–in short, a complete human form. We meet with our loved ones and live in a community of like minded individuals. We continue to grow along the lines we have cultivated in this world, growing eternally into deeper love and brighter illumination.

He does describe a heaven and hell. But one chooses where one wants to go. Here, one of Swedenborg’s most radical redefinitions of traditional theology can be found. There are none of the mythic symbols of the afterlife: no fire, pitchforks, Satan, harps, or clouds. The next life is a continuation of the life one has acquired here. If one loves God and the neighbor one congregates with others who feel the same way. If one loves self first, and desires to dominate over others, one congregates with others who feel the same way. So heaven is a place where everyone loves each other and hell is a place where everyone wants to dominate over each other. But let me re-emphasize, these locales are chosen. God does not damn anyone. Furthermore, heaven and hell are not geographical places, they are states of mind.

Swedenborg’s correspondences enter into his description of the spiritual world. Even as he uses light and heat to symbolize truth and love, he claims that the climate of heaven and hell is physically felt according to emotional and cognitive aspects of the soul. And in an inversion of traditional Christianity, hell isn’t burning. It is heaven’s atmosphere that is warm with love and brilliant with truth. If one has incorporated love and truth into one’s life on earth, one feels comfortable in the light and heat of heaven. People who have freely rejected love feel uncomfortable in heaven’s heat and prefer the cold of hell.

Here, Swedenborg’s doctrine of free will is most prominent. God wants everyone to be in God’s heavenly world of love. But some, of their own free will reject love. God can’t force anyone to love. To compel love is a contradiction in terms. Still, God is continually influencing people to love. But in Swedenborg’s theology, some just won’t have it. Allow me a bit of polemic here. A look at the world as it is can bring the most charitably disposed to question whether evil is, in fact, real. And it seems some dig in their heels and are simply mean and selfish. Swedenborg’s unfortunate conclusion is if someone has spent an entire life in rampant self-interest, what kind of miracle would make them different after they die? What kind of miracle can make a mean-spirited individual change a life they have spent their entire existence cultivating? Can God force anyone to love?

But Swedenborg’s claim is that it is not hard to live the life that leads to heaven. All we need to do is live kindly, take into account our neighbor’s welfare, and recognize the source of our life and love in God. Even here on earth, we can taste the nature of heaven as we experience joy in our loving relationships and when we do good things. Heaven is just that for Swedenborg: a loving community where persons perform useful activities that they love to do and that serve the greater good. Thus heaven is much like an idealform of earthly life. “On earth as it is in heaven.” For Swedenborg, it is not hard to live the life that leads to heaven. And isn’t a life of love and wisdom a good way to live anyway?

 

[muir]

http://ndestories.org/dr-rajiv-parti/

This one…Dr. Parti.
I used to work with him during surgery quite frequently…I remember he wanted to become sort of a Depak Chopra likeness guru purely for the money…he would talk about it quite often.
He even stole an analogy I was floating about during surgery on one occasion and used it as part of his philosophy (that he came up with) in a beginning stage of writings that he started to pass around (An analogy about floating down the river of life).
He was a prick…his NDE is particularly interesting because he went to Hell…and not only that but was tortured.
I actually happen to believe that he had an NDE, even though he is making the rounds in guru fashion.
I think he was this continuance of his material self from previous lives crying out to be shown a fraction of the truth…and this manifested in his asshole self wanting to transform just to make money….I think he got more than he bargained for in other words.
He was shown exactly what his deeds were leading him…that makes sense to me having known the guy.
Good to see he is enlightened.

Wow talk about a turn around!

So he went to the bardo and had a rough ride, came back and strightened out

The way he was tortured is a bit like people beign abducted by ET's and having intrusive procedures done on them

I'm kinda fascinated by this idea that we don't need to have an NDE to go and have our heart weighed but can process that stuff now in this life by using things like ayahuasca to work through it in this life

These stories of people haveing these random health issues that provide them with a spiritual experience (NDE).....they're a gift in a sense but i wonder if our society couldn't find a way to make such experiences accessible to more people; i know on one level its a horrible thought but i wonder if technology will one day be able to trigger our brains to have experiences

So you go to the NDE centre and sit down and they then put a device on your head and spark an NDE!

The whole ayahuasca experience sounds pretty involving and i've heard a few horror stories of people hooking up with the wrong kind of people; nevertheless its on my bucket list

I feel my own culture had a mushroom cult in the past that probably guided people through the process and it's a shame society lost that but i think it was deliberately stripped away by the roman church

 

[Skarekrow]

Wow talk about a turn around!

So he went to the bardo and had a rough ride, came back and strightened out

The way he was tortured is a bit like people beign abducted by ET's and having intrusive procedures done on them

I'm kinda fascinated by this idea that we don't need to have an NDE to go and have our heart weighed but can process that stuff now in this life by using things like ayahuasca to work through it in this life

These stories of people haveing these random health issues that provide them with a spiritual experience (NDE).....they're a gift in a sense but i wonder if our society couldn't find a way to make such experiences accessible to more people; i know on one level its a horrible thought but i wonder if technology will one day be able to trigger our brains to have experiences

So you go to the NDE centre and sit down and they then put a device on your head and spark an NDE!

The whole ayahuasca experience sounds pretty involving and i've heard a few horror stories of people hooking up with the wrong kind of people; nevertheless its on my bucket list

I feel my own culture had a mushroom cult in the past that probably guided people through the process and it's a shame society lost that but i think it was deliberately stripped away by the roman church

Absolutely…they took away the gate to Eden from us all!
There is strong evidence that the reason that our ancestors began to draw images on the walls of caves millions of years ago could correspond to them discovering psychedelics. Some even float the idea that it was that that sparked our current evolution.
And one has to ask…why even have receptors for DMT in our brain? Because we ourselves produce it. Well then, why would something growing in nature firstly produce a neurochemical? What benefit to the plant?
The interesting thing is that we are learning that it is CLEARLY beneficial to us…from cluster migraines to fear of death cognitive therapy…they are finding more and more uses.
There is also good evidence that Jesus was the parabolic physical representation of a magic mushroom.
“You shall not eat of the fruit lest they becomes God(s) like (us)."

Many don’t believe that they are seeing hallucinations when they ingest such things…some believe that you are indeed opening sights and realms that you couldn’t see before.
They also believe they are communicating with higher realms (or lower).
I find it very interesting.

 

[Skarekrow]

AWAREness Beyond Death?

-----------------

​

A critical care doctor and expert in the field of resuscitation, Sam Parnia has been fascinated with the question of what happens to consciousness at the moment of death since the time he lost a patient as a student doctor at the age of 22.

Parnia’s joint fascination with resuscitation and the near-death experience (NDE) led him to establish the AWARE project, which is now a major collaboration between doctors and researchers in the coronary units of medical centers and hospitals across the globe.

Dedicated to exploring and advancing our knowledge of these two inter-related areas, it began with an 18 month pilot study restricted to just a few hospitals in the United Kingdom, before the AWARE project proper launched on September 11, 2008 with the investigation extended to more locations, including some in Europe and the United States.

To examine the veridical out-of-body experience component of near-death experiences, Parnia and his team installed approximately one thousand shelves high up on walls within rooms in the emergency, coronary and intensive care wards of participating hospitals, though they were unable to cover all beds due to time and financial constraints – with 25 participating hospitals, the total number of shelves they would have needed to install for full coverage would have been closer to 12,500.

On these shelves they placed a hidden ‘target’, which they hoped patients who had OBEs might report back on after being successfully resuscitated. By targeting these specific wards they were hoping to cover some 80% of cardiac arrest events with their ‘shelf test’.

In the first four years of the study, AWARE has received a total of more than four thousand cardiac arrest event reports – some three per day.

But while four thousand events may seem a good sample size for in-depth research into veridical NDEs, it must be remembered that these are cardiac arrests – not ‘heart attacks’, with which many people confuse the term, but cases in which the heart has completely stopped beating.

As such, in only a third of those cases were medical staff able to resuscitate the patient – and then, only half of those critically-ill survivors remained alive to a point where they could be interviewed by the AWARE team.

Further, those medical staff doing interviews on behalf of the AWARE study had to do so around their normal daily duties, and so not all patients were able to be interviewed post-resuscitation (especially so if they came in on the weekend).

And, unfortunately, the team’s coverage of cardiac arrest events via shelf positioning was lower than hoped – only 50% occurred in a location with a shelf, rather than the hoped-for 80%.

Now, given that near-death experiences were only reported by 5% of survivors in the AWARE study, and that the out-of-body experience only occurs in a low percentage of NDEs, you might begin to see the problem.

Out of some 4000 cardiac arrest events, the AWARE team was left with little more than a hundred cases in which a patient with a shelf in their room reported back after their resuscitation, and then only 5 to 10 of those actually had an NDE.

In all, after four years, and four thousand recorded cardiac arrest events, the AWARE study has at this stage documented a grand total of just two out-of-body experience reports during cardiac arrest.

Nevertheless, the few NDEs recorded thus far very much conform to the archetypal experience.
One of Parnia’s AWARE colleagues, Ken Spearpoint, recounted one patient’s experience:

His journey commenced by travelling through a tunnel towards a very strong light, which didn’t dazzle him or hurt his eyes. Interestingly, he said that there were other people in the tunnel, whom he did not recognize.

When he emerged he described a very beautiful crystal city and I quote “I have seen nothing more beautiful.” He said there was a river that ran through.

There were many people, without faces, who were washing in the waters.
He said that when the people were washing it made their clothes very bright and shiny.

He said the people were very beautiful and I asked him if he recalled hearing anything – he said that there was the most beautiful singing, which he described as a choral – as he described this he was very powerfully moved to tears.

His next recollection was looking up at a doctor doing chest compressions!
For the patient this was a profound spiritual experience, and certainly powerful for me too…unfortunately the event was not in a research area [an area with a board].


​

It wasn’t until 2011 that the AWARE study had its first out-of-body experience report.
A 57-year-old man had suffered a cardiac arrest in the cardiac catheterization laboratory in Southampton General Hospital (in the United Kingdom), but unfortunately, in the heads-or-tails odds of whether the patient was in a room with a shelf, Parnia called wrong: the out-of-body experience occurred in an area where there was no target for the patient to view.

Nevertheless, the patient was keen to recount his story – despite his family having told him it was likely just an effect of the drugs used – saying he believed “it was important” to tell others about it.

The patient, ‘Mr. A’, had been at work, and started feeling a bit odd.
Being a diabetic, he immediately checked his blood sugar level, but it was fine.

He continued to feel increasingly unwell, until he finally asked his fellow office-workers for assistance when he started feeling short of air. They immediately phoned an ambulance, and when the paramedics arrived and hooked the patient up to an ECG, the gravity of the situation became apparent:

[T]hey wanted to whisk me off and not talk to me and just do it. Do you know what I mean, doctor?
That unnerved me a little bit because I am not used to anything like that, so I said, “Hang on, what are you doing?” They said, “We need to get you to hospital.” Anyway, they did.

…I can remember coming into the [hospital bay] … and a nurse came on board.
[The paramedics] had told me a nurse called Sarah would come to meet me when I arrived…

She came on board the ambulance like they said she would and then she said, “Mr. A, I am the most important person in your life at the moment.

I am going to ask you some questions and I want you to answer every one of them.” I said yes.

I can remember that I wanted to sleep all the time at that stage and all she kept trying to do, it felt like, was to keep me awake and talk with her.

Do you understand what I mean?
And that’s how it was with her.


​

The medical team brought Mr. A into the catheterization laboratory in the hospital on a trolley, and placed a sterile drape across his upper body so that they could work on him without him seeing what was happening.

As such, he didn’t notice when the doctor arrived, nor when the team gave him a local anaesthetic so that they could push a wire into the blood vessel in his groin to feed it up to the heart.

At this stage, the patient said, he was still talking to the nurse Sarah, when “all of a sudden, I wasn’t”.
Mr. A’s heart had stopped beating. But instead of blacking out, as should be the case once blood flow to the brain stops, the patient said he left his body:

I can remember vividly an automated voice saying, “Shock the patient, shock the patient,” and with that, up in that corner of the room [he pointed to the far corner of the room], there was a person beckoning me.

I can see her now, and I can remember thinking (but not saying) to myself, “I can’t get up there.”
The next second I was up there and I was looking down at me, the nurse Sarah, and another man who had a bald head…

I didn’t even know there was another man standing there.
I hadn’t seen him.

Not until I went up in that corner – then I saw them.
You understand what I am saying?


​

It’s interesting to note here that Mr. A seems to have had a cross-over between a death-bed vision and a near-death experience.
A large number of death-bed vision reports discuss the apparition as being up in the corner of the room.

Similarly, Mr. A initially saw a person in the corner of the room from his ‘death-bed’ perspective, and then in an instant he was ‘up there’ with them.

Mr A. went on, describing his view of the man with the bald head who was working on his body, whom he hadn’t noticed from his bodily view due to the sterile drape.

I could see all this side of them.
[He pointed to the back.] As clear as the day I could see that. [He pointed to an object.]

The next thing I remember is waking up on that bed.
And these are the words that Sarah said to me: “Oh you nodded off then, Mr. A. You are back with us now.”

Whether she said those words, whether that automated voice really happened, I don’t know—only you would know those things.
I don’t know how to be able to confirm that those things did happen.

I am only telling you what happened with me and what I experienced.

I couldn’t see his face but I could see the back of his body.
He was quite a chunky fella, he was.

He had blue scrubs on, and he had a blue hat, but I could tell he didn’t have any hair, because of where the hat was.


​

The robotic-sounding voice that Mr. A had heard initially was an automated external defibrillator (AED), an electronic system that can detect when the heart has stopped beating regularly and is fibrillating, and which issues feedback to the user if an electric shock needs to be administered to the heart.

Despite being in cardiac arrest, Mr. A. was able to correctly describe the command given by the AED, as well as describe the doctor in attendance, even though he had not previously seen him due to the drape across his chest.

Ultimately, however, to skeptics of the NDE this is yet another ‘anecdotal report’, inadmissible in the court of science.
We will have to wait and see if the AWARE study is able to produce something more conclusive in the years ahead.

Though four years have elapsed since the AWARE study was set in motion, and the results so far have shown the difficulty in investigating the out-of-body experience component, Sam Parnia is as keen as ever to continue on with the research, and also to improve the procedures.

For instance, he notes that in the case of Mr. A., a shelf in the room might not have made any difference, as the patient said he was floating in the opposite corner of the room, well away from where the shelf would have been placed.

Perhaps a review of the most reported OBE viewing positions might allow for better targeting in future?

But this tail-chasing has some researchers more skeptical of the chances of the study finding evidence for veridical OBEs.
Dr. Bruce Greyson of the Division of Perceptual Studies is associated with the AWARE study, but he holds doubts that it will yield any meaningful results when it comes to veridical OBEs.

“If you were to ask travellers the name on the ID badge of the TSA agent who beckoned them through the metal detector on their last flight, it is highly unlikely any could identify that ‘target’,” Greyson explains to me. “The designated target – the TSA ID badge – was right in front of them to see, but they had no reason to pay attention to it, and no reason to remember it if they had seen it”.

The problem with the experiment, he says, is in the design, which doesn’t include any reason to expect that experiencers would see or remember the designated target. “Patients who report leaving their bodies in the midst of a near-death crisis have no reason to notice a randomly-chosen target planted in a corner of the room that has no particular significance for them,” Greyson asserts, “and if they do happen to see it, they have no reason to remember it.
So I do not expect meaningful data from the AWARE study, although it is better than not doing any research at all”.

Nevertheless, the AWARE study does survey a variety of aspects of the NDE beyond just veridical perception, allowing other possible insights into its mysteries.

For instance, from the data so far Parnia has also been able to put forward a possible reason for why so many people that are resuscitated don’t remember having a near-death experience.

Noticing a correlation between the length of cardiac arrest and whether an NDE was reported, Parnia suggests that “if a cardiac arrest event is relatively short, then the post-resuscitation inflammation and disease that normally engulf the brain and cause widespread damage (including damage to the memory circuits) are also relatively mild by comparison to someone with a prolonged cardiac arrest”.

As such, says Parnia, those who report detailed near-death experiences may do so “simply because they had suffered less damage to their brains and specifically the memory circuits in the days and weeks after the cardiac arrest”.

For now though, Parnia and his colleagues are continuing to collate data from the cases on their files since 2008, and once finalized will publish their results in a reputable medical journal.

They will then amend any problems with the study that they have noticed in this initial phase: for example, they hope to provide funding for a dedicated member of staff at each medical centre who can attend every single cardiac arrest, possibly with a tablet computer displaying a random target image that they can place in an elevated position in the room, and who would be able to follow up with each patient within days of their resuscitation.

For the rest of us, we’ll just have to wait and see if Sam Parnia and his AWARE colleagues can uncover evidence that the minds of those who die really do ‘leave’ their bodies.

If they do, the discovery would perhaps rank among the greatest discoveries in science, up there with the paradigm-shattering ideas of Copernicus and Einstein.

Mind would no longer be seen as arising from the brain, and our perception of ourselves and our part in the universe would be forever changed.

For extended discussion of the scientific evidence suggesting that consciousness might survive death, grab the ebook or paperback editions of Stop Worrying! There Probably is an Afterlife, available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=5045]Skarekrow[/MENTION]
I find that the stuff is already in your head and a substance just acts like the words on a karaoke screen. It only helps you to perceive and guide you. To prime your brain for working in a higher gear.

It's like saying "Hey, this is possible. Use your imagination."

 

[Skarekrow]

Garrett Lisi: A theory of everything


[video=youtube;y-Gk_Ddhr0M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=y-Gk_Ddhr0M[/video]

Physicist and surfer Garrett Lisi presents a controversial new model of the universe that --
just maybe --
answers all the big questions.

If nothing else, it's the most beautiful 8-dimensional model of elementary particles and forces you've ever seen.​

 

[Skarekrow]

@Skarekrow
I find that the stuff is already in your head and a substance just acts like the words on a karaoke screen. It only helps you to perceive and guide you. To prime your brain for working in a higher gear.

It's like saying "Hey, this is possible. Use your imagination."

That is totally feasible.
Did you know we may perceive more colors than our (even recent) ancestors did?
Many of our oldest texts never give mention to the color blue at all…and represented in many paintings we have as well….they all refer to the sky being black…day or night.

Perhaps not…it’s really untestable.
But interesting to think about nonetheless.

I agree with you about those parts of our brains. I think there probably is great possibility there that remains untapped because we are a culture of crybaby whiners who have to have someone telling them what is good and bad for themselves.

How many times must it be shown that we have had the wool pulled over our eyes for centuries before people wake up?
I think they are beginning to…I think the baby boomers are really the last dying gasps of self-centered ignorance being perpetuated.
At least I hope so.

 

[Skarekrow]

The Extended Mind — Scientific Evidence of Psychic Connections between Humans

[video=youtube;JnA8GUtXpXY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JnA8GUtXpXY[/video]

In this video, Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. sits down to explain all of his findings and research over the past several years.
He has been finding more and more evidence to suggest that mental and emotional communications can happen outside of the physical body.
He postulates that thoughts and emotions travel in waves all around us, and through his experiments, he has the evidence to back that theory up.​

 

[muir]

Absolutely…they took away the gate to Eden from us all!
There is strong evidence that the reason that our ancestors began to draw images on the walls of caves millions of years ago could correspond to them discovering psychedelics. Some even float the idea that it was that that sparked our current evolution.
And one has to ask…why even have receptors for DMT in our brain? Because we ourselves produce it. Well then, why would something growing in nature firstly produce a neurochemical? What benefit to the plant?
The interesting thing is that we are learning that it is CLEARLY beneficial to us…from cluster migraines to fear of death cognitive therapy…they are finding more and more uses.
There is also good evidence that Jesus was the parabolic physical representation of a magic mushroom.
“You shall not eat of the fruit lest they becomes God(s) like (us)."

Many don’t believe that they are seeing hallucinations when they ingest such things…some believe that you are indeed opening sights and realms that you couldn’t see before.
They also believe they are communicating with higher realms (or lower).
I find it very interesting.

Agree with all the above

Something triggered a RAPID advancement in the human brain. Psychadelics are as good a bet as any in my book. Though some say it was ET's but then the likes of mckenna say that mushrooms might be aliens as spores can survive in space! Also the entities experienced on DMT are potentially the 'ET's' in which case they might have advanced humans after humans opened portals to their dimension

I think DMT shifts the frequency of our consciousness so that we switch form our realm to theirs

As the map of the world is filled in the age of exploration is coming to an end but in turning to other realms of consciousness a new golden age of exploration might be beginning!

 

[Skarekrow]

Agree with all the above

Something triggered a RAPID advancement in the human brain. Psychadelics are as good a bet as any in my book. Though some say it was ET's but then the likes of mckenna say that mushrooms might be aliens as spores can survive in space! Also the entities experienced on DMT are potentially the 'ET's' in which case they might have advanced humans after humans opened portals to their dimension

I think DMT shifts the frequency of our consciousness so that we switch form our realm to theirs

As the map of the world is filled in the age of exploration is coming to an end but in turning to other realms of consciousness a new golden age of exploration might be beginning!

Well, there are those that believe this “gate” or the entryways into higher dimensions or higher universes that we access through things like meditation and psychedelics are closely guarded. Both on this side by men who don’t want to see us progress as something spiritual..and in fact fight to keep such things illegal and punishable and to dismiss and discredit any positive findings. Hell, up until just recently, it was illegal for it to even be studied by scientists and medicine…not even under strict conditions.
They told us - It has no use whatsoever.
The same thing they said about marijuana…and now children who used to live in a state of epileptic seizure 24/7 live an almost normal life.
Give me a fucking break.
The Bible was one big psychedelic trip…what’s interesting is how different the Gnostic version was…with the Abrahamic God(s) being the bad guy(s) casting us from the Garden and the snake being the good guy trying to open our eyes.
So far….the Abrahamic deity(s) who slaughtered millions in his(their) name and blocked the gate…the obviously jealous God(s) have been winning.
And I speak of them in plural…because the Gnostic versions of creation CLEARLY look on creation as collaborative amongst the spirits some being more powerful than others. Namely the God Jehovah who was the one who sculpted Adam out of clay, and was always a friend and protector to us human spirits.
Those are supposedly who are fighting to either keep the gates and lines of communication open or closed depending on which side they’re on.
Your guess is as good as mine as to why they would want it closed at all except that there may be some jealously involved in not being able to experience this form of existence.

 

[Skarekrow]

Ayahuasca -- visions of jungle medicine: Adam Oliver Brown at TEDxUOttawa


[video=youtube;OK65pLTocRM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OK65pLTocRM[/video]


Through the story of his experience taking the potent psychedelic brew Ayahuasca with shamans in the jungles of Peru,

Dr. Brown will illustrate the importance of nature conservation for a bright and prosperous future.​

 

[muir]

Well, there are those that believe this “gate” or the entryways into higher dimensions or higher universes that we access through things like meditation and psychedelics are closely guarded. Both on this side by men who don’t want to see us progress as something spiritual..and in fact fight to keep such things illegal and punishable and to dismiss and discredit any positive findings. Hell, up until just recently, it was illegal for it to even be studied by scientists and medicine…not even under strict conditions.
They told us - It has no use whatsoever.
The same thing they said about marijuana…and now children who used to live in a state of epileptic seizure 24/7 live an almost normal life.
Give me a fucking break.
The Bible was one big psychedelic trip…what’s interesting is how different the Gnostic version was…with the Abrahamic God(s) being the bad guy(s) casting us from the Garden and the snake being the good guy trying to open our eyes.
So far….the Abrahamic deity(s) who slaughtered millions in his(their) name and blocked the gate…the obviously jealous God(s) have been winning.
And I speak of them in plural…because the Gnostic versions of creation CLEARLY look on creation as collaborative amongst the spirits some being more powerful than others. Namely the God Jehovah who was the one who sculpted Adam out of clay, and was always a friend and protector to us human spirits.
Those are supposedly who are fighting to either keep the gates and lines of communication open or closed depending on which side they’re on.
Your guess is as good as mine as to why they would want it closed at all except that there may be some jealously involved in not being able to experience this form of existence.

I think the aim is to keep us locked into the realm of the 5 senses

Our 'physical' reality comes from the realm of infinate possiblity

if you can hack into the system you can influence how the 'physical' realm plays out; that is essentially what 'magick' is

The sorcerers behind the control system want to have sole access to the other realms of consciousness; they alone want to be able to influence the play out physical realm

So they push us into left brain thinking which cannot engage with anything it can't see and they block us from connecting with the spirit world

It truely is a war over consciousness and they are trying to root our focus in the material world of the 5 senses so that we cannot access our full intuitive abilities because to do so is to be able to see through their machinations; this is done by balancing the left and right hemispheres in order to fire up the third eye

You've seen how a lot of debates go here...lol

Someone points out the conspiracy and then a left brain dominant person who has not accessed their intuitive capabilities then calls the person 'crazy' because their narrow perception of reality cannot encompass the wider reality that is being presented to them because they have been told a version of reality by the engineers of perception and because they cannot connect with anything intangible because it is the right brain that does that...they literally cannot get their head around it

 

[Skarekrow]

Rupert Sheldrake ~ Morphic Resonance


[video=youtube;MtgLklXZo3U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MtgLklXZo3U[/video]

Rupert Sheldrake qualifies as one of those brilliant thinkers.
Censored by the popular TED Talks series for a provocative presentation challenging materialist science, Rupert's presentation at IGEEM will open your eyes to a new science-based understanding of what we already know to be true...
Energy Medicine works!​

 

[Skarekrow]

One of the more credible NDE experiencers.

[video=youtube;sTU7MfOgDKM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sTU7MfOgDKM[/video]

Ian McCormack - NDE - former atheist - near death experience


Ian was night diving off the island of Mauritius when he was stung multiple times by Box Jellyfish, which are among the most venomous creatures in the world.

Ian is not 100% sure which species of Box Jelllyfish that stung him as it has been very hard to find info from Mauritius on them. Ian suffered as a child from allergies and had to take antihistamines on a regular basis as even a mosquito bite would cause him to swell up, so his reaction to these jellyfish stings was very bad.

His testimony relates how he clung to life while getting to hospital, was declared clinically dead soon afterwards, and how during this time he had an encounter with God, which radically changed the direction of his life.​

 

[Skarekrow]

National Geographic Paranatural 05 Life After Life

[video=youtube;pSfNSTB-Xd8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pSfNSTB-Xd8[/video]

What happens when we die?

Is there an afterlife?

Does consciousness survive physical death?

These are some of the most baffling questions known to us.​

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

Johannes the Vampire Slayer and the Reluctant Revenants​

“There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples” — Bram Stoker


Did you say “Flückinger”? I’m out of here.

Vampire slaying is a rough and tumble business.
Many are called, but few are chosen, and while times may often have looked tough for new recruits in Sunnydale, consider what you might face if you were the designated 18thCentury Imperial Hapsburg monster hunter just a hop, skip, and a jump west of the Carpathians (ancestral haunt of Vlad Dracula and unsurprisingly, Vigo the Carpathian), in what is modern day Serbia.

The 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz ended both the Ottoman-Venetian War (1714-1718) and the Austro-Turkish War (1716-1718) by ceding Ottoman controlled Serbia and northern Bosnia to the Austrian Hapsburg Empire.

Serbia was in rotten shape, heavily depopulated and devastated by two years of war, but the Austrians determined to solve the problem by encouraging immigration of Serbian settlers, particularly those from nearby territories still held by the Ottomans, with land grants in exchange for militia service as an enticement.

As the Hapsburgs tried to re-establish economically viable communities and displaced Serbians began resettling the area, a new problem emerged.

Vampires.

18th Century Serbia was infested with the bloodsuckers.
As the inheritors of the Holy Roman Empire, the Hapsburg monarchy probably figured they had enough theological weight to deal with the issue, which were it to persist, would likely impact real estate values in the Balkans, thus they sent in their appointed vampire slayer, Dr. Johannes Flückinger, Surgeon Major to the Regiment of Furstemburch of the Hapsburg Imperial Army, without even the benefit of a secret identity.

Flückinger arrived at the epicenter of the vampire plague centered in Madveiga, Serbia in 1732, and his adventures are particularly well documented due to the scrupulous official reports he submitted to the Honorable Supreme Command of the Imperial Austrian Army in Vienna, and through diligent investigation and forensic examination, identified patient zero as the undead Arnold Paole (Arnont Paule), a Serbian soldier and hadjuk (a Balkan version of Robin Hood), and as reluctant a revenant as one might ever wish to encounter.

Paole’s non-vampiric career, that he himself reportedly described prior to his unfortunate demise in 1725 involved being stalked and bitten by a Turkish vampire in Gossowa.

Aware as he was of the standard Serbian folkloric prophylactic measures against becoming a vampire once bitten, Paole undertook to scarf down some of the dirt from the offending vampire’s grave and give himself a thorough rubdown in its blood, thenceforth believing he had effectively countered the vampire contagion.

Given that the traditional etiology of the Balkan vampire was that those bitten by a vampire would not themselves become vampires until after they expired, Paole could never be sure that his impromptu decontamination efforts did the trick, and as it turns out it appears they did not, since by most accounts he rose from the dead.

There was no record of the Paole case until Flückinger arrived and documented the origins of the 1732 vampire infestation, tracing it back to Paole’s death seven years earlier.

The Paole affair had been investigated by a local administrative official, and after four more, apparently vampire-related deaths, locals exhumed Paole (and the four additional victims) and performed the requisite stakings and burnings without recourse to higher authorities on the matter.

It was nonetheless common knowledge, openly shared by villagers with Johannes Flückinger.

The well authenticated story of Arnold Paole has frequently been told.
It is vouched for in a document signed in 1732 by three army surgeons, a lieutenant-colonel and a sub-lieutenant, whose joint endorsement should be accepted without question.

Arnold confessed to his young wife that, while abroad, he had been bitten by a vampire.
This, according to the accepted creed, doomed him to become a vampire after death.

He died young, and was accorded — perhaps unwisely — a decent burial.
He then began to haunt the countryside, and those who saw him showed signs of anemia, fell into a decline, and subsequently died.

The military authorities investigated, and exhumed the body of Arnold which had been buried forty days.
The corpse had moved to one side of the coffin, and fresh blood had trickled from its moist lips.

In order to “play safe” and satisfy the insistent demand for entertainment by overwrought villagers, the military authorities drove a stake through the heart, and then burned the body.

This would unquestionably have put an end to the trouble if it had not been for the fact that the unfortunate victims who had been bitten by the ghost of Arnold had themselves become vampires and continued their nocturnal activities until their corpses had been disposed of in a similar manner (Still, 1950, p129).

In 1731, yet another vampire infestation erupted in Madveiga, Serbia and a military doctor named Glaser (the nearest Imperial infectious disease specialist) stationed in a nearby town, was brought in to make inquiries at the request of the local military commander.

Glaser reported a total of thirteen deaths in six weeks, without evidence of previous illness and a rapid decline unto death within days. Some of the victims reported having eaten meat from livestock bitten by vampires (which many said were originally attacked by Paole — who never really wanted to be a vampire in the first place) or having rubbed vampire blood on themselves as a protective measure.

By the time Flückinger arrived on scene in January 1732, seventeen deaths had occurred, but Glaser had thrown up his hands and suggested that it was malnutrition, as he could find no indication of an incipient epidemic of the natural variety.

Glaser filed a report with his superiors suggesting that the Imperial Army fulfill the local request to “execute” the suspected vampire corpses, if for no other reason than to assure the local population that the authorities had things under control.

Austrian Vice-Commandant Botta d’Adorno in Belgrade, upon receiving the report from Glaser did not like the sound of things.
He “sent in the wolf”, which in this case was Johannes Flückinger to open up a can of “whoop-ass” on either the Serbian settlers or the vampires, whoever was more deserving.

Flückinger was thorough.
He did his research and detailed the origins and progression of vampire attacks in Madveiga, compiling a detailed report, witnessed by several other military officials, including autopsies of the suspected corpses for the army command (a portion of which is excerpted below).

Medreyga in Hungary, Jan. 7, 1732. Upon a current Report, that in the Village of Medreyga certain dead Bodies (called here Vampyres) had kill’d several Persons, by sucking out all their Blood, the present Enquiry was made by the honourable Commander in Chief; and Capt. Gofcbutz of the Company of Stallater, the Hadnagi Bariacraf, and the Senior Heyduke of the Village were severally examined; who unanimously declared that about five Years ago a certain Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, was kill’d by the Overturning of a Cart Load of Hay, who in his Life-time was often heard to say, he had been tormented near Caschow, and upon the Borders of Turkish Servia, by a Vampyre; and that to extricate himself, he had eaten some of the Earth of the Vampire’s Graves, and rubb’d himself with their Blood.

That 20 or 30 Days after the Decease of the said Arnold Paul, several Persons complain’d that they were tormented, and that, in short, he had taken away the Lives of four Persons.

In order, therefore, to put a Stop to such a Calamity, the Inhabitants of the Place, after having consulted their Hardnagi, caused the Body of the said Arnold Paul to be taken up, 40 Days after he had been dead, and found the same to be fresh and free from all Manner of Corruption; that he bled at the Nose, Mouth and Ears, as pure and florid Blood as ever was seen; and that his Shroud and Winding-Sheet were all over bloody ; and lastly his Finger and Toe Nails were fallen off and new ones grown in their Room.

As They observed from all these Circumstances, that he was a Vampyre, They according to Custom drove a Stake through his Heart; at which he gave a horrid Groan, and lost a great deal of Blood.

Afterwards They burnt his Body to Ashes the same Day, and threw them into his Grave.
These good Men say farther, that all such as have been tormented, or kill’d by Vampyres, become Vampyres when they are dead; and therefore They served several other dead Bodies as They had done Arnold Paul’s, for tormenting the Living.

Signed, Batruer, first Lieutenant of the Regiment of Alexander; Flückinger, Surgeon Major to the Regiment of Furstemburch; three other Surgeons; Gurfchitz, Captain at Stallath (D’Anvers, 1732, p120-122).

Flückinger concluded that the corpses he examined were das Vampyrenstand(“in a vampiric condition”), enlisted the help of local Gypsies, beheading the bodies, burning them, scattering the ashes in a river, and re-intering the headless bodies in fresh graves, effectively ending the vampire reign of terror in Madveiga.

The investigative and historical quality of both Glaser and Flückinger’s reports was such that the case garnered enormous amounts of attention throughout Europe, sparking a debate about whether the dead could rise, and what the nature of vampires was.

In 1731, seven years after these events, seventeen persons died in the village near about one time.
The memory of the unlucky Arnold recurred to the villagers; the vampyre theory was again appealed; he was believed to have dealt with the seventeen as he had previously dealt with the four; and they were therefore disinterred, the heads cut off, the hearts staked, the bodies burned, and the ashes dispersed.

One supposition was that Arnold had vampyrised some cattle, that the seventeen villagers had eaten of the beef, and had fallen victims in consequence.

This affair attracted much attention at the time. Louis the XV directed the Ambassador at Vienna to make inquiries in the matter.

Many of the witnesses attested on oath that the disinterred bodies were full of blood, and exhibited few of the usual symptoms of death — indications which the believers in vampyres stoutly maintained to be always present in such cases.

This has induced many physicians to think that real cases of catalepsy or trance were mixed up with the popular belief, and were supplemented by a large allowance of epidemic fanaticism (Clark, 1873, p248-249).

Even the King of France, Louis XV (1710-1774) caught wind of the happenings in Serbia and requested his ministers obtain copies of the Glaser and Flückinger assessments, presumably passing them own to his own royal monster hunters as important reference material.

In a newspaper published in the reign of Louis XV there appeared an announcement to the effect that Arnold Paul, a native of Madveiga, being crushed to death by a wagon and buried, had since become a vampire, and that he had been previously bitten by one.

The authorities being informed of the terror his visits were occasioning, and several people having died with all the symptoms of vampirism, his grave was opened; and although he had been dead forty days his body was like that of a very full-blooded, living man.

Following the mode of exorcism traditionally observed on such occasions, a stake was driven into the corpse, whereupon it uttered a frightful cry–half human and half animal; after which its head was cut off, and trunk and head burned.

Four other bodies which had died from the consequences of the bites, and which were found in the same perfectly healthy condition, were served in a similar manner; and it was hoped these vigorous measures would end the mischief.

But no such thing; cases of deaths from the same cause–i.e., loss of blood–still continued, and five years afterwards became so rife that the authorities were compelled to take the matter up for the second time.

On this occasion the graves of many people, of all ages and both sexes, were opened, and the bodies of all those suspected of plaguing the living by their nocturnal visits were found in the vampire state–full almost to overflowing with blood, and free from every symptom of death.

On their being served in the same manner as the corpse of Arnold Paul the epidemic of vampirism ceased, and no more cases of it have since been reported as occurring in that district.

A rumour of these proceedings reaching the ears of Louis XV, he at once ordered his Minister at Vienna to report upon them. This was done.

The documents forwarded to the King (and which are still in existence) give a detailed account of all the occurrences to which I have referred.

They bear the date of June 7, 1732, and are signed and witnessed by three surgeons and several other persons (O’Donnell, 1912, p134-135).

The incidents in Medveiga were discussed in the learned academies of the time, with even the pious and well-known Benedictine monk Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672-1757) authoring an entire well-received treatise on the “Apparitions of spirits and vampires, or ghosts of Hungary, Moravia “.

Contemporary reviewers of Calmet’s work describe his efforts in an idiom that modern anomalists can appreciate, saying “The learned Germans got up dissertations on vampires and vampirism: the French press did the same: the most moderate (among whom was Dom. Calmet himself) did not dare wholly to deny the possibility of the reappearance of deceased persons; though they inclined to discharge the devil from the imputation of creating vampires.

The Doctors of the Sorbonne commended the work of Dom. Calmet for avoiding two rocks, equally fatal, said they, on the subject of reappearances–that of vain credulity, on the one hand, that of dangerous phyrhonism, on the other.

It should seem, therefore, that he concluded, somewhat like Dr. Johnson, “Why, Sir, all testimony is for it; and all argument is against it” (Cabinet of Curiosities, 1824, p167).

Calmet ultimately equivocated on whether vampires were real or not, but pointed out that the Serbian infestation had certainly engendered some problematic medical and spiritual questions.

A little before he says, that in 1732 they discovered again some vampires in Hungary, Moravia, and Turkish Serbia; that this phenomenon is too well averred for it to be doubted; that several German physicians have composed pretty thick volumes in Latin and German on this matter; that the Germanic Academies and Universities still resound with the names of Arnold Paul, of Stanoska, daughter of Sovitzo, and of the Heyducq Millo, all famous vampires of the quarter of Medreiga, in Hungary (Calmet, 1850, p55).

So well known and well documented was the 18th Century Serbian rash of vampires that even notable French writer Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) included a discussion of the subject in his memoirs.

But indeed it is a known, registered and well established fact!
Do you doubt it? . . .

Read Don Calmet’s Traitt des apparitions, vol ii. pp. 41; you will find a record signed by the hadnagi Barriavar and the ancient hei’duques; further by Battiw, first lieutenant of the regiment of Alexander of Wurtemberg; by Clercktinger, surgeon-major of the Fiirstenberg regiment; by three other surgeons of the company and by Goltchitz, captain at Slottats, stating that in the year 1730, a month after the death of a certain heiduque, who lived in Medreiga, named Arnold-Paul, who had been crushed by the fall of a hay waggon, four people died suddenly, and, from the nature of their death, according to the traditions of the country, it was evident that they had been the victims of vampirism; they then called to mind that, during his life, this Amold-Paul had often related how, in the neighbourhood of Cossova, on the Turko-Servian frontier, he had been worried by a Turkish vampire,

–for they too hold the belief that those who have been passive vampires during their lives become active vampires after their death,

–but that he had found a cure in the eating of earth from the vampire’s grave, and in rubbing himself with its blood, precautions which did not prevent him from becoming a vampire after his death; for, four persons having died, they thought the deed was due to him, and they exhumed his body forty days after his burial: he was quite recognisable, and his body bore the colour of life; his hair, his nails and his beard had grown;

his veins were filled with a bloody fluid, which exuded from all parts of his body upon the shroud in which he was wrapped round: the hadnagi, or bailiff of the place, in the presence of those who performed the act of exhumation, and who was a man experienced in cases of vampirism, caused a very sharp stake to be driven through the heart of the said Arnold-Paul, after the usual custom, piercing his body through and through, a frightful cry escaping from his lips, as though he were alive;

this act accomplished, they cut off his head, burned him to ashes, and did the same with the corpses of the four or five other victims of vampirism, lest they, in their turn, should cause the deaths of others; but none of these precautions prevented the same wonders from being renewed, five years later, about the year 1735, when seventeen people, belonging to the same village, died from vampirism, some without any previous illness, others after having languished two or three days;

among others a young person, named Stranoska, daughter of the heiduque Jeronitzo, went to bed in perfect health, waked up in the middle of the night, trembling all over, uttering fearful shrieks, and saying that the son of the heiduque Millo, who had died nine weeks before, had tried to strangle her during her sleep; she languished from that instant, and died in three days’ time: since what she had said of the son of Millo led them to suspect him of being a vampire, they exhumed him, and found him in a state which left no doubt of the fact of vampirism;

they discovered, in short, after prolonged investigation, that the defunct Arnold-Paul had not only killed the four persons already referred to, but also many animals, of which fresh vampires, and particularly Millo’s son, had eaten; on this evidence, they decided to disinter all who had died since a certain date, and among about forty corpses they discovered seventeen which bore evident signs of vampirism; so they pierced their hearts, cut off their heads, then burnt them and threw their bodies into the river (Dumas, 1907, p289-299).

Interestingly, 19th Century scholars, with acute hindsight, were not so nearly as open to the possibility that the dead might walk, as the men on scene investigating and actively slaying vampires in the 18th Century.

The Dublin Inquisitor (a gentleman’s Literary magazine), concluded in 1821 that considerations such as those of the French philosopher and writer Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens (1704-1771), who mused about the odd events in Serbia at length, to be an utter waste of time, despite the voluminous official testimony surrounding the case.

The Marquis D’Argens, from one of whose Jewish Letters we have taken the foregoing extract, copied it from the Mercure Historique et Politique, Oct. 1736, p. 403 to 41 J, and has wasted several pages of erudition and subtle argument in endeavoring to account on probable grounds for such extraordinary appearances.

He however acknowledges, that he is ashamed to spend so much time in exposing the delusion of the witnesses, who could place their signatures to a document so totally incredible; and after expressing his opinion that it would be ridiculous to give credit to such stories, however well attested, he overturns their possibility by a regular dilemma.

We cannot, however, imitate his example, as we think it unnecessary to present to our readers a refutation of facts which would startle the most credulous and most ignorant peasant (The Dublin Inquisitor, 1821, p260).

The Dublin Inquisitor elected not to undertake a “refutation of the facts”. This is a shame, in that we are unable to make fun of them on a more comprehensive basis, as while the Marquis D’Argens no doubt was aware of the Serbian vampires, widely detailed in the French press, D’Argens Jewish Letters was actually a work of fictional correspondence between two invented rabbis.

In essence, they would have, at length, been proving that a fictional account was indeed fictional.
Sneering skeptics and wonder-impaired rationalists often point to the presence in the popular consciousness of the anomalistic as a refutation of the strange or sinister.

Writers imagined aliens, spaceships, and intelligent life on other planets long before our modern flying saucers started appearing, thus our sudden awareness that the “truth might be out there” must be attributable to our easily-influenced little brains, internalizing a common meme and projecting it onto the universe.

Vampires don’t exist, simply because in the vapid world of logical positivism, they can’t.

Thus, unsung heroes like Johannes Flückinger never wind up receiving the credit they deserve for fighting back the darkness, and keeping the world safe for mere mortals.

Flückinger was an ordinary surgeon, who when faced with the living dead, put on his big girl panties and commenced slaying.
Would that we could all be so brave when the monsters come, but perhaps there is hope for us, for as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer”.

References
Calmet, Augustin, 1672-1757. The Phantom World: Or, The Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, &c. London: R. Bentley, 1850.
Clark, Daniel, 1835-1912. Pen Photographs of Celebrated Men And Noted Places, Ghosts And Their Relations, Tales, Sketches, Essays, Etc., Etc.: a New Canadian Work. Toronto: Flint, Morton, 1873.
Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870. My Memoirs. London: Methuen & co, 1907.
O’Donnell, Elliott, 1872-1965. Werwolves. London: Methuen, 1912.
Still, Alfred, 1869-. Borderlands of Science. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.
The Dublin Inquisitor. “Vampirism”. Dublin:: Published by C.P. Archer, Dame Street., 1821.
D’Anvers, Caleb. “Untitled Article on Vampirism”. The Craftsman, no. 307 (May 20). Eds. Caleb d’Anvers, of Gray’s-Inn, esq., Henry St. John, viscount Bolingbroke, W. Pulteney, afterwards earl of Bath, and others. London: Printed for R. Franklin, 1732.
The Cabinet of Curiosities: Or, Wonders of the World Displayed, Forming a Repository of Whatever Is Remarkable In the Regions of Nature And Art, Extraordinary Events, And Eccentric Biography. London: Printed for J. Limbird, 1824.