A large 3-year study of cardiac arrest patients is currently underway in the UK and the US to see if patients who are clinically dead can have out-of-body experiences.

In the study, images will be placed where they can only be seen from above, and patients will be asked whether they saw those images if they revive after being clinically dead.

Many hope that this study will increase our knowledge of the process of death, but from the point of view of a Gnostic it’s likely to tell us very little, still leaving personal experience and experimentation as the only way to gain a true knowledge of death.

It’s difficult for science to tackle anything of a supernatural or spiritual nature, so we have to look carefully at how the conclusions follow from the study.

On the BBC’s website http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7621608.stm the head of the study Dr Sam Parnia says: "If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.”

Yes, but we may ask whether this study really is the way to do it.

What is this study actually going to show?

There have been a huge number of NDE cases reported under medical supervision already, what this seems to do is to study what people see when they have one and then tries to determine the objectivity of that sight in order to determine the ‘reality’ of NDE’s.

But how does the objectivity of sight determine the ‘reality or illusion’ of NDE’s?

It’s already known through a huge number of accounts that patients demonstrate consciousness when the brain switches off. If subjects see anything in those study conditions while ‘dead,’ then that in itself is a demonstration of the separation of consciousness. By placing pictures for patients to see, this study is testing whether patients see the pictures - not whether they ‘see’ at all, which is a different thing altogether.

Dr Parnia then goes on to say: "It is unlikely that we will find many cases where this happens, but we have to be open-minded.”

True, it is unlikely (but just possible) that when having died, being out of the body and going through that profound experience of death, that people will be looking for the study’s pictures.

Dr Parnia also says: "And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories.”

Well, this is jumping ahead of the gun somewhat. It doesn't really show that does it? I see this as a major flaw in the experiment; why is seeing those pictures a demonstration of consciousness, but seeing anything else after the brain switches off is not? If no one sees the pictures, then that in itself is not enough to conclude that the experiences are illusions. It would only show that in those times where NDEs were subjected to that study, patients did not see the pictures. There could be many reasons why they didn’t see them, even en masse.

It also appears that such a conclusion would discount all the NDE accounts up until this time, which have clearly described events happening to people while ‘dead’ that could only have been described had the subjects been out of their bodies.

Understanding most of the reasons why patients wouldn’t see the pictures during an NDE would require knowledge of what’s on the other side, yet there is a lack of scientific means to explore it. Taking purely physical evidence, the very fact of consciousness existing with lucidity when the body is ‘dead’ demonstrates that there is more going on than a simple “if you don’t see the pictures it’s not real” conclusion can account for.

From a Gnostic point of view

Taking it now from the viewpoint of a Gnostic (one who seeks and gains inner knowledge) there are laws and other things happening over there, and those laws and other life forms influence what the individual perceives in an out-of-body or near-death experience. If you study different accounts of peoples experiences when they have an NDE, you’ll see that they tend to follow the same or similar patterns, irrespective of age or culture.

In some religions there are accounts of personal experience by mystics, sages, and the like. In the past, these kinds of experiences been the way for humanity to understand and know about these things, and we Gnostics are using essentially the same or similar methods. These methods are not provable using current scientific methodology or techniques, because there is no scientific way of exploring what the person is actually experiencing, but that doesn't mean the Gnostic methods don't work.

The limitations of science in exploring personal experience

Using scientific methods we can only get the response of that experience upon the physical body and the account of the individual. It is because the accounts have happened in the absence of any signs of life in the physical body that some in medical science take NDEs seriously. But that doesn't change the experience, and it’s the experience itself of the individual that ultimately each single person has to stand by and call ‘life’. That life experience is most valid to that individual, and humanity is made up of individuals.

There are limitations in sciences ability to understand reality. No one would suggest that science is capable at this time of answering many of the deepest questions of life and human existence and so simply to draw conclusions that things are not real just because they are not provable by science with today's technology is to me a mistake. Gnosis offers an alternative approach, it offers people the opportunity to have out of body experiences with age-old methods and techniques, and to explore one’s own personal experience. What is our life after all apart from individual experience? How much are we able to perceive of what is real with the five senses?

Because science cannot reliably prove whether out-of-body experiences are real or not, that doesn't rule out the possibility that they are.  

There has been very little research done into the field of out-of-body experiences (some with mixed results), and this latest research into near-death experiences adds to a small catalogue.  If near-death experiences are in any way shown to indicate that consciousness exists outside of the body, there is no reason why consciousness couldn't also exist out-of-the-body while the body is not in a near-death state but in a normal state. In the absence of science being able to fundamentally prove or disprove out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences it’s left for the individual to experience them for themselves personally and to follow their own course of exploration by actually having out-of-body experiences.

Participating in scientific testing

We go into the realm of the spiritual when we go out of the body, and we Gnostics differ from science in the methods used to explore these things. Because of the spiritual nature of what is out of the body and its laws, to subject ourselves to the tests of science would be to acknowledge it as the authority, when it is science that should be looking to the spiritual for its guidance.

So participation in those kinds of tests is outside our field. Perhaps scientists could find many others who would wish to take part if a study like that was organised, but that is their field, not ours.

Why personal experience is best

We put the case that you can never really know a non-physical experience through the accounts of other people's experiences, nor through the study of physical phenomena. Science doesn't have the means to explore other non-physical dimensions nor the spiritual. Therefore OBEs, NDEs non-physical dimensions (above the fourth) and spirituality itself can only really be explored and known through personal experience.

This is why we teach people how to explore within. This inner exploration includes having OBE’s and the exploration of what they can do when they have them.

From a Gnostic viewpoint, it is quite irrelevant on an individual basis whether there is scientific proof for the existence of obes/nde’s or not.

The teachings of the great sages of the ages are as relevant today as they always have been – for those who are able to value them.

Belzebuub