posted April 16, 2008 03:30 PM           

Suicide and the NDE
From darkness to light

If you are currently thinking about suicide, please see your doctor and tell him about it. Someday you will be very glad you did. It may be that you are suffering from the illness called depression - which is very curable with proper medication and counseling. There are also suicide hotlines on the internet that have information that can help you. If you are someone who has lost a loved one, there is an excellent website on grief and bereavement to help survivors cope with their loss.

Many people have the mistaken belief that suicide is a one-way ticket to hell. This is often traced to faulty religious dogma or cultural influences. After all, what really is the definition of suicide? Is falling on a grenade to save the lives of others an act of suicide? Was it suicide when Jesus decided to have himself killed? Is a person who is constantly feeding a junk food habit committing suicide? What about a hopelessly terminally ill patient who wants to spare himself and his family from suffering for a long period of time? What about a person who commits suicide resulting from a serious mental illness or depression? Is choosing to be born into this world, itself, and act of suicide, knowing that this choice results in death?

Near-death experiences are giving society answers to such questions. In general, near-death experiences reveal that the quality of our lives after death isn't determined by HOW we die, but by how we LIVE. Unfortunately, many suicides cause devastating emotional damage to families that can last a lifetime. This is the REAL tragedy. While near-death experiences show that suicide, in itself, has spiritual consequences that are no different from other ways of dying, it does show that there are penalties for hurting others.

And last but not least, this section will discuss a person's right to control their own life and death and the strong legal case for allowing people who are facing intractable pain or indignities in the final stages of their lives to determine for themselves when life is no longer worth living. Such people should be allowed to receive assistance in ending their lives preferably through their own physician. The right-to-die case is based on the principles of liberty, autonomy, equality, dignity, and unnecessary suffering.


Suicide and NDE Link Index:

NDE Suicide Types
NDE Suicide Research
Sandra Rogers' NDE
Angie Fenimore's NDE
Nadia McCaffrey's NDE
More NDEs From Suicide

Will I Go to Hell if I Kill Myself?
Physician-Assisted Suicide
How Society Can Implement It
A Fate Worse Than Death
Do We Have a Right to Die?
Right-to-Die Organization
Death With Dignity FAQ
End-of-Life Legislation Site
Final Exit (Book)
Final Exist (Video)

posted April 16, 2008 03:59 PM           

While there exists documented reports of very beautiful near-death experiences resulting from attempted suicide, there also exists hellish reports. This suggests the act of suicide itself is not a factor in determining whether a person has a beautiful NDE or a hellish NDE. However, it is possible for a hellish spiritual condition already existing within a person to be carried over and continued after death. Many suicides are committed by people who are already experiencing a hell on earth for one reason or another. In this respect, death does not remove a pre-existing hellish spiritual condition unless this condition was caused by the brain. Many people who commit suicide are mentally ill. Because mental illness is a physical disorder of the brain, the mental illness ends with brain death and does not continue after death. This is true because NDEs have been reported by blind people who have regained their sight during their NDE. Other handicaps have reportedly been removed from experiencers upon their death.

Religious leaders sometimes tell people that suicide is an unforgivable sin leading to eternal damnation in hell. This is not what the NDE reveals. NDEs do describe life as being an inescapable learning experience. Suicide prevents this learning experience from being completed. Experiencers describe hell as being a temporary spiritual condition rather than a permanent place of torture.

Dr. George Ritchie, author of Return From Tomorrow and My Life After Dying, learned during his NDE what happens to some people who commit suicide. According to Ritchie, the quality of life a person initially finds after suicide is influenced by their motive for committing it. He classifies suicide in the following three ways.

Classifications of Suicide

1. The first classification includes those who kill themselves in order to hurt someone, get revenge, or who kill themselves out of hatred for someone else. According to Ritchie, these people haunt the living by being aware of every horrible consequence their suicide had on others.

2. The second classification includes those who, because of mental illness, confusion, or a terminal illness, take their own life. Ritchie states these people are allowed many opportunities from God to grow in love just as any other person would who had not committed suicide. In other words, there are no negative consequences for them.

3. The third classification includes those who kill themselves from drug, alcohol, or any other addiction. According to Ritchie, these people can become stuck in limbo trying in vain to satisfy their addiction until eventually something frees them. This condition is often called an earthbound condition.

NDEs reveal there is no condemnation from God for our actions. The problem many suicides face after death is difficulty in forgiving themselves for the horror they have put family and friends through by taking their own life. One remedy for helping a suicide cope with this predicament comes from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, an ancient Buddhist book of the afterlife. The Book of the Dead is one of the oldest books on earth documenting NDEs. In my view, this source should be given great respect. The Book of the Dead mentions people who succeeded in committing suicide and who became imprisoned in the experience of their suicide. Accordingly, they can be freed from this condition through the prayers of the living and by them imagining streams of light pouring on them. Such actions free the person from the pain and confusion of their suicide. The Book of the Dead also mentions that people have no choice but to follow any negative karma resulting from their suicide.

NDEs report people choosing their own destiny in life before they are born. While this may be true, it may also be true that we change this destiny by committing suicide. This is assuming nobody is predestined to commit suicide. NDEs reveal a perfect universal plan being worked out by God. Perhaps this perfect plan is not thwarted by suicide. There is no reason to believe it is. But if a person cuts short their destined time for life because they have problems coping with life's demands, their problems may not necessarily go away. Their problems may also be complicated by the added burden of their knowing the full horrible consequences of their action on others.

People who are thinking of killing themselves can learn a great deal from NDEs. Some NDEs suggest that committing suicide may be the worse thing anyone can do because it is rejecting God's gift of life which destroys an opportunity for spiritual advancement. Not only that, some experiencers have observed the souls of those who committed suicide existing in an earthbound condition of temporarily being slaves to every consequence of their act of suicide. Such souls have been observed hounding and hovering around living family members and friends trying in vain to seek forgiveness. Some of them have been observed existing in a grayish fog and shuffling around slowly with their heads down. Perhaps these earthbound souls become freed from this condition when their natural destined time for death occurs. Nevertheless, this condition is only temporary. Some experiencers have also observed such souls being helped in the afterlife.

Sandra Rogers' NDE is a good example of what can happen when a person unjustifiably cuts short their life. After she attempted to commit suicide, she was given only two choices by the Being of Light. One choice involved being revived and living out the rest of her days. (This was the choice she chose.) The other choice involved remaining in the light with the condition of having to reincarnate at a future time to re-experience everything that led her to commit suicide in the first place. Sandra's NDE demonstrates that people must overcome their problems in this life or else face them again in a future life. In Sandra's case, committing suicide did not solve anything. If we delay dealing with these problems by committing suicide, we may only compound them. Perhaps the greatest enemy we face is ourselves. Our problems may never go away unless we conquer them. NDEs reveal people carrying their non-physical problems with them after death. Perhaps one of the reasons we are born into this world is to overcome such problems. If we don't overcome them, we may have to reincarnate until we do.

Another interesting NDE resulting from a suicide attempt was that of Angie Fenimore. After committing suicide, Angie found herself in a hellish realm of psychic disconnection and torment. The anguish she experienced within herself in life had manifested itself in the spirit after death. A Being of Light, whom she identified as God, asked her, "Is this what you really want?"

Angie realized that none of the other suicides in this hellish condition were aware of God's presence. God told her, "Don't you know that this is the worst thing you could have done?"

She realized then she had thrown in the towel and because of it, she had cut herself off from God and from his guidance. She felt trapped. She told God, "But my life is so hard."

God's reply was, "You think that was hard? It is nothing compared to what awaits you if you take your life. Life's supposed to be hard. You can't skip over parts. We have all done it. You must earn what you receive."

Angie's NDE gives us a unique insight into unjustifiable suicide. It suggests that one of life's purposes is to grow through suffering. It validates the truthfulness of the phase, "No pain. No gain."

This principle is also found in the Bible where it describes how suffering creates character, wisdom, perseverance and strengthening of faith. NDEs reveal the fact that everyone has a destiny to fulfill and a "mission" to complete. Part of this destiny may include suffering for the purpose of learning and growing. It probably also includes learning from past-life mistakes, paying back karmic debts and receiving karmic rewards. The fact that Experiencers are often told their time for death has not yet come, suggests our time of death is predetermined. Suicide can possibly prevent a person's mission from being fulfilled. Sandra Rogers' NDE suggests the remedy for this is reincarnation.

posted April 16, 2008 04:19 PM           

Dr. Ken Ring's NDE Research

In his book, Life at Death, Dr. Ken Ring analyzed the near-death experiences of 24 people who attempted suicide. Among them, no one reported the tunnel phenomenon, or saw a brilliant but comforting light, or encountered a presence, or was temporarily reunited with loved ones who had died, or entered into a transcendent world of heavenly beauty. Instead, the suicide-related NDE tended to be truncated, aborted, and damped down. It began with a feeling of relief or peace and continued with a sense of bodily detachment to the same degree as non-suicide-related NDEs. But it tended to end, if it got this far at all, with a feeling of confused drifting in a dark or murky void – a sort of twilight zone. Dr. Ring's research strongly suggests that the suicide-related NDE does not reach completion; instead, it tends simply to fade out before the transcendent elements characteristic of non-suicide related NDEs make their appearance. The following is an excerpt from Ring's research into suicide:

One young man tried to kill himself by taking an assortment of pills – Librium, Demerol, Valium, Dilantin. As a result of this ingestion, he remained unconscious for four days. He remembers finding himself in a gray area:

"The only thing that I can remember about this is just grayness. Like I was in gray water or something. I couldn't really see anything. I couldn't see myself there, either. It was just like my mind was there. And no body."

While he was in this state, he felt good:

"Normally, I'm a very anxious, a very nervous person – a lot of fears and things like that. And during this, all the fear was gone. I had no fear whatsoever. Almost an adventurous feeling. Excitement."


Dr. Ring: "Did you want to stay in that condition?"

"Yeah. It was a very good feeling."

He also was aware of music:

"I also heard music – different music."

Dr. Ring: "Tell me what it was like."

"It was usually like classical music; I like classical music. It wasn't exactly the music I've heard, but it was along that line."

Dr. Ring: "Do you recall how the music made you feel?"

"It made me relaxed. The fears went away when I listened to it. Again, the feeling of hope, that there's something better somewhere else."

He also reported that everything, including the music, sounded "hollow and metallic – echoey" and that these acoustical sensations were associated with the watery grayness. He felt the grayness going through him, filling him and this felt good to him. After a while, he became aware of a voice:

"I think [it was] a woman's voice, but (pause) I didn't recognize the voice."

Dr. Ring: "Do you recall now what she said to you?"

"No. I just remember that it was a soothing voice. I kind of remember that with the grayness – her voice kind of calling, my moving toward it."


Dr. Ring: "This was a friendly voice, a reassuring voice in some way?"

"Yeah."

Dr. Ring: "And you felt drawn to it?"

"Yeah. Right. Like that was the place to be."

He tried to get to where the voice was:

"It seemed like I kept trying to get to where the voice was, but something was holding me back. I know I wanted to be there; I knew once I was there everything would be fine. I was sure of this. No question about it. But there was still like something holding me back from getting there."

During his experience he had seen images of people he knew. These people somehow seemed to represent the possibility of a good life; they seemed to care. He described this as "like playing back a recording of my life." The issue was joined:

"It felt like the woman's [voice] was stronger. I wanted to get there but there was just some part of me that wanted to (pause) go back with these images."

And resolved:

"The thing I remember most is a falling feeling. Like I was coming down really fast and then hit. And then I woke up with a jolt."

And afterward:

"When I woke up, the first thing I thought was Oh, God. Thank you. I made it, and I was extremely happy. (He had been severely depressed before his suicide attempt.) I was just sitting there thinking about it and I felt this – I don't know – warmth filling my body. I was very happy, very excited, but then (pause) it was more than contented – it was rapture, I guess. But I couldn't explain it to anybody at the time. It was just beyond words."

These passages sum up the essential features of his experience. In the course of his interview, he also indicated that although he never clearly saw his physical body on the bed, he did have a sense of bodily detachment and felt he had no weight at all – he was just pure mind. Neither did he have any sense of time. When he momentarily returned to body consciousness (before drifting back into the grayness), he found the sensory world greatly enhanced – the colors were clearer and more vibrant. The only thing scary about his experience was his fear (which was eventually vanquished) of returning to his body. His experience in the grayness was decidedly pleasant and, judging from its immediate aftereffect, very positive and powerful in its emotional impact.

This particular experience includes many features that are common with non-suicide-attempt experiences: drifting through a vast space, feeling good, hearing music and a comforting voice, hearing sounds magnified, seeing a series of flashbacks of one's life, and so forth.

In Dr. Ring's study, he found that no one who had attempted suicide reported that it was predominately unpleasant. The only possible exception is that a few people did describe some unsettling hallucinatory images, but these appear to have been qualitatively different from the feeling-tone of non-suicidal experiences. Certainly, no one felt that he was either in or was on his way to hell. This is not to say that suicide attempts never lead to unpleasant experiences, only that there is no strong evidence for this proposition among the 24 suicide NDEs in Dr. Ring's study.

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Dr. Peter Fenwick's NDE Research

In those organized religions in which hell figures, suicide is a sin and might well be considered an entrance qualification. And yet none of the people who wrote to us about a NDE during a suicide attempt reported a hellish or even an unpleasant experience. On the contrary, what they experienced seemed to provide a reason for continuing life.

It seems that the mental state in the NDE bears no resemblance at all to the person's mental state before the experience. Someone who attempts suicide might be expected to be in some emotional turmoil at the time of their experience. In real life, people who are depressed tend to select only depressive images and memories. And yet if we look at the experiences described below we can see that the depressive feelings vanish when they enter the experience; there is an awareness of peace, of something beautiful; there seems to be a healing of the broken spirit.

Here Sheila Berry describes what happened to her fifteen years ago:

"I had taken an overdose of aspirin and alcohol and had been pumped out at the hospital. It was late at night and I was put into a ward. I don't know whether you would call this a NDE but at the same time my spirit was so low I felt that I could die if I really wanted to. It could perhaps be classed as a case of broken spirit if there is such a thing.


"I was lying in the dark and felt myself drifting. I felt as though I was in a warm cocoon. I became aware that I was moving down a dark country lane with high hedges. At the bottom of the lane there was a cottage with a light in the window. I wanted to reach the cottage but a voice in my head said that I had to go back. I can still remember someone taking my hand and I had a feeling of great peace and a oneness with what I can only describe as the universe. I can remember returning to the weight of my body. For some time after this happened I kept hearing the most wonderful music. I feel since that time that my life has a spiritual dimension, although I do not practice any established religion."

Anne Thomson attempted suicide in the winter of 1972 when she was very depressed.

"I could cope no longer with three small children and one dreadful husband (whom I later divorced). I took a massive overdose of sleeping tablets and was not found for four hours. I was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance from the RAF base in Wales, where we lived at the time. I very nearly died and was unconscious for four days. On the fourth day I was slipping away. I had a cardiac arrest and the doctors and a sister were working on me.


"I left my body. I went up and up very slowly, not looking back at myself in the bed. The peace was beyond what I can explain; it was so beautiful, I felt so light in weight and I saw I was going towards a white light - not the white like this notepaper I write on, but a spiritual white. I almost reached this light, when suddenly I was pulling downwards very fast and did not stop till I was back in my body. I was heavy, everything seemed so dark and then I came to and slowly came to realize I could not be taken as three children needed their mother.


"I always did believe in God but only because it was bred into me. But since that experience I have a lot of faith towards God and towards life beyond our lives on earth. I firmly believe he made me well and helped me through all my time of rearing three children alone in the years that followed."

Only one of the descriptions of NDEs which occurred during suicide attempts had elements that might possibly be construed as hellish. It is one of the very few in which the feeling is one of descent, into a pit, rather than upwards, and in which the light seen is red rather than white or golden. Although there is a presence, this is not perceived as friendly, but not as hostile either. In fact, the whole experience has a neutral quality - not hellish, but not positive either, except for the compassion the returning self feels for her body in the hospital bed.

Here is another NDE resulting from a suicide attempt: