The Afterlife

The afterlife is becoming a more commonly accepted notion within the scientific community. The more we study our consciousness the more it appears to be an entity separate from our physical body altogether. A number of research teams have begun taking a closer look at the process of death to see if there are any clues of an afterlife. One team led by University of Washington microbiology professor Peter Noble recently took a closer look at the activity of the brain and body in the hours following death. The research team was surprised to see that much of the genetic code in the body remained active following a persons death. “We didn’t anticipate that,” Noble told Newsweek. “Can you imagine, 24 hours after [time of death] you take a sample and the transcripts of the genes are actually increasing in abundance? That was a surprise”. The team concluded that death is simply not as cut and dry as we often see it (1). Instead of shifting from alive to dead like the flip of a switch, Noble's findings indicate that our consciousness gradually leaves the physical body. Noble's team are not the only scientists reaching these conclusions either. Dr. Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at New York University Langone Medical Center, is another scientist lending his credentials to the possibility of an afterlife. Dr. Parnia and his team have done extensive work with cadavers and patients surviving medical death. He recently released a statement concluding that "we have a consciousness that makes up who we are—our selves, thoughts, feelings, emotions—and that entity, it seems, does not become annihilated just because we've crossed the threshold of death; it appears to keep functioning and not dissipate. How long it lingers, we can’t say” (2). With modern science and ancient wisdom both supporting the existence of an afterlife, it's time to have an open-minded academic conversation about the inner-workings of life's spiritual cycles.

It's time to accept that ancient peoples were far more advanced than commonly believed. Hundreds of ancient wonders across the world provide proof that ancient civilizations had a much greater understanding of the world than we give them credit for. The ancients constructed countless pyramids and other monuments demonstrating an understanding of energy that modern history simply cannot explain. Along with physical structures, the ancient people also left us texts providing insight into their understanding of the human experience and the nature of reality. These texts often described intricate incarnation cycles. They described spirits cycling through physical incarnations across different realms of existence. The ancient people often attributed their spiritual insights to sacred rituals including the use of psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms and DMT. These natural drugs are known in many cultures as teachers which reveal the true nature of human consciousness and spirituality. DMT is even referred to as the "God" particle. Is it possible that our ancient ancestors once had a much greater understanding of their place in the universe than we do today? 

Thousands of people claim to have out of body experiences every year. Most common under extreme duress, the experience of leaving ones body has been told again and again all the way back to ancient times. All the accounts describe a very similar experience. People claim to feel their consciousness shoot out of their physical vessel. Out of body experiencers describe being able to see and process their surroundings, just not from the perspective of their physical bodies. This is consistent with reports from remote viewers who can supposedly access this ability at will. There is actually unclassified government documents discussing the CIA's experiments with remote viewers (3). The fact that consciousness can be retained outside of the body scientifically substantiates the existence of a spiritual self capable of surviving the death. 

The implications of out of body experiences drove me to dig deeper and the story of one person in particular grabbed my attention. Pam Reynold's out-of-body experience is unique because some of the things she recalls while being out of body are quite difficult to explain. After discovering an aneurism in her brain stem, doctors put her under so they could operate on her brain.  Soon after she claims that she "popped up out the top of [her] head" and proceeded to watch the entire operation floating above herself. To make matters more interesting she remembers specific events that occurred while she was under, when the extensive drugging she was under should not allow for this.  Describing the tool they were using to operate on her she says "It was an odd-looking thing, it looked like the handle on my electric toothbrush." She even recalls specific conversations from her out of body experience, "I heard a female voice say, 'Her arteries are too small.' And Dr. Spetzler — I think it was him — said, 'Use the other side,' ". Interestingly enough, everything she claims to have seen and heard has been confirmed by the doctors present for her procedure (4). 

All across the world children keep popping up claiming to have memories from past lives. It was difficult to find a lot of concrete information but there were two cases that stood out to me in my research. Shanti Devi is by far the highest profile case of modern reincarnation because of the surprising number of scholars that researched her claim and concluded her to be telling the truth. At the age of 4, Shanti Devi began to claim that her name was actually Lugdi and that she was married to a man living in Mathura. As a child, she continued making detailed claims about her past life. She stated that her husband was a cloth merchant who wore reading glasses and had a wart on his left cheek. She also described dying ten days after her son was born because of complications arising from child birth (7). Interestingly, everything about the life of Lugdi which she describes living did in fact happen. While it could all be an elaborate hoax, the age at which Shanti Devi began making these claims suggests that perhaps she really did have real memories from a past life. 

The second claim of reincarnation was from none other than Nikola Tesla. In 2012, 68 year old inventor Patrick Flanagan caused quite a commotion by coming out to the public supposedly as the reincarnation of Nikola Tesla. Though he had kept his claim out of the public eye for most of his life, Flanagan first confronted his mother with memories from his past life in early childhood. He claimed he still remembered all the patents and work he had accomplished in his previous life. This claim was substantiated by the fact that he was building Tesla Coils at the age of nine and went on to have a massively successful career as an inventor. It's worth mentioning that Patrick Flanagan also wrote the book Pyramid Power where he shows that pyramids with the exact relative dimensions of Egyptian pyramids act as "an effective resonator of randomly polarized microwave signals which can be converted into electrical energy." Check out the video below to learn more about his claim of reincarnation.