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- From: hawleylm@apple.com (Lorin Hawley)
- Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body
- Subject: Re: Silver cord
- Message-ID: <hawleylm-111192170558@hawley.apple.com>
- Date: 12 Nov 92 01:18:14 GMT
- References: <9211050556.AA60126@acs1.acs.ucalgary.ca> <hawleylm-101192161624@hawley.apple.com> <1992Nov11.191027.26704@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
- Sender: news@gallant.apple.com
- Followup-To: alt.out-of-body
- Organization: Apple Computer
- Lines: 37
-
- In article <1992Nov11.191027.26704@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
- (Robert McGrath) wrote:
- >
- (deletions)
- >
- > It is far from clear that NDEs are related to OBEs, but they may be.
- > I'm not aware of any good evidence that anything leaves the body during
- > an NDE, so the "medically-trained" researchers' beliefs are basically
- > weakly supported hypotheses. Since there is no adequate physiological
- > explanantion for NDEs, the question must remain open.
- >
- > --
- > Robert E. McGrath, founder, president and only member of
- > The Central Illinois Susan Blackmore Fan Club
- > Urbana Illinois
- > mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
-
- The people I was referring to include Raymond Moody and Melvin Morse, who
- are M.D.'s, and Kenneth Ring, a PhD psychologist. Then there's also
- Kubler-Ross. Not that their degrees necessarily correlate to better
- empirical methods and objectivity than Blackmore, a very respected
- scientist. Moody and Morse (and Kubler-Ross), drawing from their
- experiences interviewing NDE survivors, have been swayed to the belief that
- there is a "something" that leaves the body and survives physical death. Of
- course, what swayed them are anecdotal reports and seeing the deep
- impression left on the experiencers by the NDE. While these don't
- constitute convincing evidence from a scientific standpoint, I personally
- found the narratives to be impressive. Especially since the NDE occured
- across the spectrum of ages, prior religious beliefs, and so on. The
- accounts of people describing details of machinery and events on the
- operating rooms, including color perception and reading name tags of
- attending medical personnel, while "dead", deserve further study. Even if
- these experiences are ultimately explanable by currently understood
- physiological processes, it would certainly be of scientific interest to
- understand those mechanisms!
-
- Lorin Hawley
-