Addicted to Death

The more I ponder the subject, the more I see that we as a culture are addicted to death. We cannot live without it. Death is our security blanket that keeps us from applying in-depth investigative techniques to figure out what’s going on.

I come to this conclusion after countless hours reading about the insights and adventures of people who have had classic near-death experiences (NDEs). When these people died, albeit temporarily, their conscious minds left their bodies. Once they were resuscitated, they had awesome stories to tell, although they often encountered statements like, “Oh, that was just the drugs, dear.”

Addicted to death means that we are resisting the massive anecdotal evidence piling up that death is a transformation, not a termination. We like the mortality system as it is. We prefer our scary stories of pain and suffering.

Here are some likely social changes I see if we paid more attention to NDErs and research proved them right.

Old Age. If we thought more about death as a leap into another world, our obsession with youth and beauty would fade. Old age currently represents a closer proximity to the grave, life’s garbage pit, rather than a gateway to a bold new adventure.

War. If there truly is no death, then the war dead are really the war living—just living somewhere else. If we understood with more clarity what happens to dead soldiers (and to the people who send soldiers off to war) we might change our warrior paradigms.

Pain and suffering. Much angst exists because we believe that we only go around once. Use it or lose it. We’re conditioned to think we’re sunk when we lose it. No, say NDErs. We get it back—and much, much more. Learn from each stage of life and each challenge.

The News. If science ever got around to proving that death doesn’t truly kill us, we wouldn’t have such scary, demoralizing infotainment as we get in the average newscast. We’d have to change the whole cynical story to match an updated concept of reality.

Materialism. Research shows that most people returning from classic NDEs lose interest in acquiring possessions and amassing wealth. They become more focused on helping others and improving the world. What do they experience that turns them around?

The economy. Fear of death and losing drive our economy. Marketers everywhere pester us with visions of the horrible empty lives we’ll lead if we don’t buy something. You won’t be such a potential victim of marketers when your reality is not so fear-driven.

Crime. Many NDErs have an exhausting life review when out of the body. They return eager to make amends and lead productive lives. If life reviews were more commonly portrayed in our culture, potential criminals might think twice before hurting others—knowing they’d really just be hurting themselves.

Sex. Whether love creation or procreation, sex in our culture is too often morbidly focused on physical activity. When you engage in it from the perspective of being an immortal soul, not just a guy or gal in a body, amazing things happen.

Of course, you needn’t wait for society to change before you do. You can pursue your own life philosophy any time you want. Once you start poking around you see that all sorts of people are walking independent paths through the cosmic forest, taking responsibility for creating the reality their soul encourages them to create.