Life After Death

In this blog, I will share with you a portion of what I use(d) in college and adult education classes and groups on late life spirituality and life after death. These will include “Sage and Angel Training” “Life After Death Questionnaire” and “How to Help a Near Death Experience Survivor.”

First, I will share the following introduction with the reader. The courses taught for senior adults include “Using & Teaching Daily Life as Spiritual Practice, Direction, & Soul Making” and “From Ageing to Sageing: Spirituality for Our Mature Years”.  Initially students are asked why they chose to take the course, what they hope to gain from it, and to share any spiritually related experience they have had. The processing of the enclosed 45 questions can be addressed either in rotating dyads, triads, or small groups. Afterwards they are encouraged to share with the class. The class meets weekly for 4-5 meetings for 60-90 minutes. Handouts may be given as homework reading for the next meeting.

Student’s responses vary greatly from seeking verification to experiencing spiritual openings. For many the questions and sharing are a life altering experience, i.e. a closer more intimate connection (to Spirit). The leader should check in with each participant to be sure they have integrated the sharing in healthy ways. For those who do not share much, they can be asked what experience they would like to have happen in their future, what that would be like, and how it might change them.

It is the author’s opinion that very few of us ask ourselves any of the following questions. Yet these answers are critical for the realization of our psycho-spiritual development while we are in a physical body. I will occasionally listen in to see how the sharing and processing is going or if they have any questions of me. I may encourage them to give deeper considerations to their processing and what they want to consider between our meetings and afterwards in their lives…

Sage & Angel Training

1. You have six months to live. Make a list of all the reasons you want to continue living:
2. Your prognosis is wrong. You will not die in six months. Notice and admit that you were relieved to hear that you were going to die. Now make a list of reasons you want to not continue living:
3. All drama aside, how long do you expect you will have to live? Give the probably range in years. What season of the year would seem best for you or feel right?
4. What is likely to be your cause of death? How will that likely transpire over time?
5. In the meanwhile, what is likely to be your situation during your “frail” years?
6. Who would you want to share your death with and how would that work?
7. What needs to be finished before you could be ready to die? What could be “a good day to die?”
8. Who is it that is actually dying?
9. What does it mean to you to die?
10. Find your photo album with your childhood photos and review them a life time ago and now at its near completion. What stands out now? Regrets? Dreams? Purposes?
11. Write your eulogy and obituary. What song would best fit you and your life?
12. Describe your view, beliefs, and expectations of the afterlife.
13. When it comes to “angel training,” how do you think that works or happens?
14. What is your sense of how life and the afterlife are connected/interrelated?
15. Notice, collect, and record moments of being aware and awake. Bring 5-10 next time.

Life After Death Questionnaire

1. What has been your prior experience with life after death?
2. If you could have any experience, what would it be?
3. What would you gain by this experience?
4. If you could have the answer to any question, what would it be?
5. What are the benefits of exploring the field of eschatology (afterlife)?
6. Why are we born? Why do we die? What is your unique purpose in life?
7. What specifically are your beliefs in and expectations of the afterlife?
8. What are the origins and basis(s) of your beliefs?
9. Describe/draw your possible afterlife.
10. For what do you believe you will be most harshly judged? For what do you believe you will most greatly praised?
11. If you wanted to argue both (a) for and (b) against the existence of an afterlife, what evidence, experience, or reasoning would you use in either case?
12. What kind of evidence or experience would be necessary to persuade you to change your present belief or position about the existence of an afterlife?
13. Suppose that you do discover that your present belief in the existence/nonexistence of the afterlife is mistaken, what difference would it make in your life?
14. What influence has your belief or disbelief in an afterlife had upon the way you live?
15. Whether you are a believer or disbeliever, what do you think would be the (a) best thing about life after death, (b) worse thing about life after death?

How Can I Help a Near-Death Experience Survivor?

Dr. Bruce Greyson offers several helpful suggestions for professional and caring people who want to support people who have had a NDE:

1. Professional medical staff should assume that unconscious, dying patients may be able to hear what is being said around the bed. Be careful what you say.
2. Respectful touching, outlining the patient’s body, helps reorient them back to their bodies.
3. Listen for clues of NDEs in conversations with resuscitated people, but do not expect them to divulge their experiences until they trust you.
4. Do not press your own beliefs about NDEs onto patients, but respectfully listen to them.
5. Help the survivor of a NDE clarify his or her own interpretation of it.
6. Respect the NDE as an extremely powerful agent of transformation.
7. Attempting to label a NDE as a symptom of pathology is neither accurate nor helpful.
8. Honesty and confidentiality are critical and essential to establishing trust.
9. Most helpful is listening carefully to whatever the NDEr is saying.
10. Encourage NDErs to express whatever emotions have been evoked by the experience, no matter how intense.
11. Provide accurate information about NDEs. Knowing the common occurrence of the experience is very reassuring to survivors.
12. If a person is upset by a NDE, help him or her identify exactly what part of it caused the problem.
13. Put NDE survivors in contact with others who have had the same experience. Ask locally and contact the International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2471 Campus Walk Ave, Building 500, Durham, N.C. 27705-8878.
14. Ask for Life After Death Bibliography.
15. If you work with a NDE survivor after initial contacts, be prepared for the NDE to raise serious issues about the purpose of life.

For more relevant information, I would highly recommend the American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (ACISTE).

Dr. Quinton Wacks was graced with a life changing NDE/OBE/LIGHT experience at age 21 with related experiences and revelations to follow.  He will shortly submit a book for publication: “Using and Teaching Daily Life as Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Direction, and Soul Making.”  You can learn more about his work and life at www.quintonwacks.com