b Syntax—‘And Then I ’: Narrative Reference to Time and Person

At the beginning of this chapter, I referred to the use of word counts in establishing the short-term, ephemeral nature of ECE. Next, I considered semantic examples of the earthbound banality, illogicalities and incongruity of the recollected narratives offered by experients. Note was also taken particularly of the major inconsistencies in the collective descriptions of heaven and of the heavenly figures supposedly encountered. Now, in terms of narrative syntax, I draw attention to the presence of conjunctive preposi- tions and to their widespread use in later, rationalized public accounts given.

Typical constructions include the following, and are indicative of a patch- work of remembered vignettes strung together, rather than of a temporally sequenced flow of experiential happenings: ‘Then, there appeared. . . ’; ‘Next, I found myself. . .’; After that . . . ’; ‘Following that . . . ’. These grammatical constructs are precisely those associated with recalled dream-states, in that they relate to passive events. There is an absence of intent, agential control, or hint of personally directed action (‘So. . . ’; ‘in order to . . . ’; ‘my purpose was to. . . ’); nor is there reverse causality (‘because so-and-so . . . ’; ‘as a result of x, then y. . . ’; ‘since that, I did/decided to . . . ’). Like dreams, a substantial part of ECE imagery seems to characterize purposeless activity. On those grounds, the interpretations by authors that this represents a realistic view of a ‘mysti- cal’ other-worldly realm lacks conviction.

Another feature of ECE narratives is that the experient always seems to be a detached subjective observer of the supposed celestial locus which he or she comes to inhabit:

the doctors had all given up. . . they said I was dying [and] I was feeling the life going out of my body. . . I could still hear what everyone [the medical personnel attending her] was saying. . . [then] . . . I heard God’s voice talking to me. He had the most gentle, loving voice. He told me that if I wanted to live I was going to have to breathe.29

(My emphases in this and succeeding passages.)

During these events there seems to remain a continued sense of personhood: all reports are in the first person:

I remember that I could see myself walking away. I was. . . 20 feet away . . . I could see me walking away. I was wearing30 this grey suit that I bought last year and I was walking away from myself hanging there.31 (Report by an attempted suicide victim.)

Others imagine possession of another kind of body, although sensed in terms of physicality:

I had a piece of clothing on. . . very loose . . . and I remember having bare feet . . . it was very different [from my physical body]. . . very thin, very delicate . . . very light. My face and hands were the same. Because I remember trying to touch my face to make sure everything was okay. . . [and] . . . I could feel it.32

29_{Moody 1977, 27.} 30

He was NOT wearing a grey suit. In fact, he wore something completely different. This is another typical instance of the inaccuracies which accompany ECE reportings, indicating quite clearly that they are not necessarily veridical eyewitness accounts of what is alleged to have been observed or undergone by any of these subjects.

31_{Ring 1980, 46.} 32

Ring 1980, 52.

The pronominal ‘my’ here implies continuity of ‘self’ which could, presumably, also obtain with someone now without a physical body. Yet there are strong referential concerns not only about corporeal attributes, that is, a fleshly human body, in these narrative accounts of ECE, but with earthly clothing. It is, however, difficult to interpret, within the presumed context of afterlife, the continuing sense of ‘self’ because there has never been reference in the relevant literature to any ECE subject claiming to have possessed a ‘resurrected body’, nor what form or even degree of corporeality such a resurrected body might possess. That criticism applies to the majority of recalled experiences whether or not the predisposing circumstances threatened cerebral blood supply. Neither, one might suppose, should the different types of ‘people’ observed during these extra-terrestrial events so unmistakably resemble the configuration of human beings. Here is one respondent’s anthropomorphic description of a ‘[B]eing of light’ that is highly suggestive of Jesus:

It was this vivid gold, yellow. . . then I saw a form there [note reference to physical location]. . . I can see that form now . . . it had blond gold hair and it had a beard, a very light beard and a moustache. It had a white garment on. . . [and] . . . there was a red spot here [pointing to a Sacred Heart on the chest on his gown]. . . and a chalice in his hand.33

The visual clues about corporeal imagery apply not only to ‘people of [L]ight’ seen during an NDE, but also to long-dead family relatives invariably reported to be wearing the same suits or dresses when last seen alive on earth. This innate sense of structural and bodily corporateness, whether concerning the experients themselves or other so-called people observed during an ECE, demands further exploration. It is highly probable that such internal images and perceptions of body shape are, as indicated by these many examples, derivative of internally generated cerebral mechanisms34in brains that could hardly be hypoxic. Truly spiritual ‘persons’ or even incorporeal or disembodied ‘consciousness’, as the authored excerpts given above variously indicate, should neither rely on so- maesthetic competence nor allude to or require functioning body parts for supportive activity. Indeed, by the very definitions and implications imposed by the collective authorship under review, any persisting body part and its allied function would no longer be present, available or necessary in the other-worldly domain proposed by these writers.

33 _{Ring 1980, 60.} 34

4 . 3 . T H E I N T RU S I O N O F C O G N I T I V E AC T I V I T Y I N TO T H E S U B J E C TI V E WO R L D O F E C E

4.3.a. Physically Based Influences on ECE Phenomenology