No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  Watt is also one of the authors of a paper titled, “There Is Nothing Paranormal about Near-Death Experiences: How Neuroscience Can Explain Seeing Bright Lights, Meeting the Dead, or Being Convinced You Are One of Them.”23 In that paper, Watt and neuroscientist Dean Mobbs say the scientific evidence suggests that all aspects of NDEs “have a neurophysiological or psychological basis.”

  “[T]he vivid pleasure frequently experienced in near-death experiences may be the result of fear-elicited opioid release, while the life review and REM components of the near-death experience could be attributed to the action of the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system,” the authors wrote. “Out-of-body experiences and feelings of disconnection with the physical body could arise because of a breakdown in multisensory processes, and the bright lights and tunneling could be the result of a peripheral to fovea breakdown of the visual system through oxygen deprivation. A priori expectations, where the individual makes sense of the situation by believing they will experience the archetypal near-death experience package, may also play a crucial role.”

  While there are a number of disagreements between scientists on the issues surrounding NDEs, they all agree on two things: (1) the experiences are relatively common, with somewhere between 9 and 18 percent of the population having reported them,2425 and (2) the content of near-death memories changes based on the patient’s culture.

  CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

  There are a number of believers who think their and others’ near-death or out-of-body experiences (OOBEs) are proof of an afterlife, but even the most imaginative reports of the various afterlives don’t seem much like “life” to me. NDE memories usually consist of vague colors and feelings, and when there are specifics, we don’t ever see anything truly groundbreaking—it’s often just the same recited lines from the movies. The problem here is obvious: during what are more appropriately called near-death hallucinations, people tend to see what they expect to see—what’s culturally familiar. In other words, during NDEs, a Christian is more likely to see Jesus and angels while a Hindu will probably see Yama, the god of death, and his messengers, called yamadoots.

  Satwant Pasricha, the head of the Department of Clinical Psychology at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bangalore, India, specializes in analyzing NDE reports throughout the country. In one study,26 Pasricha found that patients who report NDEs might “go through some common experiences irrespective of their cultural background.” The specific details of the memories, however, varied greatly depending on belief. One of his subjects, a 60-year-old woman named Javanamma, reported being “dragged up” by four yamadoots.

  “I saw one door, and went inside. I saw my mother and father there. I also saw the Yama who was fat and had books in front of him. The Yama started beating the yamadoots for having taken me there instead of another person,” Javanamma recounted during her interview with the researchers. “I was asked by my parents and the Yama to be sent back. I was scared to be there because there were so many people, and I was happy to be back so I could see my children.”

  In yet another similar case, Pasricha and his team interviewed Gowramma, a 22-year-old woman who fell unconscious for approximately 10 minutes. She reported having an OOBE in which she could see her body lying down below.

  “I was taken up by some messengers in a jeep to Yamapatna (the place where Yama, the god of the dead, lives). He had a listing of names in the books,” Gowramma told the scientists. “Yama looked into the books and told the messengers, ‘Send her back; she still has not completed her time.’”

  Others researching NDEs from a phenomenological perspective have similarly discovered notable differences and commonalities between non-Western experiences and those reported by Americans and Europeans. In one cross-cultural analysis,27 Mahendra Perera, a consultant psychiatrist and senior fellow of psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and others concluded that “although there are common themes, there are also reported differences in NDEs.”

  “The variability across cultures is most likely to be due to our interpretation and verbalizing of such esoteric events through the filters of language, cultural experiences, religion, education and their influence on our belief systems either shedding influence as an individual variable or more often perhaps by their rich interplay between these factors,” the authors of the study wrote.

  Modern scientific inquiries help us better understand the nature of NDEs, but we must also recognize that these types of near-death reports go back thousands of years. For instance, in the Myth of Er, the legend that concludes Plato’s The Republic, a man who died in battle is revived and recounts his experiences. He did not see Jesus or Yama, however; instead, he saw “a shaft of light stretching from above straight through earth and heaven, like a pillar, closely resembling a rainbow, only brighter and clearer,” among other things.28 This mythological tale is considered by some experts to be “the oldest known direct account of an NDE,”29 while the oldest verified medical report of such an experience can be traced back to a French military physician in 1740. The doctor, Pierre-Jean du Monchaux, wrote about a patient who was unconscious for a long period of time before waking up and reporting that he saw “such a pure and extreme light that he thought he was in Heaven.”

  “He remembered this sensation very well, and affirmed that never of all his life had he had a nicer moment,” Monchaux wrote, according to Dr. Phillippe Charlier, an archeologist who discovered the account in an old medical text.30 “Other individuals of various ages and sexes reported a very similar sensation in the same circumstances.”

  Even during a time in which relying on religious conclusions to everyday questions was commonplace, Monchaux reportedly compared the case to similar incidents involving drowning, hypothermia, and hanging, and proposed a physio-pathological explanation.

  “In all these examples, the cause of the pleasant sensation seems to be the same. The effects of the bonds, cold, pressure of surrounding water, depression due to an important phlebotomy, exclude quite entirely the cutaneous veins or leave a very little quantity of blood. What happens then?” he wrote. “All the blood and humors flow abundantly and quietly in the internal vessels, especially the brain vessels, protected from any external compression. And it is precisely this blood effusion that excites all these vivid and strong sensations.”31

  The comparisons between NDEs across cultures and time periods show us that brain chemistry, expectations, and beliefs play a huge role in what we see during these experiences, and that the scientific answers—not religious ones—are likely correct. After all, the Christian God probably wouldn’t give visions of Yama to dying Hindus and a Hindu deity wouldn’t reveal an image of Jesus to Christians whose hearts have stopped. The most likely explanation for commonalities and distinctions in cross-culture NDEs is that there are key similarities triggered by a dying brain, as well as important differences that rely on the patient’s own interpretations and preconceived notions.

  WHEN KARMA SMACKS YOU DOWN

  Karma and reincarnation were created by people, just as heavens and hells were, out of our own knowledge of impending doom and desire to control others’ actions. And I don’t believe in them for the same reason I don’t believe in any unsubstantiated and faith-based concepts: there’s simply no hard evidence. Although I’m threatened with Hell more often in my line of work, my first karma warning was pretty entertaining, as well. I was about 15 years old and a friend’s mom was lecturing me. “Have you heard of karmasmack?” she asked. After a confused silence, she finished. “It’s when karma smacks you down!”

  The woman who threatened me with karmasmack was operating under a misunderstanding of the belief system itself. Karma, the supernatural notion in which good works are said to result in favorable outcomes in the next life, is not just some vague “reap what you sow” concept; it’s a complicated Buddhist and Hindu belief that integrates with reincarnation. Karma originated in ancient India and is
associated with Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. It is best to examine karma within the confines of reincarnation (or Samsara), so it is not thoroughly understood to many people in Western cultures, including self-professed believers.32 In the United States and elsewhere, many believers have transformed “karma” to arbitrarily describe positive and negative forces in this life thought to be generated by good and bad actions, respectively. That misunderstanding of karma has been perpetuated by common usage of the term33 and the media.34

  In the transformed New Age meaning of karma, believers often claim that rewards and retribution are administered by “the Universe” during this life. This idea is demonstrably false. The fact is that good and bad people don’t always get what they deserve, and to suggest otherwise is to ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary. You’d have to ignore every serial killer who has gotten away with his or her crimes, escaping all punishment in every sense of the word, and every child who dies a painful death before having the chance to harm anyone. Of course, when presented with these challenges to New Age karma, believers will regularly disregard them without further consideration, claiming (conveniently) that the cosmic balance of justice can’t be measured, quantified, or proven.

  Closely linked to New Age karma is the law of attraction movement. The so-called “law” of attraction, also known as The Secret, is based upon no scientific principles. The Secret is a popular self-help book that teaches measurably false ideas, including that positive thinking itself (without further action) can create life-changing results, like increased wealth, health, and happiness. The hypothesis essentially states that thinking specific thoughts can cause those thoughts to come to fruition in the form of various material items. The falsely named law of attraction takes advantage of our human urge to believe in something greater, along with our pattern recognition capabilities and tendency toward confirmation bias, to convince believers that their “vision board” is bringing things into their life. While it’s great to maintain a positive attitude and thinking about goals may help keep them in mind and therefore could make achieving them easier, The Secret is essentially wishful thinking dressed up in New Age clothing.35

  There’s no doubt that some ideas taught in The Secret can at times affect a person’s behavior in a positive way, but that’s not always the case. In fact, announcing goals and intentions, a key component of the belief system, has actually been shown to compromise a person’s performance more often than not. According to one study by New York University psychologist Peter Gollwitzer and others, “people’s taking notice of one’s identity-relevant intentions apparently engenders a premature sense of completeness regarding the identity goal.”36 The idea of The Secret is also dangerous because our actions (and not our thoughts) are truly responsible for most of our own outcomes, and forgetting that can cause people to waste time and energy on fruitless endeavors when they could be working hard to improve their circumstances. Most importantly, regardless of whether believing in The Secret helps someone focus more or less on achieving goals, there’s no evidence to suggest that the universe “rewards” any form of thinking with concrete changes. In the majority of cases, much like with prayer and other petitionary superstitions, any “results” from The Secret are interpreted based on the believers’ expectations. The fact is that no amount of praying, wishing, or vision-boarding will change your future. Whether you’re analyzing the possibility of New Age karma, The Secret, or anything else, confirmation bias can be a powerful force, so as always I recommend following the objective, scientific evidence—and not mere anecdotes.

  When compared to The Secret, traditional karma is much more complex. As Michael Shermer explains, in Buddhism, the most fundamental unit of matter is prana, “a vital energy indistinguishable from consciousness.”

  “So matter, energy, and consciousness are the same. Since not only sentience, but the origins of life, consciousness, and morality are inadequately explained by science, it is useful to employ the notion of karma. Here I am afraid the Dalai Lama proffers the same empty explanations as the creationists and Intelligent Design theorists in what we call the ‘God of the Gaps,’” Shermer wrote.37 “Wherever there is a gap in scientific explanation—the origins of life, sentience, consciousness, morality—this is where God, or karma, intervened. But what happens to God/karma when science fills in the gap? Are you going to abandon God/karma from your worldview?”

  Religious karma is not only more complicated than the New Age version, it’s also more harmful. For instance, a literal application of karma means that believers could witness a young child experiencing something terrible and, instead of helping, they may assume the victim deserves it based on something he or she did in an unknown “past life.” Karma is a completely unfalsifiable idea that is incredibly susceptible to dangerous assumptions and intentional fraud because it relies on information from reincarnation, which itself has never been shown to exist. Reincarnation posits that a soul begins a new life in a new body after biological death and, like most supernatural concepts, it is a byproduct of humanity’s wishful thinking. We are aware of our own mortality and the mortality of our loved ones and, as a result, we seek ways to live on—even if it’s in another form. We make up stories that are passed down from generation to generation, but that can’t be verified or proven. This is a common thread that ties together heavens, hells, reincarnation, ghosts, spirits, and more.

  REBIRTH AND REINCARNATION

  A number of people from various time periods and cultures, including North American Indians,38 ancient Greeks,39 and more, have professed a belief in reincarnation—and that’s not surprising. In fact, I understand why the idea of reincarnation, or rebirth, is popular. As a metaphor, it’s poetic, comforting, and “can prove useful in grappling with our lives,” according to author Derek Beres.

  “Rites of passage and overcoming personal trauma are great examples of how one can be rebirthed,” he wrote for Big Think,40 adding that there is no scientific evidence to suggest reincarnation is a real phenomenon. “When treated as a ‘science,’ reincarnation is a relic of our primitive past that we cannot seem to evolve beyond. Still, our spiritual traditions cling to this archaic idea by pretending a discipline ill-suited for such topics provides ‘proof’ of transmigration.”

  The most common “evidence” put forth for reincarnation is people, especially young children, who say they are able to recount their so-called past lives. There are numerous examples of well-publicized stories with this theme, including Luke Ruehlman, a five-year-old Caucasian boy whose parents say he used to be an African-American woman named Pamela Robinson,41 and Ryan Hammons, a young boy from Oklahoma whose mother claims he was a movie extra named Marty Martyn.42 But none have produced evidence for anything beyond vivid imaginations in children and the fact that their families can use Google. While admittedly imaginative, these kids have never shown any data definitively pointing to reincarnation as a fact, and their anecdotes should not be confused for scientific evidence. That’s not to say, however, that it would be impossible to prove reincarnation was real. I only mean to suggest that proof would come through scientific research, and not the retelling of vague stories.

  Ignoring for a moment that the numbers of humans, and life forms in general, have been in a constant state of flux for millions of years, let’s consider the possibility that one death is equal to one birth, with “souls” flowing in between. How would we show this to be true? In order to present the past life “memories” as evidence, one would need to study the subjects in a controlled, scientific environment—a relatively easy task. The researcher would then have to verify information that couldn’t possibly have come from any other source. If a child was said to be able to speak in a language that he or she has never encountered, for instance, the scientist would be required to validate the claim and investigate possible natural explanations to rule them out entirely. Those studying subjects with alleged recollections of past lives would be forced to find empirical data that both
showed that the stories were true (i.e., the information was not discovered through other methods) and demonstrated how rebirth works in the real world before they could proclaim the phenomenon is the result of human “spirits” being passed into new bodies. In short, simply noting that there is a child who has a memory of some perceived (yet vague) previous life, or a birthmark similar to one of a deceased person, is not good enough.

  Many scientists have tried to prove the reincarnation hypothesis, including University of Virginia psychiatry professor Jim B. Tucker, whose work is based partly on cases accumulated by his predecessor Ian Stevenson.43 These researchers have uncovered some interesting and unexplained cases of children with perceived knowledge of the past that wouldn’t be easily obtained, but they have fallen short of proving the existence of reincarnation. Still, serious scientific inquiries into the matter have been hailed by skeptics. Carl Sagan, for instance, referred to childhood past-life memories in The Demon-Haunted World as one of three claims in the ESP field that “deserve serious study.”44 Sam Harris, the neuroscientist and author who thoroughly debunked the NDE claims of neurosurgeon Eben Alexander,45 also referred to Stevenson’s work in his book, End of Faith. In a footnote, Harris states that there “may even be some credible evidence for reincarnation.” So, what did Stevenson, Tucker, and others discover? Not much. They have raised some interesting questions, but there are several problems with their research and they haven’t demonstrated the validity of past lives. According to Jonathan Edelmann, an assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida, and William Bernet, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, there are “a number of weaknesses with the current methodology used by parapsychologists to study reincarnation claims.”