chapter 13

NDEs, OBEs, and Mediumistic States

In approaching the unusual states of consciousness described in this chapter, it’s important and useful to remember William James’s principle of radical empiricism. The appropriate scientific approach to these topics that some regard as marginal or paranormal (and hence beyond the pale of scientific acceptability) is (1) to gather and compare observations made by multiple observers, and (2) to separate, in our thinking, the phenomenological descriptions of human observers from our theoretical reflections on the implications of these findings for our worldview.

These experiences involve a more or less complete dissociation from the ordinary, functional body consciousness—yet they are not an unconscious coma-like condition. Rather, these states are characterized by a vast expansion and deepening of awareness into the spiritual and transpersonal dimensions of our beingness. I will discuss what we can learn from these unusual states of consciousness, their implications for spiritual growth, and the evolution of consciousness.

NDEs (Near-Death Experiences)

NDEs came to the attention of social scientists and philosophers in the 1970s with the publication of books by Raymond Moody, Karlis Osis, Bruce Greyson, Kenneth Ring, Melvin Morse, and others. Advances in life-saving emergency medical technologies probably contributed to more individuals being successfully resuscitated after near-fatal accidents or during surgery. It is estimated that about 20 to 30 percent of individuals actually coming close to physical death and reviving, report the classic NDE after their return to waking consciousness. Autobiographical accounts of NDEs continue to appear almost every year, and regularly land on best-seller lists. There appears to be an insatiable spiritual hunger for news about the process of dying and the afterlife.

In terms of the heuristic model of altered states presented in chapter 6, the catalyst for an NDE is the recognition by the subject of actually crossing some kind of threshold into physical death. This kind of experience should be distinguished from “ego-death” experiences in profound drug-induced or holotropic rebirthing states, where one may subjectively feel as if they are dying, when there is actually no objective indication of physiological death.

The clock-time duration of the NDE (established after the fact) can vary from a few minutes to half an hour or more. Subjectively, the time-space dimension is completely transcended, as the depth and vast range of experiences remembered and reported seem to occur in a timeless and dimensionless realm. The sense of being in a different timestream is one of the strongest indications of a profoundly altered state of consciousness. The dilation of subjective time is also characteristic of deep psychedelic experiences.

Common features of the classic NDE identified by researchers include a sense of being out of the body and sometimes of seeing one’s body from above (OBE); an abrupt and total cessation of pain and fear and entering into a state of profound peace and contentment; a sense of crossing a threshold, or in-between space, or entering into a tunnel with brilliant light at the end; meeting with previously deceased family members or ancestors; and meeting with spiritual light-beings, sometimes identified as angels, who embrace one with total unconditional love and telepathically transmit spiritual teachings and guidance (Ring, 1992; Ring, 1998; Moody, 1989).

Some individuals report a vivid, nonjudgmental review and assessment of significant experiences of one’s life, often aided by these angelic beings. At some point in the experience, the celestial beings may communicate that the individual is not to stay in this realm, but must return to their embodied life. Often, this guidance is met with some regret or resistance, but eventual acceptance with renewed commitment to realizing a spiritual vision in one’s life. This sense of spiritual commitment and the reduction of the fear of death are the two principal take-home gifts of an NDE.

The life-review vision, which is a frequent though not invariable component of NDEs, may be the experiential basis for the metaphors and myths of a postmortem judgment scene found in many religious traditions. In Egyptian mythology the heart of the deceased is weighed on a scale against the Truth Feather of the goddess Maat. In Tibetan Buddhism, the death god Yama holds a mirror up to the just deceased, in which they can see all their deeds and corresponding intentions, which will determine their course through the bardos. The simplistic Christian conception of a judgment scene where the just and the sinful are separated, as sheep and goats, with the latter condemned to eternal damnation, does not find support in any of the reported NDE life-review accounts.

I have myself never had an NDE, although once, when my car slid on an icy road and went off a ten-foot embankment, I experienced the timeless sense of calm acceptance in the few seconds that it took for the car to land. Another time, while climbing in the Alps with my father as a teenager, balancing carefully along a steep icy slope where one misstep could be fatal, I felt the exhilarating sense of freedom and release from all earthly anxieties, together with effortless and precise concentration on the placement of each next step.

OBEs (Out-of-Body Experiences)

OBEs are experiences in which one has a sense of being located outside of one’s normal body, floating above it or near it in some kind of subtle body form, and being able to look down on the physical body as if it belonged to someone else. Such experiences may be part of NDEs, as in cases of serious accidents or surgery, where the person may see his or her body being worked on by doctors from some distance above. OBEs can occur in the course of meditative and psychedelic states, usually without the reflexive looking back at the physical body. In sleep states, we may experience OBEs as flying dreams, as I have done, enjoying the exhilarating release from gravity’s pull, also without concern for the normal physical vehicle.

The reality and validity of waking-state OBEs has been debated: some believe the whole phenomenon is a hallucinatory illusion, a body-image distortion, or a kind of neurological oddity referred to as autoscopy. Recently, electrical stimulation of certain brain centers has seemingly produced something like this sensation of being outside of the body. Nevertheless, psychologists who have investigated the phenomenon have failed to find any correlation with psychopathology. Questionnaire studies have shown that between 10 and 20 percent of normal adults report having had at least one OBE at some point in their lives (Gabbard and Twemlow, 1984).

The controversial question of whether the perceptions in an OBE state are veridical observations has elicited some research. The cardiologist Michael Sabom reported on OBEs in hospital patients who died during cardiac arrests, and subsequently recovered. He found several who were able to give detailed and accurate descriptions of the conditions of their body and the procedures being conducted by the surgical staff. The parapsychologist Charles Tart conducted tests in a sleep chamber with a couple of gifted subjects who were able to voluntarily induce OBEs. He was able to establish that they could accurately “see” features outside of the chamber in which they were sleeping (Lynn and Rhue, 1994).

Studies such as these have led parapsychologists to aver that the OBE is a “psi-conducive state”—in other words, one that can occur with veridical clairvoyance and remote viewing—at least in selected, especially gifted subjects. Robert Monroe, who was trained as an engineer, wrote several books about his out-of-body travels, and developed a technology called Hemi-Sync, in which inaudible aural beat frequencies are used to entrain brain rhythms and facilitate intentional OBE travels. The psychic Ingo Swann, who was also skilled at intentional OBEs, went on to help develop the Stanford Research Institute’s CIA remote viewing protocols as part of secret government psychic espionage programs (Monroe, 1971, 1985).

Spiritual Practices Involving Intentional OBEs

In some of the earlier esoteric literature, conscious OBE travel was referred to as “astral projection.” My teacher of alchemical fire-yoga, Russell Schofield, explained that this terminology is misleading in that we are in our astral body (also called the emotional or psychic body) when we are in the astral dimension or world, which is a higher-frequency dimension quite distinct and different from the ordinary time-space world. Instead, out-of-body travel occurs by means of the etheric matrix (also called etheric double), which is slightly higher-frequency than the physical (and hence invisible), but still localized within the time-space dimension. The etheric double or matrix is a subtle energy form that encompasses the physical body, extending slightly beyond it, and also encompasses every organ within the body and every cell.

The etheric matrix body functions as a template for the infusion and maintenance of vital life force in the physical. Distortions in the relationship between the physical body and the etheric matrix are both cause and consequence of many illnesses and injuries. Psychic healers who work with hand-directed subtle energy currents channel healing energy and vitality via the etheric double. The Greek Cypriot mystic and spiritual healer Stylianos Atteshlis (1912–1995), who was known to his followers as Daskalos (“Teacher”), explained that

every body of every existence, from the simplest to the most complex structures, possesses an etheric double, centered within the body and extending slightly beyond it… The etheric double serves both as the mould for the body’s construction and in the preservation of the body’s health (Atteshlis, 1992, p. 190).

The extraordinary life and work of this Teacher, also referred to as the Magus of Strovolos, is described in a series of books by Kyriakos Markides. He spent almost his entire life in Cyprus, living modestly and quietly, doing healings and teaching a circle of students he referred to as “Researchers of Truth.” Among the practices he taught his students was what he called exsomatosis (literally, “out-of-body travel”). “We all leave our bodies each night, during sleep, and travel to other planes subconsciously. The aim however is to live consciously while out of our bodies” (Atteshlis, 1992, p. 191). In other words, the practice of exsomatosis is a method of inducing a conscious, intentional OBE based on meditative practice and concentrative skill. Daskalos would arrange to meet with his students through exsomatosis at night, for healing and peacemaking work, after they went to sleep.

The notion of being able to travel and function in the ordinary time-space world in an etheric double or matrix body is also consistent with Robert Monroe’s mapping of his OBEs. He described a Level 12 dimension, the first and local environment you could explore after you succeeded in separating from the physical. Flying dreams, in which you are in a body that is lighter than air, though otherwise the same familiar shape as your physical body, can best be understood in this way. We are in the etheric double in dream states when exploring earthbound locales and interacting with familiar recognizable humans. (If we meet flying dragons or walk in jeweled palaces in our dreams we are clearly in another dimension, probably in the astral.)

Since the etheric double is higher frequency than the physical, it can not only fly, but also pass through walls. This idea can help us understand some of the strange happenings, such as flying off a cliff, or appearing abruptly in remote locales seemingly without traveling, recorded in the books by Carlos Castaneda. It can also help us to understand aspects of the reports of alien abductions, where a sleeping body is apparently lifted out of bed, through the walls of a house, into a spaceship, where various operations are performed (sometimes leaving implants in the physical).

Mediumistic States

There is a vast literature reporting on altered states of consciousness in which some other being—spirit, deity, or deceased ancestor—“comes through” and speaks instead of, or through the medium of, an existing personality. Such states can be arranged on a spectrum of degree of dissociation from the ordinary personality: inspiration, channeling or mediumship, possession states. Here too, from a radical empirical perspective, it is useful to separate the self-reported phenomenological description of the state of consciousness from the veridicality of the contents of the statements made.

Inspiration. Who has not had the feeling of some other energy, some other spirit, some hitherto unknown flow of positive feeling coming through one in the midst of creative activity and expression? The thoughts and feelings of the ordinary personality are still there, but not presently in the foreground of awareness. You are still in the functional state of time-space reality awareness, but there is an effortless, natural flowing of thoughts, images, feelings, and movements—for example, with a paint brush or with a musical instrument. When I was writing The Well of Remembrance (1994), reading and reflecting on the stories of Odin, the knowledge-seeking god of shamans and poets, I would get flashes of insight and understanding of the myths—just as in the myths describing drops of the “mead of inspiration” coming down from above. I did not intentionally go into a meditative altered state—I just noticed that the insights came to me after a period of concentration on the stories and on that mythic figure.
Channeling and Mediumship. In some ways, these two terms are equivalent, with mediumship being the older nineteenth-century term, and channeling the more modern twentieth-century version—which has exploded in popularity and diversity in the post-1960s period in the West. The dissociative disconnect from the ordinary personality and consequent amnesia for the channeled communication is more pronounced than in simple inspiration, but also varies from person to person. There is usually an intentional setting up of a communication setting, a trancelike altered state of consciousness during which words are spoken and sometimes questions answered; and then a signing off with the return to the ordinary ego-state. Channelers have significantly more cortical alpha wave activity during their channeling trance, a pattern also found in other hypnotic trance states (Klimo, 1998).

For most trance channels, the dissociative switching of identities, is both intentional and quite pronounced. Jane Roberts wrote a series of highly illuminating books channeling Seth—self-identified as “an energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality.” For her, the transition to Seth speaking was accompanied by the abrupt removing of her glasses and a significant lowering of her voice (Roberts, 1974, 1976).

A medium from whom I received some insightful personal readings had such difficulties adjusting her vocal cords for the incoming spirit being—her voice would go abruptly very high or very low—that she eventually gave up doing channeled readings out of embarrassment. The well-known contemporary channel Kevin Ryerson stated that, for him, “the sensation of going into the trance-channeling state is identical to that of falling asleep—rather like falling backwards into sleep.” On awakening, he has no memory of the dialogue with his Spirit source that has taken place (Klimo, 1998).

Mediumistic communication with deceased ancestors was much more common in the latter part of the nineteenth-century, associated with various Spiritist and Theosophical groups. In Western Europe and the United States, interest in mediumship declined in the early twentieth-century, perhaps due to the ascendancy of the materialist worldview and behaviorist psychology. But in the Caribbean (Haiti) and South America, particularly Brazil, such traditions continued to flourish, nourished by cultural elements from Africa and the indigenous Indian populations.

In the Brazilian Umbanda religion, individuals learn to go into trance to invite spirits into their bodies so that they can communicate with the spirits of pretos velhos (“old blacks”) or caboclos (“native Indians”) and convey their messages and healings to others. The trance-induction process occurs via particular rhythmic drum patterns, and while the medium is in trance, he or she is given a cigar to smoke. It is said that tobacco smoke helps the spirits connect again to the Earth plane, since there is no fire or smoke on the astral plane.

I once witnessed an Umbanda ritual in a small church in Northern California, conducted by a priestess visiting from Rio de Janeiro. Under the impulse of the drum rhythm, a pale Frenchman seemingly changed his visage to that of an old dark-skinned Indian man. While puffing on his cigar, he would then give advice to those standing in front of him. He told me that I should let my vision roam over the landscape fluidly, like water—a beautiful Taoist image. Instigated by the priestess, different rhythmic patterns brought the entranced individuals back to their ordinary personality.

Most channelers and mediums, as well as shamans, say that in their trance states they enter voluntarily into contact and communication with a higher, more knowledgeable entity or spirit—with the conscious intention of healing or teaching others. Awareness of their usual body and personal identity recedes during the trance state into the background, and returns when the trance is concluded.

Possession. Full possession states, as in Haitian voodoo, fall at the extreme end of the dissociative spectrum in that there is a more or less complete loss of ordinary awareness of the body and the environment, and a sense of being taken over, voluntarily or not, by some kind of spirit or entity. There may or may not be an intention for the possessed individual to let himself or herself be used for any purpose, such as healing, beyond the possession itself.

From a psychological point of view, one could regard possession as a more extreme form of obsession, which itself can result from excessive attachment to a vision. A creative artist, inspired by a vision, may become obsessed with the challenge of bringing the vision into his or her chosen form of expression. Some artists, Van Gogh for example, have reported that the muse that at first inspired their visions ended up driving them or riding them into states of insane possession.

Obsessions are repetitive ruminations and anxiety- and guilt-laden thought complexes that may escalate to the point where the individual may feel compelled to hurt themselves or others. Here we are back in the realm of compulsions and addictions, contracted and dissociated ego-states, in which the individual feels impulses coming as if from some external, not-self entity implanted in them. Some years ago, I worked with a longtime heroin addict who described his addiction as requiring him to feed the drug to the “monkey on his back.” While I appreciated his description as a classic symbolic image, in a moment of extended perception I could “see” the hairy entity crouched on his back, with its claws sunk deep into his shoulders by the neck.

The psychologist and Swedenborgian scholar Wilson Van Dusen (1923–2005), who was chief psychologist at the former Mendocino State Hospital when I also worked there during the 1970s, had written a paper entitled The Presence of Spirits in Madness. In it, he compared what chronic schizophrenics said about the voices they heard in their heads with what the eighteenth-century Swedish mystic had said about the different kinds of spirits with which he had become acquainted. Swedenborg distinguished higher spirits, who gave counsel and encouragement to humans who contacted them, and lower spirits, who tormented and humiliated their human hosts (Van Dusen, 1974).

Van Dusen persuaded his patients to allow him to converse with the voices they heard in their heads—the patient now acting as an intentional medium. He found, like Swedenborg, that there were two kinds of voices: most of them were accusatory and mean-spirited—perhaps reminding the poor soul of some transgression in childhood for which he would burn in hell forever. A smaller number of the voices, however, seemed to be supportive and encouraging. Van Dusen’s approach to treatment for these individuals, who are generally regarded as untreatable by conventional methods, consisted of coaching them to listen attentively to the helpful voices and ignore the spiteful ones.

A similar approach to pathological possession states was taken by the Canadian psychologist Adam Crabtree, who was working with hypnotherapy to reconcile the different ego-states in multiple personality disorders. He would induce a deep hypnotic trance and allow the different split-off part-selves to come forward and articulate their grievances and needs so they could be reconciled. In a certain number of cases, it became clear that a completely different person had taken partial control of the subject’s mind. Like Van Dusen, Crabtree negotiated so that he could converse with these other entities as to their origin and agenda, while his host patient was in trance (Crabtree, 1985).

It turned out that the majority of the possessing entities were deceased family members who, in their own unconscious after-death limbo state, had started occupying a child’s mind, often when the latter was in a vulnerable or weakened condition due to an illness. In other words, a possessive attitude from a parental figure to a child could, under certain conditions, become an actual spirit possession after the parent’s death. The therapy in such cases consisted, first, of persuading the possessing spirit that they were actually dead; second, that they had no business occupying another person’s body and mind; and third, that they needed to go on to follow their own destiny in the spirit world.

While the extreme possession states related above may fall out of the range of personal experience for most readers, there is an important general principle here. We are vulnerable to being controlled and taken over, to varying degrees, by feeling states and thought-forms coming to us from others, particularly when we are in a dependency situation. Vulnerable dependencies may occur in childhood, during illness, or when there is an idealization projection toward the possessing being. Such a partial take-over of another’s identity may originally have been an innocent influence from one individual to another with whom there is a bond; it can become, through conditioning, fixated and repetitive as obsession, compulsion, and ultimately possession.

The healthy and healing response to such states is to recognize the possession and to draw on Divine Spirit as well as angelic allies to eliminate the possessive elements from one’s energy field and consciousness. Since possession states are not regarded as real within the Western medical and psychological paradigm, conditions such as those described above would probably be diagnosed as dissociative identity disorders, with delusions. Shamans in indigenous societies and spiritually oriented healing practitioners may utilize a variety of techniques of depossession, always invoking their own healing and guiding spirits, to restore a healthy, open, and reciprocal relationship between the individual and their divine Spirit Essence.