The Universe Next Door by James Sire

Author:James Sire
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: world religions, Worldview, Christianity, worldviews textbook, Marxism, religion, biblical worldview, nihilism, new age, spirituality, eastern philosophy, existentialism, christian worldview textbook, Christian apologetics, what is a worldview, Christian worldview, postmodernism, deism, Christian theism, philosophy, apologetics textbook, Islam, pantheism, new age philosophy, Islamic theism, theology, apologetics, different religions, world religions textbook, Eastern Pantheistic Monism, naturalism, new-age
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2020-06-17T06:06:38+00:00

4. Worldview Question 4 (death): Physical death is not the end of the self; under the experience of cosmic consciousness, the fear of death is removed.

Again, I mention this characteristic separately because the notion of death is so central a concern to all of us. We are not just our physical body, says the New Age. Human beings are a unity beyond the body. States of cosmic consciousness confirm this over and over, so much so that Stanislav Grof has experimented with LSD, giving it to patients before they die so that they can experience cosmic unity as they breathe their last breath. 90

Perhaps the most well-known student of death, however, is psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose On Death and Dying (1969) has attained a deserved acclaim. In the 1970s Kübler-Ross studied near-death out-of-body experiences and acquired her own spirit guides, who assured her that death is just a transition to another stage of life. 91 Interest in near-death experiences was fueled by the very popular Life After Life, written by medical doctor Raymond J. Moody Jr. 92

Another witness to death as transition to another state is provided by past-life recall, such as that MacLaine recounts at considerable length in her books, especially Dancing in the Light. Through acupuncture that triggers past-life recall and by consulting channelers such as Kevin Ryerson—through whom speak the voices of Tom McPherson (who says he was once a pickpocket in the Elizabethan age) and John of Zebedee (who identifies himself as the author of Revelation and the Gospel of John)—MacLaine says she has either learned about or “seen” herself in former incarnations. She claims, for example, to have lived thousands of lives before, having been a harem dancer, “a Spanish infant wearing diamond earrings, and in a church, . . . a monk meditating in a cave, . . . a ballet dancer in Russia, . . . an Inca youth in Peru.” She was also “involved with voodoo” and, as “princess of the elephants” in India, once saved a village from destruction and taught her people a higher level of morality. 93 In It’s All in the Playing she has a vision of cremation vases which her Higher Self tells her contain “both child and grandfather.” She had been both. 94

The ultimate basis for the belief that death is just a transition to another form of life is, however, the notion that “consciousness” is more than one’s physical manifestation. If one is the all or the maker of the all, and if this is “known” intuitively, then a person surely has no need to fear death. Past-life recall and most near-death accounts, so the New Age holds, justify this lack of fear. There is, however, negative evidence from out-of-body experiences that is not considered by New Age proponents, and the idea of reincarnation has been weighed and found wanting as well. 95

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