There Is Life After Death. Tom Harpur
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was delighted by that horse. We had Sunday conversations about it over many months. Bobby would say, ‘That horse is lonely. I could be his friend. Can we take him home?’ I would have to answer, ‘No, dear. You can’t just take somebody else’s horse.’ He once replied, ‘I have four dollars saved up. I could buy him from the farmer.’ But, of course, even if he had had more money we didn’t have a stable, etc. Bobby insisted he could build a small house, cut grass and feed him: ‘He really is my horse,’ he argued. Ten weeks later, Bobby was dead. He drowned while playing with some friends. My spirit silently screamed, ‘Where are you, my little one? I know where your body is, but where are you?’ Now our street is a crescent shape with about fifty homes on it. We live near the middle of the crescent. The horse’s field was almost a mile from us with orchards, lanes and old farms between us. The Sunday following Bobby’s burial, when we were getting ready to drive to church, we looked out and there on our front lawn, peacefully cropping the grass, was the old grey horse. Only the spirit that never dies, the spirit of Bobby, could have known the perfect assurance this meant for us that there is, without doubt, a life of the spirit after bodily death. Thank you for letting me tell this reality. It is true.”
Ghosts and Apparitions
The following experience of one of my correspondents, S.D., does not involve anyone she knows personally: “Twenty years ago we bought a lovely old historic home in a small Ontario town. At the time of the move I was studying for my Ph.D. orals. Several events transpired after we moved in. I used to read in a bright sunroom at the back of the house. Every day about 3 P.M. I’d hear someone open the front door and climb the stairs to the second floor. The first few times I went into the front foyer and yelled up the stairs to my daughter, asking, ‘What are you doing home from school so early?’ Of course, there was never an answer. (My husband often heard this same sound of the front door opening and footsteps on the stairs.) One day I went up to the third floor and found all my Ph.D. reading materials strewn around the room and the dresser moved. I was quick to blame a family member for this, but they were all adamant that they’d had nothing to do with this phenomenon and I finally had to accept that fact. The interesting thing is this: the dresser had been placed against a wall in front of a curled lip of old linoleum; the large piece of furniture had to be picked up, lifted over the curled lip, and could not have been slid along, thus requiring two fairly strong people.”
There are a number of responses we can make to such testimonials. The determined skeptic will naturally scoff at all of this and dismiss it out of hand. The true believer will tend to take it all as some kind of proof positive that humans survive death in some mysterious way. Both responses, I believe, are inadequate. In spite of every attempt to be as scientific as possible in methodology and outlook, none of the results of the surveys—either my own or those of the experts— can claim to be scientific proof. About that, we must be very clear. These experiences cannot be repeated in a laboratory under scientific conditions; they cannot be verified by any normal, empirical methods. They are, by their very nature, highly subjective.
Having said that, however, it should once more be pointed out that simply to dismiss them on those grounds as nonsense would in itself be highly unscientific. Something major, something highly significant, clearly is going on here, and it would be irresponsible to try to ignore it or brush it away. The fact that intelligent, non-religious people, as well as those with faith in life after death, have had such experiences, together with the vividness and unexpectedness of the happenings themselves, combine to suggest there is much more to all of this than wishful thinking or projection. Whatever else we may say, these experiences are intensely real to the millions who have them. The possibility, even the probability that they witness an objective reality “out there” has to be taken with full seriousness. I was personally enormously intrigued by what my readers had to say, and this was what led me to look further into the topic for the next chapter: the near-death experience. For those interested in reading more on this subject, I would recommend the book Hello From Heaven mentioned in the bibliography.
Lack of Communication
A friend of mine wrote: “As you know, my father died twenty-three years ago. I adored him and we were very emotionally close. And, he was a Christian with a great faith. He and I had a sort of pact, which we mentioned from time to time. He promised me that wherever he was in the afterlife, he would let me know that ‘all was well’ by moving or shaking whatever dining room fixture was in my home, wherever that happened to be. Well, I have seen and heard nothing! I know you likely have some explanation, that it was a promise made which should not, or could not, be kept. In my heart he is still very much with me always, and I know I should be content with that. But nonetheless, I’m disappointed.”
During the interval between the first edition of Life after Death and this revised and updated version, I have heard from several people writing variations on the same theme. Loved ones have solemnly undertaken to “come through” or give a sign of some kind that all was well and that they were fully alive on the other side. But, they have felt, heard or seen nothing to confirm that promised message. On the other hand, most of those who have reported meaningful evidence of contact of some kind were not expecting it or, in many cases, didn’t believe it was even a remote possibility.
Total honesty leaves one little choice here other than to confess there is no obvious answer. I certainly don’t have a ready, easy explanation. I am aware of hundreds of cases where a sign was undertaken and where the person concerned is fully convinced that some form of it has actually been made manifest. I must add, though, that hardly ever has it been exactly as promised or forecast. A sense of the quixotic, or a wry humour, often seems to slant the phenomenon in some way. It’s almost as though some higher intelligence were saying: “You can’t command these things, you know.” Some of us perhaps may need to learn more trust, more confidence, in God’s ultimate caring and comfort. Perhaps, in some cases, it’s really a very positive thing. Our loved one may be so caught up in amazing, new creative tasks or learning untold heavenly mysteries as to be wholly occupied with “things above.” In truth, I do not know.
One final story before we move on. When the bishop gave me my first parish, out in the wilds of Scarborough, Ontario, he sent me a young priest from the Church of South India, who was studying at Wycliffe College, to be my Sunday assistant. His name was T.K. George, a small, gentle man of deep faith and intelligence. Just as I was writing this chapter a letter came from a former parishioner of mine saying that she had just heard from T.K.’s wife. She wrote that my former associate had died very peacefully at his home in India after a long illness. What she particularly wanted to share with those who had known him was that, just before the moment of his last breath, he told his wife he could see “[his] spiritual body coming to meet [him].”6
THERE ARE MILLIONS of people today—well over eight million in the United States alone—who claim to know what death is like. They have “died” in the sense that they have suffered cardiac arrest or have been otherwise declared clinically dead and then have regained consciousness. Others, under the influence of various anaesthetics, in the throes of giving birth, at moments of extreme crisis and danger, or simply in a “natural” out-of-body event, report curiously similar perceptions of a transitional state of being between this world and another. All have come back from this experience remarkably changed and with an amazing story to tell.
For many people, ever since Dr. Raymond Moody described this phenomenon in his trendsetting, pivotal book Life After Life, published in 1975, the near-death experience (NDE) is the final proof they have been waiting for that life goes on beyond the grave.1 The skeptics and serious critics disagree. So much more has been written on this subject in the period since that first book by Moody, and so much invaluable research has been done by doctors and scientists, among others, that we must now attempt to come to terms with the possibilities and problems raised. What light does the NDE throw upon the belief in life after death? The fact that the experience does occur on an extraordinarily vast scale in all cultures and climes