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Vietnam vets find closure with induced after death communication

Posted on 27 July 2010, 15:54

As a helicopter gunship pilot, Mark (not his real name) killed many people during his 18 months service in the Vietnam War. He was also shot down seven times and wounded twice. The confrontation that bothered him the most involved four boats filled with Vietnamese soldiers.

Unmarked and without flags, the boats had trespassed into a military canal. Mark and the four other gunships under his command attacked the boats and ‘blew them out of the water.’ He recalls seeing bodies flying in the air. Two weeks later, he was informed that they were friendly troops.

‘It stays in your mind and really weighs on you,’ Mark told me when I interviewed him for an article I wrote for NEXUS magazine a few years ago.

The memory of that mistake had continued to haunt him for more than three decades and in 2002 he sought treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at a veteran’s hospital. While there he was offered the opportunity to undergo a relatively new therapy called Induced After Death Communication (IADC).

IADC is an offshoot of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy and was discovered accidentally in 1995 by Dr Allan L Botkin (pictured above), a clinical psychologist now practicing in Libertyville, Illinois, while experimenting with EMDR. In IADC therapy, people grieving the death of someone or otherwise disturbed by someone’s death, are asked to focus directly on their sadness during eye movements.

The typical IADC involves the patient reporting having seen a deceased person and that deceased person having told him or her that everything is OK and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased person relates information previously unknown to the patient.

When the therapist explained the IADC procedure to Mark and asked him if he’d like to try it, he was more than willing. After the eye movements were administered, Mark focused on the boat mishap. ‘What happened then is that I saw a formation of Vietnamese coming at me,’ Mark related, the memory still very vivid in his mind several years later. ‘What was interesting is that they were in a Russian formation, not a US formation. Two of the commanders stepped forward and began talking to me in Vietnamese.’

Mark didn’t understand them until another eye movement was administered. They continued speaking in Vietnamese, but Mark somehow telepathically knew what they were saying. ‘They said that they understood that I did what I had to do and they had no grudge against me, that they are in a better place, and not to worry about it. Then they marched off. It was really cool and a big load off my shoulders.’

At another IADC session, Mark saw a woman holding his first son, who had died as an infant in 1978. As his focus was on the boy, he didn’t immediately recognize the woman as his deceased mother. In that session, the child did not speak, but in subsequent sessions, the boy appeared again, first as a teenagers and then as a young adult. ‘My son says to me, “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m okay. I’m going to see you soon.” I didn’t know what to make of that, if I’m going to die soon, or what, but it was very soothing.’

Mark also reviewed one of his helicopter crashes, including the intensity of the pain. He struggled to explain the images. ‘The quality and clarity of the images are much greater than in dreams,’ he said. ‘They are absolutely three dimensional and they stay with you. You have to experience it to know what it’s like. It’s not like hypnotism. It’ll spook you, but it is really something. The main thing is that it gives you closure and life has more meaning after you have experienced these things. There is a sense of continuity. It’s very comforting.’

Botkin states that the EMDR/IADC process does not involve hypnosis. ‘Hypnosis induces the patient into a relaxed and focused state of mind,’ he pointed out. ‘EMDR, on the other hand, increases information processing in the brain.’ He likened it to a movie projector, with the projector slowing down during hypnosis and speeding up during EMDR.

Botkin also put me in touch with Ivan Rupert, another veteran, who was bothered for many years by a memory of carnage in Vietnam. As a combat photographer, he was called upon early one morning to take photos of a Vietnamese bus that had been blown up. ‘There were bodies and body parts all over the place,’ he recalled, ‘but the one that really stuck in my mind was that of a young pregnant woman. You could see the baby and umbilical cord connecting them.’

The scene came back to Rupert over and over again in his dreams for many years until undergoing IADC with Botkin. What especially bothered him was that he was more intent on getting some good photos than feeling bad about what he was witnessing. During the IADC, the Vietnamese woman communicated with him. ‘She told me she was in a much better place and helped me understand that I was not the monster I thought I was. She said she didn’t blame me for any of it.’

Rupert can’t say for sure whether the woman spoke in Vietnamese or in English. ‘It was sort of mind to mind, heart to heart,’ he explained, adding that he no longer has the awful dreams relating to that scene.

There is no doubt in Rupert’s mind that he was actually communicating with the Vietnamese woman. ‘I was very skeptical when it was initially explained to me,’ he said. ‘It sounded like a lot of mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus, but it was the real thing. I’m certain that I was not hallucinating and I was not hypnotized.’

Botkin discovered IADC during a session with a patient to whom, for privacy purposes, he gives the pseudonym ‘Sam.’ While in Vietnam as a combat soldier, Sam befriended a young orphan girl named Le and had hoped to adopt her. One day, while Sam and other soldiers were helping Le and other orphaned children board a truck to take them to an orphanage, they came under enemy attack. When Sam discovered Le’s lifeless body in the mud behind the truck, he was devastated and the grief remained with him right up to that 1995 session with Botkin.

During the EMDR, Sam saw Le as a beautiful woman with long black hair in a white gown, surrounded in a radiant light. Le spoke to him and thanked him for taking care of her before her death. Sam was ecstatic and convinced that he had just communicated with Le, and that he felt her arms around him.

Initially, Botkin assumed that Sam had hallucinated and was concerned that Sam had compromised his ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. But after similar experiences reported by several other patients, Botkin decided to experiment.

His first intentionally induced ADC was with a patient named Gary, whose daughter, Julie, had died at age 13. Because she had been severely oxygen deprived at birth, Julie had never developed mental abilities beyond those of a six-month old child. After suffering a heart attack and rushed to the hospital, she was placed on life supports. As she later showed some signs of being able to breathe on her own, she was taken off the respirator. She struggled to breathe and died in Gary’s arms.

‘Tears rolled down Gary’s cheeks as he told me his story,’ Botkin recalled. ‘I explained my new procedure to him and asked him if he wanted to give it a try. He said he was willing if I thought it might help, but he was convinced it wouldn’t work for him because he was an atheist and didn’t believe in such things.’

After Botkin took him through the entire procedure, Gary closed his eyes.  “When he opened his eyes, he had a look of amazement,” Botkin continues the story.  “He then said, ‘I saw my daughter.  She was playing happily in a garden alive with rich and radiant bright colors.  She looked healthy and seemed to move around without the physical problems she had when alive.  She looked at me and I could feel her love for me.’ We then talked about his experience. Gary was convinced that his daughter was still alive, although in a very different place.”

But Gary’s look of amazement then shifted to one of sadness.  When Botkin asked him what was wrong, Gary replied that he still felt sad because he missed his daughter.  Botkin then administered another set of eye movements and asked him to keep that thought in mind.  Gary closed his eyes and sat quietly for a few moments.  “When Gary opened his eyes, he was smiling,” Botkin goes on.  “He said, ‘I was in the garden again and I could see Julie looking at me.  She said to me, ‘I’m still with you, Daddy.’”

Gary told Botkin that Julie couldn’t talk when alive.  He left the session feeling happy and reconnected to his daughter.  Botkin contacted Gary a year later and was informed that he still felt reconnected with his daughter.  Gary’s new belief was that “people don’t really die; they just take on a different form and live in a different place, which is very beautiful.” 

Since discovering the procedure, Botkin has trained a number of therapists in IADC, including Hania Stromberg of Albuquerque, NM (pictured above). In one experience, as she was administering the eye movements to a client, she felt a ‘presence’ entering the room and then saw a woman in a colorful dress and high heels. The woman, the client’s deceased mother, addressed the client by a special name of endearment and began discussing problems the client was having. After the session, Stromberg compared her notes with what the client related and all were confirmed – the special term of endearment being especially evidential since Stromberg had not been aware of it.

‘Occasionally I get visual impressions or pictures, but it is not always visual,’ Stromberg, who apparently has some clairvoyant and clairaudient abilities, told me. ‘I always have a strong sense of the presence of the deceased, often hear something they try to convey. It is either an auditory experience or sort of an auditory thought impression that I know is not mine.’

With co-author R Craig Hogan, PhD, Botkin wrote about IADC in his 2005 book, Induced After Death Communication (Hampton Roads). I recently re-contacted him to see if there have been any new developments.

‘Perhaps the most important development in IADC is that there are now trained IADC therapists in eight different countries,’ Botkin said. ‘In fact, after October 2010, when I train another large group in Heidelberg, there will likely be more IADC therapists in Europe than in the U.S.

‘On a more theoretical level, there have also been some advances,’ he continued. ‘In my book, I made the observation that IADC experiences were essentially identical to NDE experiences. The only exceptions, besides the obvious difference in perspective, were the ‘being of light’ and the ‘life review,’ which are two primary components of NDEs. While no one has yet described a being of light in an IADC, there have been some further developments regarding the life review in IADCs.

In 2005 I noted that the deceased consistently appeared in IADCs as though they had been through a life review, i.e., they were always very aware of the pain and suffering that they caused in other people. In more recent cases, there have been more direct experiences with life reviews. For example, in one case a woman experienced her WWII ‘German soldier’ uncle experiencing his own life review. Her uncle’s response to his life review had a profound meaning for my client. In another case, a man actually experienced his own life review during a session. These developments, of course, further support the idea that NDEs and IADCs are essentially the same phenomenon.

‘Also, I recently read Dr Jeffery Long’s new best-selling book, Evidence of the Afterlife. His descriptions of meeting deceased friends and relatives during an NDE are identical to my patients’ IADC reports. Dr Long does not provide any observation for which the meeting of the deceased in NDEs is different from IADC content. I can’t believe that this is just a coincidence.

The similarities include: a) A high percentage of experiences with the deceased involve family members; b) The deceased encountered in both experiences who were thought to be alive were later discovered to have previously died; c) Sometimes the experiencer encounters deceased family members he/she never met in life; d) Those who died old and sick are routinely experienced as younger and healthy; e) Those who die young are sometimes experienced as older.’

While IADC is receiving growing support from professional therapists around the world, Botkin is not especially disappointed that it has not been more readily accepted by the Veteran’s Administration and various mental health organizations. He feels that progress is necessarily slow as it takes time for independent research studies to validate it. ‘I am confident,’ he said, ‘that independent scientifically controlled studies will confirm what IADC therapists and patients have been saying now for some time.’

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.

 


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Latest research on near-death experience supports survival hypothesis

Posted on 12 July 2010, 14:12

Over the past 35 years, near-death experience (NDE) researchers like Drs. Raymond Moody, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Kenneth Ring, Michael Sabom, Bruce Greyson, Melvin Morse, Barbara Rommer, Sam Parnia and others have built a very solid wheel, one that supports the idea that we have a spirit body as well as a physical body and that consciousness remains with the spirit body after physical death. Close-minded skeptics keep trying to make the wheel collapse by bending the spokes and throwing obstacles in the path of the rolling wheel.

Every now and then, as happened a month or two ago, the theory that the NDE is nothing more than abnormal brain activity resulting from oxygen deficiency gets resurrected and makes its way around the Internet and the print media as if it is news rather than something that goes back 25 or more years. The pseudoskeptics’ blogs make it out to be some sort of victory in their war on superstition and ignorance, and they seemingly take great pride in their ‘intellectualism.’

Fortunately, new researchers come on the scene to debunk the pseudoskeptics and keep the wheel rolling. In his recently released book, Consciousness Beyond Life, Dr. Pim van Lommel (pictured above), a world-renowned cardiologist practicing in The Netherlands, dismisses the oxygen-deprivation theory based on the fact that it is ‘accompanied by an enhanced and lucid consciousness with memories and because it can also be experienced under circumstances such as an imminent traffic accident or a depression, neither of which involves oxygen deficiency.’

Tunnel effect

Van Lommel also dismisses the theory that the tunnel effect experienced by many NDErs also results from a disruption of oxygen to the eye or the cerebral cortex. He points out that oxygen deficiency in these areas cannot explain meeting deceased relatives in the tunnel, as has often been reported, or hearing beautiful music. He explains why carbon dioxide overload, various chemicals, and other physiological theories do not account for the NDE. ‘When new ideas do not fit the generally accepted (materialist) paradigm, many scientists perceive them as a threat,’ van Lommel writes. ‘It is hardly surprising therefore that when empirical studies reveal new phenomena or facts that are inconsistent with the prevailing scientific paradigm, they are usually denied, suppressed, or even ridiculed.’

Having grown up in an academic environment, van Lommel was of a materialist/reductionist mindset before he began studying the NDE and the nature of consciousness. He has closely examined all the arguments made by the scientific fundamentalists and now has a more positive outlook. ‘That death is the end used to be my own belief,’ he states with conviction. ‘But after many years of critical research into the stories of the NDErs, and after a careful exploration of current knowledge about brain function, consciousness, and some basic principles of quantum physics, my views have undergone a complete transformation. As a doctor and researcher, I found the most significant finding to be the conclusion of one NDEr: ‘Dead turned out to be not dead.’ I now see the continuity of our consciousness after the death of our physical body as a very real possibility.’

In another 2010 book, Evidence of the Afterlife, Dr. Jeffrey Long, a radiation oncologist in Houma, Louisiana, comes to the same conclusions as van Lommel. ‘Near-death experiencers almost never have confused memories that are typical of the experience of hypoxia,’ he writes, (hypoxia being reduced oxygen levels in the blood and tissues). ‘The fact that highly lucid and organized near-death experiences occur at a time of severe hypoxia is further evidence of the extraordinary and inexplicable state of consciousness that typically occurs during NDEs.’

Many researchers, fearing professional sanctions and obloquy from their peers, beat around the bush when it comes to the life after death implications of the NDE, but, like van Lommel, Long does not cower in this respect. ‘By scientifically studying the more than 1,300 cases shared with [the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation],’ he writes, ‘I believe that the nine lines of evidence presented in this book all converge on one central point: There is life after death.

One of the more convincing aspects of the NDE for Long is the ability of some blind people to ‘see’ during the NDE. ‘…blind people who have near-death experiences may immediately have full and clear vision,’ he offers. ‘This is further evidence that vision in NDEs, including near-death experiences in those who are not blind, is unlike ordinary, physical vision.’

Life review

Long reports many interesting NDEs, including one by a man named Roger who was in a head-on auto accident and immediately left his body. He told of seeing events from above. ‘I went into a dark place with nothing around me, but I wasn’t scared. It was really peaceful there. I then began to see my whole life unfolding before me like a film projected on a screen, from babyhood to adult life. It was so real! I was looking at myself, but better than a 3-D movie as I was also capable to sensing the feelings of the persons I had interacted with through the years. I could feel the good and bad emotions I made them go through…’

Skeptics seem to have a theory for every aspect of the NDE, including the life review which so many others have reported. The skeptical take on the life review is that it is a psychological defense mechanism permitting a retreat into pleasant memories. But Long points out that many memories are not pleasant and that such unpleasant memories would not be expected in a psychological escape.

But how can a person see every moment of his life flash before him in an instant? As van Lommel sees it, many aspects of the NDE correspond with or are analogous to some of the basic principles from quantum theory, which is non-local, i.e., timeless and placeless interconnectedness. ‘The findings of NDE research suggest the possibility that (nonlocal) consciousness is present at all time and will therefore last forever,’ van Lommel explains. ‘The content of a near-death experience suggests a continuity of consciousness that can be experienced independently of the body.’

Lost dentures

One of the more veridical and interesting NDEs reported by van Lommel involved a 44-year-old man brought into the hospital while in a deep coma. When a nurse started to intubate the patient, she discovered he had dentures. She removed the upper dentures and put them on a nearby cart. The patient remained comatose throughout the procedure and for a week after.

After regaining consciousness, he was returned to the coronary unit and as soon as he spotted the nurse, he asked about his dentures. ‘…you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them on that cart,’ he told her. ‘It had all these bottles on it, and there was a sliding drawer underneath, and you put my teeth there.’ The patient said that he watched from above as the doctors and nurses worked on him and that he unsuccessfully tried to let them all know that he was still alive, and that they should not stop. Possibly, he was not ‘unsuccessful,’ since they did continue to work on him and he did survive.

Interestingly, Long reports that it takes as long as seven years or more for a person to fully integrate the NDE into his or her life. This is consistent with the biological rule that we turn over every cell in the body every seven years. It is also consistent with the ‘seven-year itch’ idea, which holds that there is an inclination to become unfaithful after seven years of marriage. That idea has been broadened to suggest that there is an urge to move on from any situation after seven years, whether it is a hobby or some other passion.

Organ transplants

Something I have found particularly troubling over the years is the possibility that organs are being harvested before bodies are actually ‘dead,’ even though the person might be pronounced ‘clinically dead.’ Van Lommel devotes several interesting pages to the debate on this subject, pointing out that when brain death has been diagnosed, 96 percent of the body is still alive. While not in principle opposed to organ transplants, van Lommel suggests that more consideration should be given to the nonphysical aspects of organ donation, including the fear of death. As I interpret his comments, he is saying that perhaps that in many organ failure situations we should let nature take its course and not concern ourselves so much with surviving in this world.

Long quotes Sir John Eccles, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist who studied consciousness: ‘I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as superstition…We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.’

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.

 


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“Life After Death – The Communicator” by Paul Beard – If the telephone rings, naturally the caller is expected to identify himself. In post-mortem communication, necessitating something far more complex than a telephone, it is not enough to seek the speakers identity. One needs to estimate also as far as is possible his present status and stature. This involves a number of factors, overlapping and hard to keep separate, each bringing its own kind of difficulty. Four such factors can readily be named. Read here
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