Posted on 14 May 2012, 13:07

In a recent episode of the popular NCIS TV series, a Marine, a young Muslim man, was murdered and the NCIS coroner was about to do an autopsy on his body when the dead man’s father showed up and begged the coroner not to disturb the body as his son’s spirit would be negatively affected if his body was cut into.   

I didn’t follow the program long enough to know if there was a time limit on when the body could be sliced up, but it’s something that I have sometimes wondered about, not only relative to autopsies but also to organ removals and hasty burials or cremations, as there have been a number of spirit messages suggesting that the spirit body can take some time – a day or two or three – to loosen itself from the physical shell.  If that is actually the case, then two questions present themselves:  1) Is physical pain experienced by whatever consciousness is still attached to the physical body when the body is so violated?  2)  If there is no physical pain, per se, does the spirit who does not yet realize he/she is “dead”  look on in horror and imagine the pain while observing his/her body being mutilated?

In his 1998 book, Light & Death, Dr. Michael Sabom, an Atlanta cardiologist, cites an article by Dr. Linda Emanuel, who comments that life and death are viewed as non-overlapping, dichotomous states, whereas in reality there is no threshold event that defines death. “Several scientific observations support Emanuel’s argument that loss of biologic life, including death of the brain, is a process and does not occur at a single, definite moment,” Sabom writes.  He goes on to mention that 10 organ donors diagnosed as “brain dead” showed an average increase in blood pressure of 31 millimeters of mercury and in heart rate of 23 beats per minute in response to surgical removal of the organs. He also refers to a study at Loyola University Medical Center in which it was found that 20 percent of patients diagnosed as brain dead had persisting EEG activity up to seven days after the initial diagnosis.

There have been numerous accounts of people being pronounced dead and then coming back to “life.”  The story of Dr. George Rodonaia, a psychologist in the Soviet Union, as related in several books on near-death experiences, is a particularly chilling one.  Rodonaia was said to have been murdered by the KGB as he was preparing for a trip to the United States in 1976. As medical personnel began cutting into him during an autopsy nearly two days after his “death,” Rodonaia opened his eyes and returned to life. He reported a very vivid NDE, one that transformed him from an atheist to a believer.

Workers relocating cemeteries in Great Britain have reported finding scratch marks on the inside covers of many caskets, indicating that the body was not yet “dead” when the cover was closed.  Of course, the cemetery victims were likely buried before embalming became commonplace, but that only leads one to wonder if embalming may now begin before bodies are actually “dead.”

In his 1916 book, Raymond or Life and Death, Sir Oliver Lodge, the esteemed British physicist and radio pioneer, in a séance with medium Gladys Osborne Leonard, discussed the subject with Raymond, his deceased son.  Raymond (below) told him that the body doesn’t start mortifying until the spirit has left it.  He went on to tell his father that he had witnessed a scene several days earlier in which a man was going to be cremated two days after the doctor pronounced him dead.  “When his relatives on this side heard about it, they brought a certain doctor on our side, and when they saw that the spirit hadn’t got really out of the body, they magnetized it, and helped it out,” Raymond explained through Feda, Leonard’s control.  “But there was still a cord, and it had to be severed rather quickly, and it gave a little shock to the spirit, like as if you had something amputated.  But it had to be done.”  Raymond suggested that there should be a seven-day waiting period before cremation.  “People are so careless,” he said.  “The idea seems to be ‘hurry up and get them out of the way now that they are dead.”

According to the mystic known as Abd-ru-Shin (1875-1941), the separation of the etheric body, or soul, from the physical body and the severing of the “silver cord” (sometimes referred to as the etheric umbilical cord), joining the two depends to a great extent on the spiritual development of the individual.  Dr. Richard Steinpach, who wrote extensively on the teachings of Abd-ru-Shin, stated that the more materialistic the person, the more the silver cord is tightly knit, and the more difficult it is to sever the connection. “The severance may then take many days, during which time such a person, because of the density of the connection-cord, must still feel what happens to his physical body, so that, for example, he does not necessarily remain insensitive to cremation,” Steinpach wrote, adding that it is with good reason that some rites, especially among primitive races, provide for minimum intervals between death and burial or cremation.

Allan Kardec, the French psychical investigator, stated that the affinity which continues to exist between soul and body after death is sometimes extremely painful “for it causes the spirit to perceive all the horror of decomposition of the latter.”
In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, we read that it might take up to three-and-a-half days for the consciousness to leave the body. Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, states that it is believed that if the body is touched in a certain place, as with an injection, for example, it may draw the consciousness to that spot. The consciousness of the dead person may then leave toward the nearest opening instead of through the fontanel, at the crown of the head, and make an unfortunate rebirth. But Rinpoche questioned several “masters” on the subject of organ donation. They all agreed that it is an extremely positive action. “So, as long as it is truly the wish of the dying person, it will not harm in any way the consciousness that is leaving the body,” Rinpoche summarized his interviews. “On the contrary, this final act of generosity accumulates good karma.”  One master added that the pain and suffering that a person goes through in the process of having the organs removed turns into good karma.

“I know about transplants, and am aware that the motive is often a very good one,” said Silver Birch, the spirit who communicated through British trance medium Maurice Barbanell (below) for many year. “But I must say that I am opposed to transplanting any part of the human body to other people.”  Although Silver Birch never fully identified himself, indications were that his Indian name was a convenient persona behind a very spiritually-evolved soul.

Until shortly before Barbanell’s death in 1981, Silver Birch delivered lectures and answered questions about every possible subject relating to the meaning of life and the evolution of the soul.  Silver Birch added that doctors cannot judge when death takes place and that death is final only when the silver cord is severed and the spirit body leaves the physical one. “When that severance has taken place, no medical man can make that body live again,” Silver Birch said.

But Silver Birch often mentioned that although he came from a realm with a considerably higher vibration than earth, he had not evolved to the point where he had knowledge of all things. He frequently prefaced his remarks, including those on transplants, by saying it was simply his opinion. “I do not think, from my point of view, and I speak only for myself, that the sustaining of the physical body must be the be-all of every endeavor,” he offered at one sitting. “I maintain that man should be instructed how to live aright, spiritually, mentally and physically. If he thinks right, then he behaves right and his body will be right. The solution is not the transfer of bodily parts. The solution is for every man to order himself to live as the Great Spirit intended. Man must have compassion for other men and for all the creatures with whom he shares his planet. They were not placed here by the Great Spirit to be used as experiments, to prolong the physical life of man.”

I don’t know how difficult it would be to oppose an autopsy by a government agency based on such spiritual concerns. I suspect that most municipalities or whatever agency is involved would not respect those spiritual concerns.

As for organ transplants, the “gift of life,” is hard to oppose, unless, of course, we go to the very core of spirituality and view death as the great liberator, even if the person has not lived his or her allotted three score and ten or more. “I do not see that what you call death is a disaster,” said Silver Birch when asked about the divine justice involved with people who die prematurely. “To me it is the great hour of freedom for the soul.”

In his 2010 book, Consciousness beyond Life, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, a world-renowned cardiologist, devotes several interesting pages to the organ transplant issue, 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.
 
Since not many people in this day and age of extreme materialism are prepared to appreciate the philosophy of Silver Birch, the case against early autopsies, organ transplants, and quick burials and cremations will likely never be widely heard.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After we Die, Transcending the Titanic, and The Afterlife Explorers Volume 1., published by White
Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online bookstores.

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http://whitecrowbooks.com/blogs

Next blog post:  May 28