What about a emotionally gut-punching viral youtube video / top 10 (or however many/few it takes) hosted/presented by Skeptiko? You could use a series of short excerpts of NDE experiencers saying the exact same thing over and over as reference points instead of referencing reports that no one will ever click on or read. (
Experiential data!) We know people aren't moved by facts, but they
are moved by experience.
(e.g. They're now using virtual reality to put violent abusers in the role of a woman being abused to get them to understand and feel empathy... and it seems to be working.
1. 2.)
We know anyone can blow off one account of an NDE experience -- but when different people who don't know each other keep saying the same thing... how can you just blow that off?
I mean, fuck science, fuck facts, we want to CHANGE THE WORLD, right? Is that not what skeptiko is about? To get people to see beyond -- the human race is stuck in trauma loops and we need them to step outside of that. One of the biggest is the fear of death. Our whole culture is disposable because we've been told we're biological robots and nothing matters. As we know, all those fears are unfounded. Nothing is lost -- we do NOT die. Your loved ones are NOT gone. Your individuality WILL remain intact and in fact be expanded. And NO ONE IS JUDGING YOU - you only judge yourself. Maybe IANDS will work with us? I don't know who owns the rights to these clips.
NDEaccounts.
IANDSvideos.
Step 1: I would go through NDE accounts and IANDS videos and when I find a clip that is emotionally engaging and representative of what I want to convey I convert the video to .mp4 using an online video converter site and extract that clip. It would be even easier if we all searched separately and devoted a bit of time to trying to find great clips. You could just send me the URL and timecodes. If I really wanted a punch I might also add clips from movies/shows where these sort of things are fictionalized, but that we know are real. (e.g. The OA, The Discovery, Flatliners, The Fountain, Fringe, What Dreams May Come... the thing about the fiction stuff is they've got background music and visuals to purposefully manipulate effectively. Ever see my
Battlestar Galactica vid Imperious? It was too long, but I was high when I made it and I thought everything was relevant at the time.) Hell I bet I could find clips from Alien Abductee experiencers and DMT/LSD/Mushroom trip reports that say the same things, but I wouldn't want to get sidetracked which is very easy for me to do. Then again, I want to punch someone's reality out of their eyesockets. To throttle them and say HEY MOTHERFUCKER WAKE UP THIS REALITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS!
Step 2: Extract those clips and put them into folders for experiences that repeat across many different people. Find the ones that are like echoes of each other. Cull the ones that dally or take too long, it needs to be tight and punchy.
You could have the same experiencers woven in a tapestry that keeps unfolding in a pattern...
Exp. A: "I was an atheist..."
Exp. B: "I was a Christian..."
Exp. C: "I was raised Buddhist..."
Exp. D: "I didn't even think about religion. I was a scientist at blah blah..."
what happened: (you need the death experience to draw people in)
Exp. A: "I was hit by a truck..."
Exp. B: "A blood vessel exploded in my head..."
Exp. C: "I experienced a massive heart attack..."
Exp. D: "My climbers rope broke and I fell 4 stories..."
you floated
Exp. A: "I could see a body and it was mine, but I was looking down at it"
Exp. B: "I looked down and saw this body, but it was just an empty shell. It wasn't me. I tried to tell the doctors, "hey! i'm fine! i'm right here!""
Exp. C: "I felt myself come out of my body and all the pain just washed away... I could see all around me... I was light"
...
the reality of it
Exp. A: "I saw all these flowers. The colors were so amazing..."
Exp. B: "It was realer than real. It wasn't like a dream, it was like my regular life was the dream and this was what mattered..."
Exp. C: "There was so much detail... I thought if this was just my brain making all this up then my brain is amazing!"
...
the relatives
Exp. A: "Everyone I've ever loved that had died was there waiting for me and they celebrated my arrival and told me they'd missed me."
Exp. B: "I was greeted by all these souls that I instinctively known I've known forever, this was my family, and I knew them by their energy and they sent so much love to me"
Exp. C: "My grandmother that I was very close and died when I was young was there only she was young too, but I just knew it was her..."
the being / god
Exp. A: "This being approached me and it was so bright... so huge... "
Exp. B: "There was a voice like thunder and this being approached me..."
Exp. C: "And I arrived in this great hall with this enormous being and he told me I had to go back..."
the review
Exp. A: "And I saw my life review only I experienced from the perspective of the people I had interacted with. Everyone I had hurt... or made sad..."
(Implied:
DO UNTO OTHERS. BE AWARE OF YOUR ACTIONS BECAUSE WHEN YOU DIE THE KARMA WILL BE YOU EXPERIENCING YOURSELF. Like that VR of abusers above.)
There was a guy on here that chided me for "everything is connected" as being a platitude. Well sure it is when it's just a series of words. When you truly know it in this sense it affects every possible interaction you have with other beings in the world.
the love
Exp. A: "And it just poured love all over me... i've never felt love like that before..."
Exp. B: "And I just knew how much it loved me. That love has never left me.
home
Exp. A: "And I knew this was home."
Exp. B: "I knew I was home"
Exp. C: "I knew this was where I belonged. This was where I came from..."
no fear
Exp. A: "And I just don't fear death anymore..."
Exp. B: "I don't think it will be so bad to die. I'm not afraid. I like living, but I know that there's a lot of pain here."
Exp. C: "There's just a calm inside me now... I know that death is just a state change..."
In as large a text as possible, filling the screen, you scream at your audience and beat them over the head with the same idea over and over again:
1. YOU DO NOT DIE! NOTHING IS LOST!
2. YOU ARE A SMALL PART OF A MUCH LARGER AND MORE INTELLIGENT BEING CALLED THE SOUL
3. YOU ARE NOT JUDGED. YOU ONLY JUDGE YOURSELF.
4. EVERYTHING, EVERYONE IS CONNECTED ALL OF THE TIME.
5. NO RELIGION IS THE ONE TRUE RELIGION BUT RITUAL, BELIEF, AND HUMILITY ARE TOOLS WE CAN USE TO REMAIN IN TOUCH WITH THE INFINITY OF CREATION
...
I might start on doing this anyway. My attention span is a jerk, but if I can get excited about something I can keep it going. This kind of thing excites me.
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just found this -- it does something similar. grouping.