Great stuff, Alex, thanks a lot. Jeff has stated that there is no judgemental God in NDEs. I I would like to add a couple of NDE's I found on Russian language sites that I find troublesome and very, very judgemental.
1)
This is one of the most interesting NDE’s I’ve seen, not because of the experience itself, but but because of the extraordinary qualities and biography of the experiencer. Coronel of the Russian airforce Alexander Zhukov served in an airborne rescue unit, parachuting into difficult terrain in war zones to rescue civilians or military in distress. When he was serving in the Northern Caucasus region during the Chechen war in the 90’s, he was captured by the islamist guerilla. The only reason he was spared the customary beheading was the Russian army coronel ID in his pocket: the guerrilla leader hoped to exchange him for his brother, captured by Russian forces. He was treated like an animal, beaten constantly, interrogated, pressured to convert to islam. He never revealed any information, nor did he convert. After a few months of hell, he tried to escape and was shot multiple times. Luckily, he was found by the Russian patrol, bleeding, comatose, on the brink of death. In the hospital he was operated numerous times. During one operation he suffered cardiac arrest, during which he had an NDE.
He found himself in a tunnel, lit by a sort of blueish light, through which other souls, whom, curiously, he called “shells”, were moving toward a huge hall, where a thunderous voice was saying “TO HEAVEN!”, or “TO HELL!”. Alexandr understood that it was God’s judgement and got scared: “where is that I’m going to go?”. When his turn came, the Voice said “to reserve!” (curiously military term). There were three tunnels out of this hall, one to heaven, another to hell, and another to “reserve”. While he was going through this tunnel, various mutilated, ugly entities were trying to grab him. After that, he came to in his hospital bed.
Since then, he, miraculously, rejoined his unit and continued rescuing people, performing over 1.500 parachute jumps. For his heroism he was named “Hero of Russia”, the most honorable decoration in the country.
His NDE is interesting in the sense other Russian NDE’s are: I find most of them very influenced by their religious beliefs. What confuses me is that this is a highly skilled, trained, intelligent military man, still, his NDE seems to be an idiosyncratic interpretation of what seems to be an ineffable experience, impossible to accurately interpret from human perspective.
I thought this would be curious to the forum members.
2) Absolutely horrifying, nightmarish Russian NDE with visions of eternal hell. It's the second Russian NDE of that nature I've seen. She is describing various parts of hell where the sinners are tortured eternally for different sins. I haven't herd an NDE this horrible from Western experiencers. Is this cultural, religion-based idiosyncrasy? If it is, why those affect our perception of the afterlife?
She was driving on a highway and had a frontal collision with another car. She was driven to a hospital where she had a cardiac arrest and pronounced dead. She found herself floating above her body seeing the doctors pronouncing her dead. Then she was pulled into a grey tunnel, which she describes as a very unpleasant experience. On the other end she sees a tall man with horrifying eyes who tried to grab her. Another man shows up and gets between them. The "man with terrible eyes" disappears. To make the story short, the "saviour" takes her to all these hellish places where he tell her who suffers for which sin. After all this, she was sucked back into her body in the hospital.
I thought that her perceptions was affected by her religious beliefs: She claims that her "guide", some sort of a divine entity, was describing to her the "sinners" and their "punishment!". She also comes upon a group of children, an is informed that they were aborted. She asked whether she was gonna be punished for her abortions (in the USSR abortions were like a sort of a pass time, women used to have numerous abortions in their life time). Her "guides" didn't respond to that question.
The only explanation that occurs to me is that this person was reinterpreting something ineffable and well beyond her comprehension that happened to her through the prism of her religious beliefs. With the passage of time she added more and more details to this experience, which took place in 1982, and converted it into something entirely different and terrifying. Even from the Orthodox Christian standpoint, it's aberrant: at some point the supposed angelical entity (or even Christ Himself, it's not clear from her description) who's guiding her on her trip to hell tells her: "don't feel sorry for them, they are sinners". The Church says "we love the sinner, we hate the sin". Meaning, not to feel compassion toward the sinner is completely non-Christian. Then, another aberrant detail. Her guides tell her that there is no way out of hell, with one exception: "some sinner's family members can get them out of hell through constant prayer for their
NDEs are modelled for each person, including what you believe in, this part is subjectie according to your religion. This is so that peope feel comfortable during the experience. Most Christians see Jesus if they are strong believers, etc.....
