Sunrise over Haleakala, on Maui (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)
\u201cHaleakal\u0101\u201d is Hawaiian for \u201chouse of the sun.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few more items that I\u2019ve extracted from P.M.H. Atwater,\u00a0The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences: The Ultimate Guide to What Happens When We Die<\/em>\u00a0(Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2007) as notes for a manuscript upon which I\u2019m occasionally working:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the Canadian magazine Maclean\u2019s<\/em> (20 April 1992, p. 40), Tom Harpur, an Anglican priest turned journalist, makes the following intriguing comment, which is cited by Atwater:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is now my conviction that it is the phenomena related to near-death experiences that have convinced humans from earliest times that there is life beyond the grave, rather than the other way around. \u00a0Instead of it being the product of an attempt to deal with the enigma of death by projecting one\u2019s wishes into another world, the near-universal belief in a hereafter is, in my view, the attempt to express what has already become known, at different times and in different places, through direct experience. \u00a0(260)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are a trio of instances of the kind of thing that Harpur might well have had in mind:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not possible that while he lay \u201cdying\u201d of a cardiac arrest, Lloyd Haymon could have known that his parakeet, Doolittle, suddenly died. \u00a0It was only through the appearance of his dead brother \u2014 with Doolittle perched upon his shoulder \u2014 in Lloyd\u2019s near-death scenario that Lloyd learned this. \u00a0(260)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no way Lynn could have known about a particular uncle who was killed in World War II, as it was a family secret that he ever even existed. \u00a0All records concerning his brief marriage to her aunt were destroyed; utterance of his name was forbidden. \u00a0Yet Lynn was met by him when she \u201cdied\u201d during open-heart surgery. \u00a0After her recovery, she told her family about him, giving his correct name, a description of the uniform he wore, and the fact that the baby he had fathered with her aunt (who had miscarried) was with him and was okay. \u00a0This news so traumatized her family that the man she had once thought was her aunt\u2019s only husband refused to ever speak to her again. \u00a0(260)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
No one can explain how the young woman \u201ckilled\u201d in a car-truck accident was met in death by her supposedly healthy and quite alive father. \u00a0Yet, numerous phone calls later, it was discovered that her father had died five minutes before she did, and in the manner she had detailed to her unbelieving relatives. \u00a0(260-261)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 A few more items that I\u2019ve extracted from P.M.H. Atwater,\u00a0The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences: The Ultimate Guide to What Happens When We Die\u00a0(Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2007) as notes for a manuscript upon which I\u2019m occasionally working: \u00a0 In the Canadian magazine Maclean\u2019s (20 April 1992, p. 40), Tom Harpur, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Haleakala](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/07\/800px-Haleakala_Maui_5996613191.jpg\")
<\/a>