Prophetic Revelations in Near-Death Experiences

Prophetic revelations in near-death experiences (NDEs) are a fourth type of flashforwards. Prophetic revelations are similar to another type of flashforward called the prophetic vision, which was identified in 1982 by Kenneth Ring. Like prophetic visions, prophetic revelations are a phenomenon in which NDErs are given a knowledge of the earth's future; they have a global or world focus. Prophetic revelations differ from prophetic visions in that events in the earth's future are told or revealed to the NDEr by a deceased relative or some otherworld person during their NDE, rather than in a visual display, and they are less detailed. Four categories of flashforwards have now been identified. In addition to the prophetic revelation and the prophetic vision are the other flashforwards, the personal flashforward and the otherworld personal future revelation (OPFR). The major features that distinguish these different flashforwards are their focus (global or personal), method of delivery, and detail. All flashforward types occur in a small number of cases and during deep NDEs.     

Prophetic visions in 1988: A critical reappraisal

This paper reviews the research into a specific aspect of neardeath experiences (NDEs): the prophetic vision (PV). PVs are subjectively compelling flashforwards of planetary-wide cataclysms and eventual regeneration that sometimes occur during or in the immediate aftermath of an NDE. Previous research has shown that the most frequently mentioned year for the culmination of the geophysical calamities foreseen in PVs was 1988. I argue that PVs should be understood as manifestations of a collective prophetic impulse that historically tends to arise during periods of cultural crisis. PVs are thus expressions of the felt need for cultural renewal and therefore should not be taken literally as prognostic of drastic physical changes on Earth.     

THE OMEGA POINT AS ESCHATON: ANSWERS TO PANNENBERG'S QUESTIONS FOR SCIENTISTS

Abstract. I present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, and who exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not from any religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientific materialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theory assumes that thinking is a purely physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with the brain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection of the dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. The notions of "grace" and the "beatific vision" appear naturally in the model.     

Care for one's own future experiences

We care for our own future experiences. Most of us, trivially, would rather have them pleasurable than painful. When we care for our own future experiences we do so in a way that is different from the way we care for those of others (which is not to say that we necessarily care more about our own experience). Prereflectively, one would think this is because these experiences will be ours and no one else's. But then, of course, we need to explain what it means to say that a future experience will be mine and how knowledge of this fact renders it rational for me to care for this experience in a special way. Indeed most philosophers take this route. But in doing so, they quickly stumble on insuperable problems. I shall argue that the problem of egocentric care, as it is sometimes called, can be solved by turning things upside down: it is much more fruitful to think that the special kind of care we feel for some future experiences (and not others) is part of what makes them ours should they occur. This requires an explanation of egocentric care for future experiences that does not draw in a theory of personal identity, but rather contributes to one. I will attempt to provide this explanation by making use of the idea of a diachronic mental holism.     

A CHARIOT FOR THE SHEKHINAH: Identity and the Ideal Life in Sixteenth-Century Kabbalah

In this paper, I seek to present the range of issues involved in the efforts of sixteenth-century kabbalists to understand the nature of selfhood, and the paths prescribed for the formation of an ideal life. I reflect on the mystical writings of Moshe Cordovero, Eliyahu de Vidas, and     ayyim Vital—probing their conceptions of core identity, the polarity between body and soul, and the ethical guidance for a life well lived. In so doing, I consider the following additional themes, and their relation to the matrix of self-formation and religious identity: reincarnation and rebirth; the virtue of humility and self-effacement; the cultivation of wisdom; ideals of piety and prophetic experience; asceticism; and the spiritual transcendence of desire. In presenting this wide range of constituent themes, I argue that sixteenth-century kabbalists understood the soul to be the ultimate marker of personal identity (nuanced and complicated by the doctrine of reincarnation), and that they formulated a vision of an ideal ethics in which the human being functions as an earthly vessel for the divine presence. What is more, the preparation of that vessel required a degree of humility so extreme that the attainment of ideal personhood ultimately involved the effacement of that very identity.     

Frontier Kantianism: Autonomy and Authority in Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joseph Smith

Ralph Waldo Emerson is often seen as the early American prophet of autonomy. This essay suggests a perhaps surprising fellow traveler in this prophetic call: Joseph Smith. Smith opposed religious creeds for the same reason that Emerson denounced them, namely that creeds represent a threat to the autonomy of a person's beliefs. Smith and Emerson also forward similar defenses of individual autonomy in action. Furthermore, they encounter a shared problem: how can autonomy be possible in a society where other individuals hold some kind of authority? I propose that each thinker resolves this tension through an insight with a Kantian echo. A suitably qualified version of authority can sometimes count as an expression of, rather than hindrance to, autonomy. I describe the overlap in Emerson and Smith as a “frontier” version of Kantianism. They favor determining one's own beliefs and actions in a way that looks forward to an open future of possibility.     

Is Connectedness Necessary to What Matters in Survival

The standard version of the psychological criterion or theory of personal identity takes it that psychological connectedness is not necessary for personal identity, or for what matters in survival. That is, a future person can be you, and/or have what matters in survival for you, even though there is no psychological connectedness between you and that future person. David Lewis, however, holds that psychological connectedness is necessary to both identity and what matters (which he takes to coincide). This entails, Lewis acknowledges, that if a human body were to live longer than connectedness lasts, then that body would 'embody' or 'constitute' a different person later on than it did to begin with. Moreover, Lewis accepts, a body may embody more than one person at any one time. Lewis claims that this can be reconciled to some degree with common sense if we count by person stages rather than by persons. I show, though, that Lewis' view cannot be salvaged in this way, and, moreover, that it leads to further absurdities. I conclude that as an account of identity and of what matters in survival, it is highly implausible, and most unsatisfactory.     

Relative truth and the first person

In recent work on context-dependency, it has been argued that certain types of sentences give rise to a notion of relative truth. In particular, sentences containing predicates of personal taste and moral or aesthetic evaluation as well as epistemic modals are held to express a proposition (relative to a context of use) which is true or false not only relative to a world of evaluation, but other parameters as well, such as standards of taste or knowledge or an agent. I will argue that the sentences that apparently give rise to relative truth should be understood by relating them in a certain way to the first person. More precisely, such sentences express what I will call ‘first-person-based genericity’, a form of generalization that is based on an essential first-person application of the predicate. The account differs from standard relative truth account in crucial respects: it is not the truth of the proposition expressed that is relative to the first person; the proposition expressed by a sentence with a predicate of taste rather has absolute truth conditions. Instead it is the propositional content itself that requires a first-personal cognitive access whenever it is entertained. This account, I will argue, avoids a range of problems that standard relative truth theories of the sentences in question face and explains a number of further peculiarities that such sentences display.     

Thinking Developmentally: Perspectives Following Loewald and Klein

In this article, I explore two perspectives on development that are central to how I think and work as an analyst, one drawn from the work of Hans Loewald and one from Melanie Klein. Loewald turned the usual psychoanalytic way of thinking, rooted in the past, on its head when he theorized that development proceeds by internalization of the parent’s future vision of the child and, by corollary, the analyst’s future vision of the patient. Using a vignette from Klein’s work with 10-year-old Richard, I show how the analyst’s image of the patient’s potential can facilitate growth and development. Melanie Klein also introduced a radical reordering of traditional psychoanalytic theory when she theorized that the mind develops and is structured as positions, not as successive phases. For Klein, the mind is organized in groupings of anxieties, defenses, and object-relations that are in a continuous state of oscillation throughout life independent of chronological age. Through a clinical vignette, I illustrate how one understands a patient differently when development is seen as occuring in momentary shifts between different levels of the personality rather than as stages over time.     

Respecting difference and moving beyond regulation: tasks for U.S. bioethics commissions in the twenty-first century

This article focuses on two possible missions for a national bioethics commission. The first is handling differences of worldview, political orientation, and discipline. Recent work in political philosophy emphasizes regard for the dignity of difference manifested in "conversation" that seeks understanding rather than agreement. The President's Council on Bioethics gets a mixed review in this area. The second is experimenting with prophetic bioethics. "Prophetic bioethics" is a term coined by Daniel Callahan to describe an alternative to compromise-seeking "regulatory bioethics." It involves a critique of modern medicine. In the contemporary context, the areas of biotechnology and access to health care cry out for prophetic attention. The Council has addressed biotechnology; unfortunately, that experience suggests that the kind of prophecy that it practices poses risks to conversation. With regard to access issues, the article proposes an effort that unites themes of human dignity, solidarity, and limits in support of reform, while highlighting, rather than papering over, differences.     

A critique of Kellehear's transcendent society

Allan Kellehear argued that the otherworld society envisioned in near-death experiences (NDEs) is similar to utopian societies. However, his cultural analysis, based on 9 Mormon NDEs, did not reflect the diversity of near-death visions from other cultures. I suggest that these Mormon NDEs were neither as utopian as Kellehear assumed nor representative of contemporary NDE reports, and that a more complete analysis would reveal a variety of NDEs and otherworld visions reflecting the experiencers' sociocultural back-ground. Robert Bellah's model of religious evolution provides a model for charting the NDE's change over time and cultures, and allows us to differentiate the perennial features of the NDE from the transient culturally-determined ones — a first step in understanding the role of NDEs in the quest for an ideal society.Howard Mickel, Ph.D., formerly Chairman of the Department of Religion at Wichita State University, is currently Director of the Theta Project, an educational and research effort focusing on near-death and related experiences.     

The Look of Love

I begin to suggest an alternative to the notion of vision based in alienation and hostility put forth by Jean‐Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, andfacques Lacan. I diagnose this alienating vision as a result of a particular alienating notion of space presupposed by their theories. I develop lrigaray's comments about light and air to suggest an alternative notion of space that opens up the possibility that vision connects us to others rather than alienates us from them.     

An Hawaiian Near-Death Experience

This paper is a case report of an Hawaiian near-death experience (NDE) from the early 1900s, which was uncovered in a turn-of-the-century monograph of Hawaiian folk tales (Thrum, 1907). The account differs from others in the same volume because it appears to be a real-life account rather than a folk tale. I describe similarities and differences from other Pacific area accounts, with particular attention to the only other Polynesian NDE account in the literature, a Maori NDE reported by Michael King in 1985.     

The Power of Invitation: The Moral Discourse of Kairos Palestine

Abstract: In this article I analyze the moral discourse of the Palestinian kairos document A Moment of Truth (2009) using the distinctions between prophetic, ethical, narrative, policy, and participatory discourse offered by James M. Gustafson and Lisa S. Cahill. I conclude that the document articulates a sixth variety: invitational discourse. This is a kind of moral discourse that invites a wide range of groups and individuals into a normative discussion on a given issue.     

Blake and the Bible: Biblical Exegesis in the Work of William Blake

Abstract:  William Blake's biblical interpretation relied on allusive, imaginative and even prophetic modes. Here this is explored through his vision of the divine in Europe: A Prophecy and by exploring his views on the relationships between the testaments. In the first part, a comparison of his vision with the book of Revelation shows similarities in imaginative attempts to subvert ingrained religious assumptions. In the second, Blake's ambiguous attitude towards the Old Testament, coloured by his sustained polemic against religion and law, is discussed. Finally, some thoughts on the continued relevance of Blake's imaginative exegesis are offered.     

Expectancy and rational action prior to personal fission

Some analyses of personal fission suggest that an informed subject should expect to have a distinct experience of each outcome simultaneously. Is rational provision for the future possible in such unfamiliar circumstances? I argue that, with some qualification, the subject can reasonably act as if faced with alternative possible outcomes with precise probabilities rather than multiple actual outcomes.     

An objective counterfactual theory of information

We offer a novel theory of information that differs from traditional accounts in two respects: (i) it explains information in terms of counterfactuals rather than conditional probabilities, and (ii) it does not make essential reference to doxastic states of subjects, and consequently allows for the sort of objective, reductive explanations of various notions in epistemology and philosophy of mind that many have wanted from an account of information.     

Worship as a Revelation. The Past,Present and Future of Catholic Liturgy

Unitatis Redintegratio (UR), the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, was both the outcome and instrument of ecumenical engagement between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and continues to have a formative influence on their dialogue. In the lead-up to the Council, personal contacts between Church of England leaders and the nascent Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity played a significant part in a change of atmosphere towards other Christian traditions at the Vatican. UR notes the ‘special place’ which the Anglican Communion holds in the communion of churches: the 1966 meeting in Rome between Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI would lead to The Malta Report (1968) and the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). The ‘Principles of Dialogue’ set out in UR – avoiding polemical language; integrating spiritual and academic learning; expounding positions clearly, and committed openness – are affirmed in the light of the experience of ARCIC. The Agreed Statements of ARCIC I and II, focused around the motif of koinonia, are assessed in view of the topics for dialogue listed in UR: Christology; Ecclesiology (including the Blessed Virgin Mary); Sacred Scripture; Life in Christ in communion; Teaching on sacraments and ministry; and Christian personal, family, liturgical and social life. The significance of eschatology in relation to unity in Christ is highlighted, both with reference to Anglican difficulties about gender relations and authority, and to the three-fold use of ‘complete’ in UR. What might it mean for ecumenical dialogue, and ecclesial relationships, to work from the future backwards rather than just from the past forwards – i.e. in terms of faith rather than sight?