Really heaven and hell. Is there a hell and a heaven

One of the most natural questions of the doubter is why does hell exist? If God is Love, why does He doom sinners to eternal torment?
The answer to this seemingly insoluble question is actually not that complicated. The most important thing here is this: Christianity did not come into the world with the news that hell exists. No, hell - the dark realm of the dead - is known to almost all pre-Christian cultures. By His Resurrection, Christ revealed to people the secret of life, and not of death - the secret of Paradise.

Unfortunately, our ideas about hell and heaven are far from Christian. The word "hell" in many contemporaries brings to mind pictures from the magazine "Crocodile" of Soviet times: frying pans, the sides of which are greedily licked by tongues of hellish flame; sinners suffering in boiling oil in these pans, and horned devils mercilessly poking sinners. I dare say that these pictures, for all their clarity, have little in common with the Christian understanding of eternal torment.

And if we talk about images, then I would suggest turning to ... modern domestic cinema! In one of the last paintings by Valery Todorovsky, “Country of the Deaf”, there is a scene that perfectly conveys the Christian nerve of feeling hell.

For those who have not seen the film, I will explain: the main character is a young girl. Her favorite boyfriend is a gambler who owes a huge amount of money. Risking her life, the girl collects the necessary amount for her beloved, but he (the player!) decides to try his luck again before repaying the debt. And ... again loses everything to the penny.

And then a scene that is amazing in its strength and penetration: not a single reproach, not a single word of accusation, all the girl is trying to do is to calm her beloved. She says that he should not be upset, that money is not the main thing that she will still earn. The main thing is that they love each other, so everything will be fine.
In response, the guy “explodes” and starts to drive the girl away from him. He screams that he cannot be near her, that it hurts him to realize that he, the last bastard, lost the money she earned, and in response from her - not a word of reproach, but only a promise to love him, no matter what he does . But such love is beyond his strength, since he cannot be with her, feeling his meanness! He HURTS HER KINDNESS and sends her away.

Of course, it will only get MORE PAINFUL. Having driven away his beloved, he will suffer all his life, because such love is one and for life. But, you see, it is difficult in this situation to blame the girl, to reproach her for the fact that it is she who dooms the guy to torment ...

This image, in my opinion, quite in a Christian way describes the sensations of the soul of a sinner meeting God - the One Who is Love. Love that burns, but without which there is no life. So a person who has sat for a long time in a dark room and refused to go out into the light inevitably goes blind when the sun's rays first touch his face. And who is to blame that he refused the constant call to go out into the street, to the light? .. And the eyes, meanwhile, lost the ability to perceive light, that is, life. Therefore, it is man himself who dooms himself to eternal darkness, eternal torment.

And yet - I repeat once again - Christianity is the Good News (Greek Gospel) about Life, not death. And all that is required of us is to open the door and step out into the light before it's too late. We still have time.

Vladimir Legoyda

A very interesting vision of the stratification of reality and control over souls in the matrix

What awaits us after death? Is there an afterlife or not? Do hell and heaven really exist, and where are they? Is there a reincarnation of souls? And in general, where does the soul go after the death of the body, and where do ghosts come from? Different religions give different answers to these questions. And yet, there is no certain clarity, because all this is still unprovable from the materialistic position of science.

Who needs a reminder? What happens to the soul of the deceased if relatives are violently worried about his departure? Is there any point in visiting cemeteries? Maybe our established traditions harm the souls of the departed? We do not think about it, and moreover, we will often zealously defend traditions only because our ancestors did it and so do our neighbors, colleagues, friends, because it is accepted in society, and because we were inspired to do so. So and not otherwise. We firmly know that we are doing everything right, because it cannot be otherwise. We can’t check, but since we’ve always done it that way, it means it’s right. But has it always been like this, and everywhere? Or did they start doing this after something that none of us knows or remembers?

Through lucid dreaming, it was possible to find out the answers to these questions. The Tibetan Goddess Baldan Lhamo, who came in a dream, told about the secrets of life after death.

“Baldan Lhamo is one of the main defenders of faith and teaching in the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. She is the only Goddess among the 10 main angry deities - the protectors of Buddhism - is the lord of demons and the eradicator of poisons. This is the information that can be found in reference books on mythology and religions.

In itself, that this is the Goddess, the protector of faith and the lord of demons at the same time, that is, the world of darkness can frighten and confuse many. But to understand this, you need to know the history of Baldan Lhamo, know the power that she has over the demons of darkness, and much more. But first things first.

... An icy wind spun like a tornado over the endless expanses of the steppe. Everything became white, neither from the snow nor from the fog. I was taken somewhere far away. And now the snowy ridges of the mountains appeared on the horizon. “Tibet,” an inner voice prompted. Somewhere ahead rose the snow-white crystal of Kailash. And then a frosty whirlwind shot up and hovered over Kailash, coiled into sparkling spiral rings. Another moment, and these rings turned into an iridescent glow, flashing with unimaginable colors. The radiance rose to the endless starry heights from the very top of Kailash, and gradually began to resemble the steps of some divine ladder.

…A figure woven of light appeared on the steps. She's getting closer and closer. “This is the Goddess Baldan Lhamo,” the inner voice prompted again. The radiant eyes of the goddess shone on a white face framed by long black hair entwined with fabulous flowers. A blue crystal burned in her forehead, and around her figure, wrapped in a robe shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, a pink space swayed, reminiscent of lotus petals from Buddhist icons.

But now, as if a cloud covered the vision. The whole space turned dark gray and lightning cut through it. The figure of the goddess changed and became dark blue, almost black. In anger, the Goddess raised her hands and lightning rained down from them, Here in one of her hands was a fiery club, and her eyes lit up with fiery flashes. A terrible howl was emitted by a monstrous animal, somewhat resembling a mule or a bull. In the blink of an eye, it was under the Goddess. Thunder rumbled and a fiery abyss opened up. Horror gripped me.

But at the same moment, the soft voice of the Goddess spoke within me. "Do not be afraid - all this is just a vision, illusions generated by the mind, drive away fear, and you will see the brilliance precious stones and the glow of the rainbow ... ". Oddly enough, the fiery abyss immediately changed, and became something that we would call paradise.

Baldan Lhamo in two forms

“This is a subtle world,” Baldan Lhamo continued to say, “there are different laws here than in the dense one. Rather, they are the same, only the result is faster. What you think, what you fear, you will see. What is your essence - that will surround you. Like will attract like.

Everyone ends up here after they leave their physical body, that is, they die for the dense world, or leave the physical life, that is, when they throw off their physical body like worn clothes.

Some call this place heaven, others hell. It all depends on what they see. And they see what they can see. If someone all his life in a physical body thought only about his own benefits, obtained them at any cost, to the detriment of other people, did evil, as you say, was angry, gave vent to negative emotions, now when he gets here, he has become very difficult for of this world. The severity of his essence, soul, monad, spirit is such that it distorts this space, and it becomes crooked for him. What do you see in a distorted mirror? Crooked scary faces, right?

Here, too, monstrous images arise from curvature. But here is not only a crooked mirror, but also a crooked sound, and crooked emotions and crooked thoughts, crooked sensations. All crooked, all terrible and monstrous. Curved space is hell. And until the one who twisted it becomes lighter, he will not be able to get out of the hellish pit he created himself. It is heavy and poetically ugly here. And the heavier, the uglier and meaner and vice versa. These are the demons that got here after the invasion with the stones of Tartarus (see other topics on the site). But one has only to understand why he sees hell and stop feeling anger and fear, one has only to repent of what he did during his lifetime, as his weight will be lightened and the curvature will decrease. And the monsters will start to disappear.

If the spirit of the deceased is light, that is, he did not do bad deeds during his lifetime, he did only good deeds, as you say, then here he does not bend space and sees the rainbow spheres, as you call it, of the astral world. He sees wonderful deities and blissful gardens, he sees only what he is capable of, what he imagined during his lifetime as the best. Here he can meet the phantoms of relatives, teachers, gods. And he will call it heaven.

But this world is a temporary refuge of the spirit, whether in a heavenly or hellish vision.

Having passed it, everyone who has not seen the truth of his existence, that is, who has not felt enlightenment, as you say, who has not left the wheel of samsara, will again slide into rebirth in the physical world. After all, this world also belongs to samsara. It is similar to the physical, only thinner and more mobile. And so the spirit will be reborn until it is ripe for enlightenment in order to go to higher spheres.

Everything would be simple, but many souls, even before the death of the physical body, cut off the paths of further development for themselves. And many are hindered by their incarnation relatives.

After coming into this world solar system Anunaki from the planet Nibiru, another hell and another heaven appeared on Earth.

You were told about the golden egg of the Anunaki, which they drove into the depths of the Earth, and thus created the inner Earth. ( See topic: What world was created in seven days?)

So that same inner Earth, or Eden, has become a new paradise, and according to your current concept, it can be called simply a laboratory. There, the Anunaki experimented with human cells and created from a man of the highest race and an animal - a monkey, a new man - a lower human being - Adam. For a while, the test specimen, as you would say, lived in this Eden an ordinary physical life: he was a body in which there was a spirit of a primitive entity that anunnachi laboratory assistants could push into this body. I can say that a clay flask in the form of an egg was made for the embryo of Adam. Hence your biblical myth about a man molded from clay or from the earth by God.

When Adam became an adult, Anunnachi scientists extracted a rib from him, and from this gene material, as you would say, and other materials of their own Anunnachi origin, they created Eve, by the way, also in a clay egg-shaped flask. A demonic entity from this astral world was placed in Eve. Then, in the course of the experiment, Adam and Eve had to give birth and go to the real world, where the descendants of ancient civilizations lived - Lemurians, Hyperboreans - Aryans, Atlanteans. Before the test subjects were sent out into the world, they were programmed with what you would call a brain and recorded in it a story about heaven and sin. Then they were landed on the surface of the planet, well, as you were told - "expelled from paradise."

The experiment went on and on. The descendants of Adam and Eve mixed with the ancient people and wrote the Bible under the dictation of the Anunaki on behalf of God. Well, then you yourself know how biblical ideas create your life. Next to the Anunnach Paradise or Eden's Lab is the Anunnach Hell. Which is another Anunaki laboratory. This hell is a void inside the Earth, where the demons of darkness, who came with the stones of Tartarus, were locked by the Hyperborean crystals. In this laboratory, the Anunnaki tried to instill these demons in the bodies of dinosaurs caught on the surface, even before the creation of Adam. So the so-called Snakes-tempters appeared. The Anunnaki left part of the voids of "hell" to the demons, where they also released freaks obtained from experiments, mutants and others. Moreover, both physical mutants and subtle ones. After all, experiments were conducted with spirits. These spaces have high temperature and are like lava caves. Here the Anunaki placed the result of such an experiment, called the devil for people. He became the greatest scapegoat, both literally and figuratively. After all, outwardly he is a monster with signs of a goat's appearance.

Part of the "hell" they cooled down and created a "kingdom of shadows" there.

Then Baldan Lhamo spread her hands and an abyss with a partition in the middle opened up below. On one side of the partition, hell was blazing, and on the other, a thick gray haze stirred like smoke. From the hands of the Goddess, a fiery beam suddenly flashed and cut through the smoky darkness. Pale shadows of people somewhere below rushed in all directions and hid among the stones. The beam illuminated the underground river, which turned over stones with noise and roar.

“This is the same river of Lethe,” continued Baldan Lhamo. “An ordinary underground river, only its waters are poisoned with an anunak potion, so that the spirits that touch the water would lose their minds and could not remember that you can simply reincarnate and leave this place. Spirits have been wandering here since the times of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. They forgot that it is possible to reincarnate and stayed here for millennia. Here they are guarded by the demon Thanatos, created in the Anunnachi laboratories.

But the religions that spoke of the realm of shadows were gone, and new residents of this gloomy place were not added. Then the Anunaki, with the help of the same Bible, spoke about hell - "the fiery hyena." Thus, they began to redirect the souls of sinners to the demons of the fiery hell, and the souls of the righteous, of course, according to their, Anunnachi, concepts, to their golden egg or Eden for new experiments. Therefore, all those who "righteously" believed Jehovah - the image-mask of the Anunaki, personifying God, go to an artificial paradise - a laboratory. Here they end their earthly life, with money and a lack of conscience who have earned their place in "paradise", the Anunnachi righteous, who were often in power and money and glory in different countries in life."

Again Baldan Lhamo waved her hands. And suddenly, instead of hellish depths, there were supposedly heavens. But they were below, underground. "It's not quite that golden egg," said the Goddess. “This is also the astral world, it is the same as you saw at the beginning, but it was created by the righteous who do not believe in reincarnation. The Anunnaki really need it as a source of energy for their experiments.

Here come those sheep of the flock of the Anunna who did not sin, did not do evil, but only prayed for the good of others, prayed for enemies and fierce sinners, and thus, according to cosmic laws, encouraged evil. This includes those who are firmly convinced of the truth of the one biblical God and his commandments, distorted by the Anunaki. This includes those who do not want to hear other truths, those who defended their faith in battle, who did not recognize the prophets of other religions except their own, and killed for their faith. You see, they are all together - a Christian and a Muslim. They fell in battle with each other, but they are in the same paradise, although they do not see each other.

In fact, this is the scariest place. It was into him that the realm of shadows of the ancient world turned over time. Fiery hell is much less scary with all its monsters. The "sinners" of the fiery hyena can repent of their sins, and then space law will pull them out of the vent and they will fall out into the next incarnation, work out karma. The fiery hell is close to the real, astral, temporal hell that you saw at the beginning.

But this paradise is the abode of madmen who consider their madness to be true. In this paradise they are like shadows. Souls do not develop here, they do not repent of anything, they consider their life here to be eternal, they know that the Earth is the center of the universe, they know only the image of God invented by the Anunaki, they are in complete illusion of bliss and grow their ego, believing that they did not go to heaven in vain, that they are righteous, and other sinners, and let them burn in hell. What's in store for them? They are waiting for complete destruction to the void, or vacuum, as you say. When the great cycle of Brahma ends, this paradise will disappear along with its inhabitants, and the spirits that have spent time in it will finally go to a new incarnation, but only from the stage where they hung in their development. Thousands and millions of manvantaras will be required for them to return to normal development in the bosom of the Absolute, one in everything, and not an anunnach model of God - a punishing and merciful creator who chooses peoples and personalities for himself. The same thing awaits the inhabitants of the golden egg of Eden.

But not only one's own confidence in the infallibility of the truths of the Bible and other books written by the Anunaki can hinder the soul in its development.

When your relative dies, you start feeling sorry for yourself. It was himself, not him. You are afraid and hard to live without him, without a mother, without a father, without a son or daughter. It is so?

And you start to suffer from it. At the same time, you do not know that with your sufferings you bind the soul of the deceased to you or to the place where he lived, and this prevents him from going his own way further, to a new incarnation. You keep him close by your desires, and he willy-nilly becomes a ghost if your emotions are too strong for this. Spirits also become ghosts, who themselves are strongly attached to their remaining relatives or to their things, or who think to take revenge on someone, or to prove something, that is, those who are very strongly attached to a specific past physical incarnation. Their fate is also unenviable. If they do not see clearly, the fate of the "righteous" from an artificial paradise awaits them.

Everyone heard about Hell and Paradise at least once ... at least in childhood. And everyone knows what it is - two "departments" of the afterlife. Paradise - with beautiful gardens and angels playing on golden harps, sitting on clouds - for the righteous. Hell - with boiling tar and horned devils, frying people who got there in frying pans - for sinners. It's so simple and clear. Some still like to quote the notorious saying of F. Voltaire that the climate is better in Paradise - but society is more interesting in Hell (of course, it is not easy to imagine a person who likes the society of Hitler and Chikatilo - but eventually everyone has different tastes).

And now - attention: such an idea of Rae and Ade exists exclusively atheists! It is based on medieval "pictures", and peering into them, we must remember that they never claimed to be "photorealistic". Even in “socialist realism”, the cow in the picture “symbolizes the successes of Soviet animal husbandry” - medieval art was symbolic to the limit, never reflecting reality (even earthly) literally. Even Dante (who, as is well known, was not only the "first poet", but also the "last poet of the Middle Ages"), with his extremely naturalistic depiction of hellish torments, did not think that beyond the bounds of earthly Being there is a Stygian swamp or rivers of boiling blood, a stinking swamp, where angry people are immersed, even there they continue to show aggression, or hot blood, burning murderers - this is a symbol, an allegorical image of the state of mind of these people.

And in this, the “divine Florentine” (as his contemporaries called him) is absolutely right: both Paradise and Hell are a state of mind ... what?

Yes, such, in which a person was during his life - and in which his death found him. The question is how it will exist in this form without a material body.

Just imagine: a drunkard has died, for whom the bottle has replaced everything - family, friends, there’s no need to talk about God - the whole meaning of life is to get drunk, he no longer knows other joys ... but in a disembodied form of being you won’t get drunk - a person is not able to satisfy his only need! Hell? Undoubtedly! Or - the dictator died, there is no longer a country that he could dispose of at his own discretion, there are no “boot-licking” associates who can be sent to the dungeon at any time if they are tired ... Or - a debauchee who “made love” all his life, like a sport - and there you can’t “make love”, there you can only be in love- and this he does not know how ... Examples can be continued indefinitely - but the essence is the same: having got used to sin, to an “animal” existence, a person after death will suffer from the inability to satisfy his habits. If the "habit" was love and striving for God, then now, when all the barriers have fallen, when he finds himself in the very crucible of Divine Love, with the Creator, whom he has been striving for all his life, he will be happy.

And what will happen in this case to those who avoided God all their lives, preferred not to think about Him, or even actively denied His existence? Will not such boundless Love burn him, for a meeting with which he is not ready? A person who avoided God during life continues to do so after death - and although it is rather difficult to avoid the Omnipresent God, the state of God-forsakenness still exists - this is what Hell is ...

How does it all look? We don’t know ... for the simple reason that no one returned from there (people who survived clinical death don’t count: medicine can’t revive the really dead, these people had a still alive nervous system - so no one can claim that the department soul and body took place). True, there were a few whom the Savior resurrected - but for some reason they preferred not to talk about it (or maybe no one listened to them). So it is hardly worth saying that Hell and Paradise are invented by man - everyone usually knows about what is invented ...

But even those who doubt the existence of Hell and Heaven are often worried about the question - how to avoid the first and get into the second (in any case, many people ask the question: can an atheist get to Heaven). Yes, it's very simple: you need to live in earthly life, as in Paradise! Imagine Paradise - a state of universal perfect happiness ... is it possible to imagine that someone there would insult, hit, deceive someone, that someone would be left alone there - abandoned by everyone and not needed by anyone, etc. etc.? Of course, on the ground it's not easy to live like this - to live according to the "hellish standard" is much easier ... so do not say that the "cruel" God "torments" people in Hell: we choose Hell ourselves!

Is there life after death? There is!

Is there anything more valuable to a person than life? Does death mean the cessation of our existence in general, or is it the beginning of a different, new life? Are there people who have returned from the other world, and do they know what happens there, beyond the threshold of death? What can be compared to that state?

Society’s interest in such issues begins to increase rapidly, because thanks to the revitalization technique available in our time, otherwise called the resuscitation technique, which helps to restore the respiratory function and cardiac activity of the body, everyone large quantity people are able to talk about the states of death experienced by them. Some of them shared with us these striking immediacy, impressions taken from the "other world" . And when such impressions were pleasant and joyful, people often ceased to experience fear of death.

Many are surprised at the recent reports of extremely positive experiences described by people who have come back to life. The question arises why no one talks about the existence of unpleasant, that is, negative after-death experiences?

As a cardiologist with an extensive clinical practice in resuscitation of patients with coronary insufficiency, I have found that if the patient is questioned immediately after resuscitation, there are not a few unpleasant impressions received in the afterlife.

To hell and back

An increasing number of my patients who have endured tell me that there is heaven and hell there. I myself have always believed that death is nothing more than a physical extinction, and my own life. But now I was forced to radically change my views, and thus reconsider my whole life, and found little consolation in it. I saw that it was indeed unsafe - to die!

The upheaval in my beliefs was the result of the incident, and that's how it all started for me. I once asked one of my patients to undergo what we call a "stress test" to determine the condition of the patient's chest. During this procedure, we give the patient a certain load and at the same time register heart beats. By means of the simulator, it is possible to stimulate the patient's movements so that he gradually moves from walking to running. If the symmetry on the electrocardiogram is broken during such exercises, then this means that the chest pains in the patient most likely arise due to a heart disorder, which is initial stage angina.

This patient, a pale 48-year-old man, worked as a village postman. Medium build, dark haired and good looking. Unfortunately, in the started procedure, the ECG not only "got lost", but also showed a complete cardiac arrest. He fell to the floor in my office and slowly began to die.

It was not even atrial fibrillation, namely cardiac arrest. The ventricles contracted, and the heart stopped dead.

Putting my ear to his chest, I couldn't hear anything. The pulse was not felt to the left of the Adam's apple. He sighed once or twice and froze completely, Muscles clenched in limp convulsions. The body began to take on a bluish color.

This happened around noon, but although there were 6 other doctors working in the clinic besides me, they all went to another hospital for an evening round. Only the nurses remained, but they did not lose their heads and their behavior deserves praise.

While I was doing chest compressions by pressing on the patient's chest, one of the nurses began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Another nurse brought a breathing mask to facilitate this procedure. A third wheeled a spare wheelchair with pacemaker equipment (ECS). But, to everyone's chagrin, the heart showed no signs of life. There was a complete blockage of the heart muscle. The pacemaker was supposed to eliminate this blockade and increase the number of heartbeats from 35 to 80-100 per minute.

I inserted the stimulator wires into a large vein below the collarbone - the one that goes directly to the heart. One end of the wire was inserted into the venous system and left free inside the heart muscle. Its other end was connected to a small energy battery - a device that regulates the activity of the heart and does not allow it to stop.

The patient began to recover. But as soon as I interrupted the manual massage of the chest for some reason, the patient again lost consciousness and his respiratory activity stopped - death came again.

Every time his vital functions were restored, this man screamed piercingly: "I'm in hell!" He was terribly frightened and begged me for help. I was very afraid that he would die, but I was even more frightened by the mention of hell, which he shouted about, and where I myself was not. At that moment, I heard from him a very strange request: "Don't stop!" The fact is that the patients I had to resuscitate before, the first thing they usually said to me as soon as they regained consciousness: “Stop tormenting my chest, you are hurting me!” And this is quite understandable - I have enough strength, so that with a closed heart massage, I sometimes break my ribs. And yet this patient told me: “Keep going!”

It was only at the moment when I looked at his face that real anxiety seized me. The expression on his face was much worse than at the time of death. His face was distorted by a terrible grimace, personifying horror, the pupils were dilated, and he himself was trembling and sweating - in a word, all this defies description.

Accustomed to patients who are under such emotional stress, I did not pay any attention to his words and I remember saying to him: "I'm busy, don't bother me with your hell until I put the stimulant in its place."

But the man was serious, and it finally dawned on me that his concern was genuine. He was in a state of panic terror the likes of which I had never seen before. As a result, I began to act at a feverish pace. Meanwhile, during this time, the patient lost consciousness 3 or 4 times and again.

Finally, after several such episodes, he asked me: “How can I get out of hell?” And I, remembering that once I had to teach in Sunday school, told him that the only One who can intercede for him is Jesus Christ. Then he said, “I don't know how to do it right. Pray for me."

Pray for him! How many nerves! I replied that I was a doctor, not a preacher.

But he repeated, "Pray for me!" I realized that I had no choice - it was a dying request. And so, while we were working - right on the floor - he repeated my words after me. It was a very simple prayer, because until now I had no experience in this regard. Something like the following came out:

My Lord Jesus Christ!

I ask you to save me from hell.

Forgive my sins.

I will follow You all my life.

If I die, I want to be in Heaven

If I stay alive, I will forever be faithful to You.

In the end, the patient's condition stabilized, and he was taken to the ward. When I got home, I blew the dust off the Bible and began to read, wanting to find an accurate description of hell there.

In my medical practice, death has always been a common thing, and I considered it a simple termination of life, which does not entail any subsequent danger or remorse. But now I was convinced that there was something else behind it all. The Bible spoke of death as the final destiny of everyone. All my views required revision, and I needed to expand my knowledge. In other words, I was looking for an answer to a question that would confirm the truth of Scripture. I discovered that the Bible is not just a history book. Every word went to the very heart and turned out to be true. I decided that I needed to start studying it better and more carefully.

A couple of days later, I approached my patient, wanting to question him. Sitting down by the headboard, I asked him to remember what he actually saw in that hell. Was there fire? What kind of devil is he, and did he have a pitchfork? What does all this resemble, and what can hell be compared to?

The patient was amazed: “What are you talking about, what hell? I don't remember anything like that." I had to explain to him in detail, recalling every detail he described two days ago: the way he lay on the floor, and the stimulator, and resuscitation. But despite all my efforts, the patient could not remember anything bad about his feelings. Apparently, the experiences that he had to go through were so terrible, so disgusting and painful that his brain was unable to cope with them, so that they were subsequently forced into the subconscious.

Meanwhile, this man suddenly became a believer. Now he is a zealous Christian, although before that he went to church only by chance. Being extremely secretive and shy, he nevertheless became a direct witness of Jesus Christ. He also did not forget our prayer and how he “passed out” once or twice. He still does not remember what he experienced in hell, but he says that he saw, as it were, from above, from the ceiling, those who were below, watching how they worked on his body.

He also remembered meeting his late mother and late stepmother during one of these dying episodes. The meeting point was a narrow gorge full of beautiful flowers. He also saw other deceased relatives. He was very happy in that valley with bright greenery and flowers, and he adds that all of it was illuminated by a very strong beam of light. He “saw” his dead mother for the first time, since she died at the age of twenty-one, when he was only 15 months old, and his father soon remarried, and he was never shown even photographs of his mother. However, despite this, he managed to choose her portrait from many others when his aunt, having learned about what had happened, brought several family photographs for verification. There was no mistake - the same brown hair, the same eyes and lips - the face in the portrait was a copy of what he saw. And there she was still 21 years old. That the woman he had seen was his mother, there was no doubt. He was amazed - this event was no less amazing for his father.

Thus, all this can serve as an explanation for the paradox that only “good experiences” are described in the literature. The fact is that if the patient is not interviewed immediately after resuscitation, then bad impressions are erased from memory, and only good ones remain.

Further observations will have to confirm this discovery made by doctors in intensive care units, and doctors themselves should have the courage to pay attention to the study of spiritual phenomena, which they can do by interviewing patients immediately after their resuscitation. Since only 1/5 of the patients who came back to life talk about their experiences, many such interviews can be fruitless. If the search is ultimately successful, then their results can be compared with a pearl, which was considered a trinket found in a pile of garbage. Just such “pearls” saved me from the darkness of ignorance and skepticism and led me to the conviction that there, beyond the threshold of death, there is life, and this life is not always continuous joy.

The story of this patient could be supplemented. The unimportant condition of the heart led to his stop during the procedure. Some time later, after he recovered, the chest pains still remained; but they were the result of a chest massage and had nothing to do with his illness.

With the help of coronary catheterization (a procedure for examining the heart vessels), it was possible to detect pathological changes in the coronary arteries, which were the cause of his illness. Since the coronary arteries are too small to remove the obstructions formed in them, the blood vessels must be taken from the leg and transplanted so as to circle the affected area of ​​the artery, which in this case is excised. Our surgical team was called in to perform one of these operations.

My duties as a cardiologist include catheterization, diagnosis and treatment, but not surgery. But for that special occasion, I was included in the group of surgeons, consisting of several doctors and operating room technicians. The general content of the conversation at the operating table and earlier, during catheterization, was approximately the following.

“Isn't it interesting,” one of the doctors turned to those standing, “this patient said that while he was being resuscitated, he had been to hell! But I don't care much. If hell really exists, then I have nothing to fear. I am an honest person and always take care of my family. Other doctors walked away from their wives, but I never did. In addition, I look after my children and take care of their education. So I see no reason to be upset. If there is Heaven, then there is a place prepared for me.”

I was convinced that he was wrong, but then I could not yet substantiate my thoughts with reference to Scripture. Later I found many such places. I was convinced that good behavior alone could not hope to go to Heaven.

The conversation at the table was continued by another doctor: “I personally do not believe that after death there can be any more life. Most likely, the patient simply imagined this hell to himself, while in fact there was nothing like it. ” When I asked him what grounds he had for making such claims, he said that "before entering medical school, I studied at the Seminary for 3 years and left because I could not believe in an afterlife."

What do you think happens to a person after death? I asked.

After death, a person becomes fertilizer for flowers, he replied. It was not a joke on his part, and he still holds this belief. It's embarrassing to admit, but until recently, I also held this view. One of the doctors, who felt like pricking me, tried to amuse others with his question: “Rowlings, someone told me that you were baptized in the Jordan. Is it true?"

I tried to avoid answering by changing the subject. Instead of saying something like, "Yes, that was one of happiest days in my life,” I evaded the question, so one might say; that I was embarrassed. To this day, I regret it, and often the place from the Gospel comes to my mind where Jesus says that if we are ashamed of Him before the people of this age, then He will also be ashamed of us before His Father in Heaven (see Matt. 10 :33). I hope that now my commitment to Christ is more clear to those around me.

Typical out-of-body sensation

The following description is general but may take on some variations.

Usually the dying person weakens or loses consciousness at the moment of death, and yet, he is able to hear for a while how the doctor states his death. Then he discovers that he is out of his body, but still in the same room, watching as a witness to what is happening. He sees himself being resuscitated and is often forced to bypass other people who might interfere with his observations. Or he is able to look down at the scene in a hovering position while under the ceiling. Often he stops, as if floating, behind the doctor or attendants, looking down at the backs of their heads as they are engaged in resuscitation. He notices who is in the room and knows what they are saying.

He hardly believes in his own death, in the fact that his body, which previously served him, now lies lifeless. He feels great! The body is left, like some unnecessary thing. Gradually getting used to a new, unusual state, he begins to notice that he now has a new body, which seems real and endowed with better perception abilities. He is able to see, feel, think and speak as before. But now new advantages have been acquired. He understands that his body has many possibilities: moving, reading other people's thoughts; His abilities are almost limitless. Then he can hear an unusual noise, after which he sees himself speeding down a long black corridor. His speed can be both fast and slow, but he does not hit walls and is not afraid of falling.

Upon leaving the corridor, he sees a brightly lit, exquisitely beautiful area where he meets and talks with friends and relatives who have died earlier. After that, he can be interrogated by a creature of light or a creature of darkness. This area may be unspeakably wonderful, often a hilly meadow or a beautiful city; or the often unspeakably repulsive underground prison or gigantic cavern. A person's entire life can be played back as a snapshot of all major events, as if awaiting judgment. When he walks with his friends or relatives (often his parents are in good condition), there is usually a barrier that he is not able to cross. At this point, he usually returns and suddenly finds himself back in his body, and may feel a jolt of the applied electric current or pain in his chest due to pressure on it.

Such experiences, as a rule, have a strong impact on the life and behavior of the person after the revival. If the feeling is pleasant, then the person is not afraid to die again. He can look forward to a renewal of this feeling, especially from the moment when he knew that death itself is painless and does not inspire fear. But if he tries to tell about these feelings to his friends, then this can be perceived either with mockery or with jokes. Finding words to describe these supernatural events is rather difficult; but if he is ridiculed, he will afterwards keep the incident a secret and will no longer mention it. If what happened is unpleasant, if he experienced condemnation or a curse, then most likely he will prefer to keep these memories a secret.

Terrible experiences can occur just as often as pleasant ones. Those who have experienced unpleasant sensations, as well as those who have experienced pleasant ones, may not be bothered by the knowledge that they are dead when they watch those who fuss over their dead body. They also enter a dark corridor after they leave the room, but instead of entering an area of ​​light, they find themselves in a dark, foggy environment where they encounter strange people who may be lurking in the shadows or along a blazing lake of fire. Horrors defy description, so remembering them is extremely difficult. Unlike pleasant sensations, it is difficult to know the exact details here.

It is important to interview the patient immediately after resuscitation, while he is still under the impression of the experienced events, that is, before he can forget or hide his experiences. These extraordinary, painful encounters have the most profound effect on their relationship to life and death. I have not yet met a single person who, having experienced this, would remain an agnostic or an atheist.

Personal Observations

I would like to talk about what caused my desire to study the "post-mortem experience". I started following the publications of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (finally published in her book On Death and Dying) and Dr. Raymond Moody in Life After Life. Apart from the description of suicide attempts, the materials they published testify only to extremely joyful sensations. I can't believe this! The sensations they describe are too joyful, too exalted to be true, in my opinion. At the time of my youth I was taught that beyond the grave there is a "place of seal" and a "place of bliss", hell and heaven. In addition, that conversation with a man during his resuscitation, who assured me that he was in hell, and faith in the immutability of Scripture, convinced me that some people must go to hell.

However, almost everyone in their descriptions spoke of paradise. It was then that I finally realized that some of the “good” sensations might have been false, perhaps orchestrated by Satan, disguised as an “angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). Or maybe a meeting place in a pleasant environment, which is the "land of separation" or the area of ​​​​judgment before the trial, since in most cases a barrier is reported that prevents progress to the other side. The patient returns to his body before he can get past the barrier. However, cases are also reported when deceased patients were allowed to cross the “barrier” beyond which Heaven or Hell opened. These cases will be described below.

As a result of such observations, the conviction has matured in me that all the facts published by Dr. Raymond Moody and Dr. Kubler-Ross and subsequently by Drs. Carlis Osis and Erlendew Haraldson in their excellent collection At the Hour of Death, are accurately stated by the authors, but not always in sufficient detail. reported by patients. I have found that most of the unpleasant sensations soon recede deep into the patient's subconscious, or subconscious mind. These bad sensations seem so painful and disturbing that they are expelled from conscious memory, and either only pleasant sensations remain, or nothing remains at all. There have been cases when patients "died" several times from cardiac arrest, as soon as resuscitation was stopped, and when breathing and heart activity resumed, consciousness returned to them. In such cases, the patient repeatedly had an out-of-body experience. However, he usually remembered only pleasant details.

Then I finally realized that Dr. Kubler-Ross, and Dr. Moody, and other psychiatrists and psychologists were asking patients who had been resuscitated by other doctors, and the resuscitation had taken place days or even weeks before the interview. To the best of my knowledge, neither Kubler-Ross nor Moody had ever resuscitated a patient or even been able to interview him at the scene. After repeatedly questioning my resuscitated patients, I was amazed by the discovery that many people have unpleasant sensations. If patients could be interviewed immediately after resuscitation, then I'm sure researchers would hear about bad feelings as often as good ones. However, most doctors, who do not want to appear religious, are afraid to ask patients about their "post-mortem experience."

This idea of ​​immediate interrogation was put forward many years ago by the famous psychologist, Dr. W.G. Myers, who stated:

“It is possible that we could learn a lot by questioning the dying at the moment of their exit from certain comatose states, since their memory stores certain dreams or visions that appeared in this state. If any sensations are really experienced at this moment, then they must be recorded immediately, since they are likely to be quickly erased from the supraliminal (conscious) memory of the patient, even if he does not die immediately after that ”(F.W.H Myers,“ Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodili Death" (New York: Avon Books, 1977).

In embarking on the study of this phenomenon, I came into contact with other doctors, who were also given similar information about pleasant and unpleasant sensations, so that sufficiently similar cases could be compared. At the same time, I began to be preoccupied with the problem of similar reports previously made by various authors.

Unusual events in our time

The recollections of many of my patients are striking in their careful reproduction of the realities that accompanied their resuscitation: an accurate listing of the procedures used, a summary of the conversation between those who were present in the room, a description of the style and color of clothing on each. Such events suggest a spiritual existence outside the body during a prolonged unconscious state. Such comatose states sometimes continue for several days.

One such patient was a nurse. Once in the hospital I was asked to examine her to consult her heart because of complaints of periodic chest pains. There was only her neighbor in the ward, who informed me that the patient was either in the X-ray department or was still in the bathroom. I knocked on the bathroom door and, not hearing an answer, turned the handle, opening the door very slowly so as not to embarrass whoever might be there.

When the door opened, I saw a nurse hanging from a clothes hook on the other side of the bathroom door. It wasn't too tall, so it turned easily with the open door. The woman hung on a hook, hooked on a soft collar, which is used to stretch the cervical vertebrae. She apparently tied this collar around her neck and then attached the end of it to a hook and began to gradually bend her knees until she became unconscious. Not suffocation or shock - just a gradual loss of consciousness. The deeper the fainting became, the more she sank. At the moment of death, her face, tongue and eyes protruded forward. The face took on a dark, bluish tint. The rest of her body was deathly pale. Her breath stopped, she stretched out.

I quickly unhooked her and laid her full length on the floor. Her pupils were dilated, there was no pulse at the neck, and no heartbeats were felt. I started the chest compressions while her neighbor ran downstairs to call for help from the attendants. Oxygen and breathing mask were replaced with mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration. There was a straight line on the ECG, a "dead spot". Electric shock won't help. The intravenous dose of sodium bicarbonate and epinephrine was immediately doubled while other medications were delivered to the intravenous vial. A drip was placed to maintain blood pressure and relieve shock.

After she was sent on a stretcher to the intensive care unit, where she spent 4 days in a coma. Pupil dilation indicated brain damage due to inadequate circulation during cardiac arrest. But suddenly, after a few hours, her blood pressure began to normalize. Together with the restoration of blood circulation, urination began. However, she was able to speak only after a few days. In the end, all body functions were restored, and a few months later the patient returned to work.

To this day, she believes that something like a car accident was the cause of the pathological lengthening of her neck. Although she was admitted to the hospital in a depressed state, she has now recovered without any residual depression or suicidal tendencies, probably mitigated by a long-term interruption of the blood supply to the brain.

About the second day after coming out of the coma, I asked her if she remembered at least something of everything. She replied: “Oh yes, I remember how you taught me. You dropped your brown plaid jacket, then loosened your tie, I remember it was white color and it has brown stripes on it, the sister who came to help you seemed so alarmed! I tried to tell her that I'm fine. You asked her to bring an ambulatory bag, as well as an IV catheter. Then two men came in with a stretcher. I remember all this."

She remembered me - and she was in a deep coma, just at that time, and remained in this state for the next four days! While I was taking off my brown jacket, it was just me and her in the room. And she was clinically dead.

Some of the survivors of reversible death perfectly remembered the conversation that took place during resuscitation. Maybe because hearing is one of those senses that the body loses after death in the last turn? I dont know. But next time I will be more careful.

One 73-year-old gentleman entered the hospital ward complaining of a pressing pain in the middle of his chest. While walking to my office, he held his chest. But halfway down, he fell down and, falling, hit his head against the wall. He foamed, he sighed once or twice, and his breathing stopped. The heart stopped beating.

We lifted his shirt and listened to his chest to make sure. Artificial respiration and cardiac massage were started. An ECG was done, which showed atrial fibrillation of the ventricles of the heart. Every time we applied electric shocks through the plates, the body bounced in response. Subsequently, he regained consciousness from time to time, fighting off us and trying to get back on his feet. Then suddenly bent over, he fell again, again and again hitting his head on the floor. This was repeated about 6 times.

Oddly enough, on the 6th time, after a series of intravenous infusions that supported the work of the heart, the shock procedures worked and the pulse began to be felt, blood pressure was restored, consciousness returned, and the patient is alive to this day. He is already 81 years old. He remarried after this incident, and subsequently contrived to obtain a divorce, thereby losing his profitable fruit trade, which was his main means of subsistence.

Of the 6 near-death experiences he experienced that day in my office, he remembers only one. He remembers telling another doctor who worked with me, “Let's try one more time. If the electric shock doesn't help, let's stop!" I would have gladly retracted my words, since he heard me, although he was then completely unconscious. Later he told me: “What did you mean by saying: “We will stop”? Did that apply to me when you were still working?”

hallucinations

Very often people have asked me if those good and bad feelings could not be hallucinations that could be caused by the severity of the patient's illness or the drugs prescribed during this illness? Is it not more probable that hidden wishes come true in their visions? Maybe they are due to cultural or religious upbringing? Are their sensations really universal, or is it just their vision? Do people with different religious beliefs, for example, have the same or different feelings?

To solve this problem, Dr. Karlis Osis and his colleagues conducted two studies in America and India. More than 1,000 people who dealt with the dying most often - doctors and other medical staff - filled out questionnaires. The following results were recorded:

1. Did those patients who took painkillers or narcotic drugs known to cause hallucinations have less plausible post-mortem experiences than those who did not use drugs at all? In addition, hallucinations caused by drugs are clearly related to the present, but not.

2. Hallucinations caused by diseases such as uremia, chemical poisoning or brain damage, are less related to unexpected encounters from the future life or its components than hallucinations associated with other diseases.

3. Patients who received sensations in a future life did not see Heaven or Hell in the form in which they previously imagined them. What they saw was usually unexpected for them.

4. These visions are not wishful thinking and do not appear to establish which patients have "postmortem experiences". Such visions or sensations are as common in patients who have a chance of recovering soon as in those who are dying.

5. The sequence of sensations does not depend on differences in culture or religion. In both America and India, dying patients claimed to have seen a dark corridor, a blinding light, and relatives who had died earlier.

6. It was noted, however, that; religious backgrounds had a certain effect on the identification of a certain Being who could meet. No Christian has seen a Hindu deity, and no Hindu has seen Christ. This Being does not seem to reveal itself, but is instead defined by the observer.

Dr. Charles Garfield, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University medical center in California, on the basis of his observations, concluded that in all respects they are completely different from the hallucinations caused by drugs, or the split feelings that the patient may experience during periods of exacerbation of the disease. My own observations confirm this.

The narcotic effect, delirium tremens, carbon dioxide anesthesia and mental reactions are more likely to be associated with the life of this world, but not with the events of the world of the future.

Descent into hell

Finally, we turn to those messages that are generally little known to the public. There are people who, after returning from a state of clinical death, said that they were in hell. Some of the cases are described by people who apparently penetrated the barrier or rocky mountains separating the places of distribution from those places where judgment could be held. Those who didn't meet the barrier may leave the place of death only to go through all sorts of distribution places - one such place was gloomy and dark, like a haunted house at a carnival. In most cases, this place appears to be a dungeon or an underground road.

Thomas Welch, in his pamphlet A Wonderful Miracle in Oregon, described the most extraordinary sensation that came over him when he saw a stunningly large "lake of fire, a sight more terrible than man could ever imagine, this last side of judgment."

While working as an assistant engineer at the Bridle Whale Lumber Company, 30 miles east of Portland, Oregon, Welch was assigned to oversee, from a scaffold across a dam 55 feet above the water, a land survey to determine the boundaries of the future. sawmills. Then he presents this story:

“I went out to the stage to straighten the logs that lay across and did not rise along the conveyor. Suddenly I stumbled on the platform and fell down between the beams into a pool about 50 feet deep. An engineer sitting in the cab of a locomotive loading logs into a pond saw me fall. I hit my head on the first rung at a depth of 30 feet and then another until I fell into the water and out of sight.

At that time, 70 people worked at the factory itself and around it. The factory was stopped, and all available people, according to their testimony, were sent to search for my body. The search took from 45 minutes to an hour, until I was finally found by M. J. H. Gunderson, who confirmed this statement in writing.

I was dead, as far as this world is concerned. But I was alive in another world. There was no time. I learned more in that hour of life out of the body than in the same time in my body. All I could remember was falling off the bridge. The engineer who was in the locomotive saw me fall into the water.

Further, I realized that I was standing at the shore of a huge fiery ocean. This turned out to be exactly what the Bible says in Revelation 21:8: "...a lake burning with fire and brimstone." This spectacle is more terrible than a person can imagine, this is the side of the final judgment.

I remember it more clearly than any other event that ever happened to me in my entire life, every detail of every event that I observed that happened during this hour when I was not in this world. I stood at some distance from the burning, seething and roaring mass of blue flames. Everywhere, as far as I could see, there was this lake. There was no one in it. I wasn't in it either. I saw people I knew had died when I was 13 years old. One of them was a boy I went to school with who died of mouth cancer that started with a tooth infection when he was just a child. He was two years older than me. We recognized each other, although we did not speak. The rest of the people also looked as if they were bewildered and were in deep thought, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing. Their expressions were somewhere between bewilderment and embarrassment.

The place where it all happened was so amazing that words are simply powerless. There is no way to describe it, except to say that we were then the "eyes" of the witnesses of the last judgment. From there you can neither run away nor get out. Don't even count on it. It is a prison that no one can get out of except with the help of Divine intervention. I clearly said to myself, "If I had known about this before, I would have done whatever was required of me to avoid being in such a place," But I did not think about it. As these thoughts flashed through my mind, I saw another Human passing in front of us. I recognized Him immediately. He had an authoritative, kind, sympathetic face; calm and fearless, Lord of all that He saw.

It was Jesus Himself. A great hope ignited in me, and I realized that this is a great and amazing Person who is following me into this prison of death, for a soul embarrassed by the verdict of the court, to solve my problem. I didn't do anything to get His attention, but I just said to myself again, "If He would only look my way and see me, He could lead me away from this place, because He must know how to be." He passed by, and it seemed to me that He did not pay attention to me, but before He was out of sight, He turned His head and looked directly at me. Only this, and all. His gaze was enough.

In a matter of seconds, I was back in my body. It was as if I had entered through the door of a house. I heard the voices of the Brocks (the people I lived with) as they prayed - a few minutes before I opened my eyes and could say anything. I could hear and understand what was happening. Then suddenly life entered my body and I opened my eyes and spoke to them. It is easy to speak and describe what you have seen. I know there is a lake of fire because I have seen it. I know that Jesus Christ is eternally alive. I saw him. The Bible states in Revelation (1:9-11): “I John… was in the spirit on Sunday, I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet, which said: I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last; what you see, write in a book…”

Among many other events, John saw judgment, and he describes it in Revelation 20 as he himself saw it. In verse 10 he says, "and the devil that deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire..." And again in 21:8 John speaks of "...a lake burning with fire and brimstone." This is the lake that I saw, and I am sure that when this period is completed, at the judgment, every corrupted creature in this world will be thrown into this lake and will be forever destroyed.

I thank God that there are people who can pray. It was Mrs. Brock who I heard was praying for me. She said, “Oh God, don't take Tom away; he did not save his soul."

Soon I opened my eyes and asked them, "What happened?" I didn't lose in time; I was taken somewhere, and now I was back in place. Shortly thereafter, an ambulance arrived and I was taken to the Merciful Samaritan Hospital in Portland. I was taken there just around 6 pm, to the surgical department, where they sewed my scalp, many stitches were applied. I was left in the intensive care unit. In fact, there were few doctors who could help. I just had to wait and watch. During these 4 days and nights, I had a feeling of constant communication with the Holy Spirit. I relived the events of my former life and what I saw: the lake of fire, Jesus coming to me there, my uncle and the boy with whom I went to school, and my return to life. The presence of the Spirit of God was constantly felt by me, and many times I loudly cried out to the Lord. Then I began to ask God to completely dispose of my life and that His will be mine ... Some time after that, about 9 o'clock, God revealed His voice to me. The voice of the Spirit was quite clear. He told me, “I want you to tell the world what you saw and how you came back to life” (Thomas Welch, Oregon’s Amazing Miracle (Dallas; Christ for the Nations, Inc., 1976, p. 80).

Another example concerns a patient who was dying of a heart attack. She attended church every Sunday and considered herself an ordinary Christian. Here is what she said:

I remember how shortness of breath began, and then an unexpected blackout. Then I realized that I was out of my body. Further, I remember that I ended up in a gloomy room, where in one of the windows I saw a huge giant with a terrible face, he was watching me. Small imps or dwarfs were scurrying around the window-sill, which, obviously, were at one with the giant. That giant beckoned me to follow him. I didn't want to go, but I came. There was darkness and gloom all around, I could hear people groaning all around me. I felt moving beings at my feet. As soon as we passed the tunnel or cave, the creatures became even more disgusting. I remember crying. Then, for some reason, the giant turned to me and sent me back. I realized that I was spared. I do not know why. After that, I remember seeing myself again in a hospital bed. The doctor asked me if I had used drugs. My story probably sounded like feverish delirium. I told him that I had no such habit and that the story was genuine. It changed my whole life.

Descriptions of being led away or sent back from the spiritual world obviously differ considerably in cases of unpleasant sensations, while in the case of good ones, these images give the impression of the same type of narrative. Another message:

I had sharp pains in my abdomen due to inflammation of the pancreas. I was given medications that increased my blood pressure, which kept dropping, causing me to gradually lose consciousness. I remember being resuscitated. I left through a long tunnel and wondered why I didn't touch it with my feet. I had the impression that I was swimming and moving away very quickly. I think it was a dungeon. It could be a cave, but very terrible. Eerie sounds were heard in it. There was a smell of putrefaction, about the same as that of a cancer patient. Everything happened in slow motion. I can't remember everything I saw there, but some of the villains were only half human. They mimicked each other and spoke in a language I couldn't understand. You ask me if I have met someone I know, or if I have seen a radiance of light, but there was none of that. There was a benevolent Man in shining white robes who appeared when I called, "Jesus, save me!" He looked at me, and I felt the instruction: "Live differently!". I don't remember how I left that place and how I came back. Maybe there was something else, I don't remember. Maybe I'm afraid to remember!

In the latest issue of Charles Deakins, a travelogue to various worlds, George Ritchai, M.D., described his death from lobar pneumonia in 1943 in the Barclay, Texas area of ​​camp, at the age of 20. In his amazing book Return from Tomorrow, he describes how he inexplicably came back to life after 9 minutes, but during this time he experienced a whole life full of events, both sad and joyful. He describes a journey with a luminous Being, full of radiance and power, and identified by him with Christ, who led him through a series of "worlds." In this story, the damned world was located on a vast plain that stretched on the surface of the earth, where vicious spirits were in constant struggle with each other. Having grappled in a personal duel, they beat each other with their fists. Everywhere - sexual perversions and hopeless cries, and disgusting thoughts emanating from someone, became common property. They couldn't see Dr. Ritchai and the figure of Christ with him. The outward appearance of these creatures evoked nothing but compassion for the misfortune to which these people doomed themselves.

Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin, in his booklet My Testimony, described in detail the experiences that absolutely changed his life. They forced him to take the priesthood in order to tell others about it. He reports the following:

On Saturday, April 21, 1933, at half past seven in the evening, in McKinney, Texas, which is 32 miles from Dallas, my heart stopped beating, and the spiritual man who lives in my body separated from it ... I went down, lower and lower, until the light of the earth faded... The deeper I went, the darker it became, until it was absolute blackness. I couldn't see my own hand, even if it was only an inch from my eyes. The deeper I went down, the more stuffy and hot it became. At last there was a path to the underworld below me, and I could make out the lights flickering on the walls of the cave of the doomed. They were the reflections of the fires of hell.

A gigantic sphere of fire with white crests was advancing towards me, pulling me along like a magnet drawing metal towards itself. I didn't want to go! I didn't walk, but just as metal jumps to a magnet, my spirit was drawn to that place. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I was overwhelmed with heat. Many years have passed since then, but this vision still stands before my eyes, just as I saw it then. Everything is as fresh in my memory as if it happened last night.

After I reached the bottom of the pit, I felt a certain spiritual Being next to me. I didn't look at him because I couldn't take my gaze away from the flames of hell, but when I stopped the Being put his hand on mine between my elbow and shoulder to guide me there. And at the same moment a voice was heard from a distant height, above this darkness, above the earth, above the heavens. It was the voice of God, although I did not see Him, and I do not know what He said, because He did not speak English language. He spoke in some other language, and as He spoke, His voice went all over this damned place, shaking it like that; like the wind shakes the leaves. This caused the person holding me to loosen his grip. I did not move, but some Force pulled me back, and I returned away from the fire and heat, under the shadow of darkness. I began to rise until I reached the upper edge of the pit and saw the earthly light. I returned to the same room, as real as ever. I entered her through the door, although my spirit did not need doors; I slid right into my body, just like a man dives into his pants in the morning, the same way he came out - through his mouth. I spoke to my grandmother. She said, "Son, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead."

…I would like to find words to describe that place. People spend this life so carelessly, as if they should not face hell, but the Word of God and my personal experience tell me otherwise. I experienced an unconscious state, it also gives a feeling of darkness, but I want to say that there is no darkness like the Outer Darkness.

The number of instances of familiarity with hell is rapidly increasing, but they will not be given here. The only thing I would like to mention here, however, is the case of the devoted member of the Church. He was surprised that, after his death, he felt himself falling into a tunnel that ends at a flame, revealing a gigantic, fire-breathing world of horror. He saw some of his "Auld Lang" friends, their faces showing nothing but emptiness and apathy. They were burdened with useless burdens. They were constantly walking, but never going anywhere in particular, and never stopped for fear of the "taskers," who, he said, were indescribable. Absolute darkness lay outside this zone of aimless activity. He escaped the fate of staying there forever when God called him to step on some invisible miraculous road. Since then, he feels called to warn others of the dangers of complacency and the need to take a stand in his faith.

Moritz Rawlings (from Beyond Death's Door)

Translation by M.B. Danilushkin, publishing house "Resurrection"

What comes to your mind when you hear the word "hell"? Do you imagine a literal place of eternal torment, where fire and brimstone burn? Or is hell a symbolic description of some state?

For a long time, the clergy of the Christian world said that sinners would burn in hell, enduring terrible torment. This belief is still widespread among many denominations. According to the magazine Yu. S. News and World Report”, “although the word “hell” came into use thanks to Christianity, Christianity has not retained a monopoly on the doctrine of hell. The threat of painful retribution after death is spoken of in all, both large and small, religions of the world. Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, members of the Jain community and Taoists believe in the existence of hell in one form or another.

In our time, however, ideas about "hell" have changed somewhat. “Although the traditional doctrine of hell still has its adherents,” notes the aforementioned journal, “a new, modern understanding of eternal torment as painful solitary confinement has appeared, while hell is not so hot.”

The Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica noted: “It is wrong ... to think that God, through demons, inflicts terrible torments on the doomed, for example, torments in the fire.” It also says: "Hell exists, but it is not a place, but the state of a person tormented by separation from God." Pope John Paul II said in 1999: "Hell is not a place, but a state of those who intentionally and irrevocably separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy." Regarding the depictions of hell as a place of torment in the fire, he said: "They reflect the utter despair and emptiness of life without God." According to church historian Martin Marty, if the pope had mentioned hell, the devil with a red frock coat and a pitchfork, no one would have taken it seriously.

Similar changes are observed in other religions. The report of the Commission of the Church of England on the Doctrine of the Faith stated: "Hell is not a place of eternal torment, but the final and irrevocable choice of the path, completely opposed to God, so that the only thing this path will lead to is complete non-existence."

The Catechism of the United States Episcopal Church defines hell as "eternal death as a result of our renunciation of God." According to "Yu. S. News and World Report,” a growing number of people hold to the idea that “the fate of the wicked is not eternal suffering, but destruction. […] [They] argue that those who completely reject God will simply sink into non-existence in the “all-consuming flame” of hell.”

Although modern theories trying to move away from the idea of ​​hell burning with fire and brimstone, many still believe that hell is a literal place of torment. “Scripture is clear that hell is a real place of suffering,” notes Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (USA, Kentucky) in Louisville. And in the report "The Essence of Hell", prepared
Commissioned by the Evangelical Union states: “Hell is the agonizing sensation of separation from God” (“The Nature of Hell”). It also says: "There are degrees of punishment and suffering in hell, depending on the severity of earthly sins."
Again the question arises: what is hell? A place where sinners are tormented in eternal flame or a state of non-existence? Or is it simply a state of separation from God? What is hell really?

A brief excursion into history

When was the doctrine of hell adopted in the Christian world? Much later than the time when Jesus Christ and his apostles lived. One French encyclopedia stated that “The Apocalypse of Peter (2nd century AD) is the first [apocryphal] Christian work describing the punishment and torment of sinners in hell” (“Encyclopaedia Universalis”). Among the early church fathers there was no unity in the understanding of hell. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Cyprian considered hell to be a place where sinners are tormented by fire. Origen and the theologian Gregory of Nyssa imagined hell as a place where sinners are separated from God and suffer spiritually. Augustine the Blessed, on the contrary, argued that in hell they suffer both physically and spiritually. This view has become generally accepted. According to Professor J. N. D. Kelly, “By the 5th century, a strict dogma was formed and became widespread that after death sinners would have no chance of salvation and would be consumed by unquenchable fire.”
In the 16th century, Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that torment in hell was a symbol of eternal separation from God. However, over the next two centuries, the idea of ​​hell as a place of torment regained its strength. Protestant preacher Jonathan Edwards, with his vivid description of hell, made the hearts of 18th-century American colonists tremble with fear.
Soon, however, the hellfire began to flicker ever weaker. And according to Yu. S. News and World Report”, in the 20th century, it can be said to have completely “extincted”.

What is hell?

Whatever your idea of ​​hell, the word "hell" is usually associated with the place of punishment for sin. Regarding sin and its consequences, the Bible says, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because they all sinned” (Romans 5:12). The Scripture also says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Since the penalty for sin is death, one must answer the main question that helps to understand the true nature of hell: what happens to a person when he dies?
Does life remain in a person after death in any form? What is hell and what kind of people go there? Is there any hope for those who are in hell? The Bible provides truthful and convincing answers to these questions.

Life after death?

Is it possible that some substance within us, soul or spirit, lives on after the death of the body? Let's look at how the first man, Adam, got life. The Bible says, “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Although breathing kept him alive, the "breath of life" given to Adam was much more than just the air in his lungs. This meant that God breathed into the lifeless body of Adam a spark, or spirit life, life a force operating in all living organisms on earth (Genesis 6:17; 7:22). The Bible calls this life-giving force the spirit (James 2:26). Spirit can be compared to an electric current that powers a device or equipment, allowing it to be used. Just as a current never takes on the characteristics of the equipment it powers, so the life force never takes on the characteristics of the creatures it gives life to. This force is not a person and does not have a mind.

What happens to the spirit when a person dies? Psalm 145:4 says, “His spirit goes out, and he returns to his own land: in that day all his thoughts perish.” When a person dies, his impersonal life force, or spirit, does not continue to exist in the other world as a spiritual being. “The spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). This means that any hope for future life for this person is completely dependent on God.

The ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato believed that the human soul does not die with the death of the body and lives forever. What does the Bible say about the soul? Genesis 2:7 says that Adam "became ... a living being." He did not receive a soul, but was a soul, that is, a man. The Bible says that the soul can do some work, want to eat, be satisfied, be exhausted, and so on (Leviticus 23:30; Deuteronomy 12:20; Proverbs 27:7; Jonah 2:8). Therefore, the soul is the person himself. When he dies, the soul dies (Ezekiel 18:4).

What then is the condition of the dead? When pronouncing sentence on Adam, Jehovah said: “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19). Where was Adam before God formed him from the dust of the ground and gave him life? Nowhere, it simply did not exist! When Adam died, he returned to this state of total nonexistence. The condition of the dead is clearly stated in Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10: “The dead know nothing… …In the grave where you will go, there is no work, no thinking, no knowledge, no wisdom.” According to Scripture, death is a state of nonexistence. The dead are not conscious, they have neither feelings nor thoughts.

Eternal torment or a common grave?

Since the dead are not conscious, hell cannot be a place where sinners are tormented after death. Then what is hell? It will be easier for us to answer this question if we remember what happened to Jesus after death. Evangelist Luke says: “He [Jesus] was not left in Hades [hell] and his flesh did not see corruption”* (Acts 2:31). Where is the hell where even Jesus was? The apostle Paul wrote: “I have given you ... that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that on the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4). Thus, Jesus was in hell, or in the tomb, but was not left there because he was resurrected.

Remember the story of the righteous man Job, who suffered a lot. Wanting to get rid of torment, he prayed to God: “If only You would hide me in hell and hide me until Your anger passes” (Job 14:13). It would be illogical to think that Job was willing to go into "hell" to save himself from suffering! By "hell" Job simply meant the grave where all his torment would end. Thus, the hell referred to in the Bible is the universal grave of mankind, where both good and bad people go.

Is fire all-consuming?

Could it be that hellfire is only a symbol of all-consuming, complete destruction? Separating the concepts of "fire" and "hades", that is, "hell", the Bible says: "Death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire." The lake mentioned here is a symbol, since death and hell (hades), which are thrown there, cannot literally burn. Therefore, "the lake of fire means the second death" - a death from which there is no hope of getting rid (Revelation 20:14).
The lake of fire means roughly the same as the “gehenna of fire” Jesus spoke of (Matthew 5:22; Mark 9:47, 48). The word Gehenna occurs 12 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures and refers to the valley of Hinnom outside the walls of Jerusalem. As noted in one encyclopedia, when Jesus lived on earth, in this valley there was a garbage dump, on which they threw out “the sewage of the city, the bones of men, the corpses of executed criminals and fallen animals” (Bible Encyclopedia, 1891). In order to burn garbage, fire was constantly maintained with the help of sulfur. Jesus used the example of this valley as a symbol of eternal destruction.
Like Gehenna, the lake of fire symbolizes eternal destruction. Death and hell will be "thrown" into it, that is, they will be finished, and humanity will be freed from sin and the curse of death. Those who willfully sin and do not repent will also be thrown into this lake (Revelation 21:8). They, too, will be destroyed forever. Those who are remembered by God and who are in hell - or in the common grave of mankind - have a bright future ahead of them.

Hell will be emptied

Revelation 20:13 says, "The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hades gave up the dead." The hell spoken of in the Bible will be emptied. Jesus promised, “The hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his [Jesus] voice and come out.”​—John 5:28, 29. Although the millions of the dead do not now exist in any form, they are in the memory of Jehovah God and will be resurrected in a paradise on earth.​—Luke 23:43; Acts 24:15.

In God's new world, the resurrected who will obey righteous laws will never have to die again (Isaiah 25:8). Jehovah will wipe “every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, no more mourning, no outcry, no more pain. The former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). What blessings await those who are in "hell" or "memorial tombs"! These blessings should encourage us to learn more about Jehovah God and his Son, Jesus Christ.​—John 17:3.

No related links found