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Deathbed Confessions
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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Another "universality" - culturally at least - in death, is that of the "Deathbed Confession".
If you read any of the Reddit threads (Specifically #7) you might have noticed that many of those in their dying moments were revisited by unpleasant scenes in their past - one poster's father drowned kittens in a sack, then upon his deathbed reported his seeing his bed covered in kittens, another kindly old man reenacted a violent scene, then upon his death was found to have been a Nazi, with gold bars and teeth...and many other such tales.
Not all were of angelic visitations.
But surprisingly there were a lot of confessions - to hospice workers, priests, pastors, you have it - of crimes committed in life, generally violent, specifically rapes & murders. Most of these confessions were unsolicited - women, men confessing to having murdered their spouses, children, random murders, serial killer confessions. Confessions of soldiers at war, forgiven by the country that sent them but never themselves. As if at the last they realized that they didn't want to carry this with them to the grave, as if this final confession was enough to give some atonement.
And in some cases surely their deathbed visitations in all likelihood prompted the confessions.
Now, in those cases of those bound by marriage a great number of these murders probably went undetected. It's a simple thing to arrange an "accident" or "poison" ones spouse - and the law generally doesn't look too much into it.
In those cases where the crimes were known - missing people, and the dying attempted to expatiate upon the circumstances of the crime, disposal of the remains, etc - you wonder, how many of these are still open on the books - priests, pastors, clergy being bound to take confession and never speak of them - yet - once dead, who is hurt?
Only the living.
I mean, this knowledge could - not heal, but perhaps close a lot of wounds, and if you don't think this a common theme I'd suggest you read through the threads. I took a few hours and read through thousands. It happens a lot more often than you think.
And notice how the Catholic Church has formalized the process - Confession, Anointing of the Sick (formerly extreme unction) and final reception of holy Communion (Viaticum) - a process far older than the Church itself, the confession meant to lighten the soul, the communion to provide sustenance for the journey. In Judaism it's Vidui, in Islam Tawbah, certain Buddhist sects have Vajrasattva, all these are equivalents for Confession, and serve to put the dying at rest. But - judging from a great many of the confessions on the thread, it seems to be a deeper need, religion has merely formalized it.
Abby Wilson - Nelson Artist
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 565
While I'm not a fan of "representational" art, and find the subject matter (out here) overdone, I do admire her use of color and shapes. Much like what everyone else out here paints, only better. Currently showing at the Nelson Public Library.
Link: Abby Wilson Fine Art
Irving Finkel - The First Ghosts
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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And this, a book that I'm looking forward to reading but I have yet to come across, yet I don't want to break down and give Amazon any of my hard-earned money. Not that Jeff Bezos needs it, or I have any:
Link: The First Ghosts - Irving Finkel
Lectures on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFPeOi5H6Zo
And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNNaZ110ee4
He's an erudite and charming lecturer and host. If more professors were like him I'd still be in college.
(*NB I'd have embedded the videos but having upgraded my Joomla! installation I'm already paying the price of broken components. When they've ironed out the bugs I'll go back and fix. For now this is easiest.)
Deathbed Visitations
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 710
Now this is a goldmine of inspiration and so I'll lead with a couple of short articles to introduce you to the concept.
#1 - Deathbed Visitations - The NY Times
#2 - Reader Submitted Stories on Deathbed Visitations - NY Times
Now this is a common thing, as many Nurses, Doctors and Hospice Workers will attest - and is considered a sure-fire signal that somebody is close or ready to dying. And there are an abundance of threads on reddit dealing with this same topic:
#3 - https://www.reddit.com/r/hospice/comments/1828jii/on_deathbed_visions/
#4 - https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/uxrpod/do_the_dying_always_see_ghosts_of_loved_ones/
#5 - https://www.reddit.com/r/NDE/comments/17ksnpf/deathbed_visions_evidence_for_their_reality/
#6 - https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathBedVisions/
#7 - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/sqhcco/nurses_of_reddit_what_where_the_most_haunting/
***
Now this is absolutely fascinating, the universality of the stories, cross-cultural, and the fact that visitors overwhelming are people near and dear to the dying and have predeceased them. Then there are the people dying who simply announce they're preparing for a trip. Stories of people being visited by pets, angels, what have you - and while many might write these off as "hallucinations" due to oxygen deprivation, or the brain breaking down, or the effects of dementia, Alzheimer's, it simply doesn't add up. Too many of the dying had no knowledge that they were predeceased by Aunt Marge, or so-and-so, and it argues against the terminal lucidity many patients experience before death, and - frankly, it's a cheap and easy "explanation" that in reality explains nothing, merely comforts those who prefer to remain "Scientific", while throwing their so-called science in their face.
Now what I find most interesting in this (well, 'most' is a bit strong, it's all pretty fascinating) is that many cultures have built up traditions - a series of steps that must be gone through in death (as in life, think of Catholicism & the 7 Sacraments), traditions codified in the Bardo Thodol, or The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Thinking logically, which in no ways is going to maneuver this minefield, one has to marvel at those experiences reported by those who've come back from the dead. First - the descriptions, of people, imaginary (Jesus on the Golfcart welcoming them to the 19th hole) and real (Aunt Marge, Parents, Children, etc). That they can report on this, as more real than real, while - technically, "scientifically" everything they experience on the "other side" - presuming that there is one - should be in point of fact be very much different that what they experienced on this side. Vision - eyes closed - none. Hearing - dead, taste, dead, and so on down the line. All experience in this world is in some ways bound up with our physical being.
And - obvious to everyone - why do the people so often appear to the dying as they knew them in life?
From this I'd conclude that a good many of these experiences, or all of them, are simply the 'dead' - or some agent of the dead, a psychopomp, if you will, coming to help someone transition or grow into their next sphere of existence. Perhaps this then is the meaning of life, to attenuate our senses to the various physical realms, then evolving into the next one. In any event, something to consider.
Now this is just a beginning in the fascinating field of post-mortem psychology and spirituality, and one in which we're all going to sooner or later come to our own conclusions, but - well, it doesn't hurt to ponder the possibilities.
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