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The local library daytime library book group I attend chose this book for it's March selection. I opted to listen to it on audio and finished it on my way to work this afternoon. It is not a book that I would pick to read but the point of reading groups is to expose oneself to material that a person would not otherwise pick out. It is an autobiographical account by a neurosurgeon who claims he had a near death experience while ill with bacterial meningitis. I do not believe he did. He was in a drug induced coma and I think the medicine caused him to hallucinate. The way I understood him explain the story he was placed in a drug induced coma in the emergency room and kept that way for almost a week. A few days before he woke up they took him off the sedatives. He neglects to explain about half life in medication and in my opinion about the time they took him off the medicine was the time he was no longer able to travel to his higher levels of his heaven and just before he woke up, when the medicine was about wore off, he began to see people that he knew and heard his son calling him back. He claims the bacteria destroyed his brain to the point he had no activity in the parts of his brain that would cause hallucinations. If that were true he would not have recovered completely. I think the brain scans showed an absence of activity because the drugs were sedating the activity and his brain was still functioning. But I do not doubt the experiences seemed real to him and caused him to re-evauate his prior brief system and there is nothing wrong with that. He was very sick and such a re-evaluation would be appropriate. Not every one shares that charitable opinion though. One reporter that investigated and questioned Dr Alexander's integrity wrote an article that can be found HERE. Regardless of whether or not a person believes Dr Alexander at all, there is much to discuss in this book as far as belief systems. I would classify the author's conclusions to be Panentheism. I can't totally disagree with much of what he says. As a deist, I lean toward Panendeism which is very similar. I can't completely say I have labeled myself as a Panendeist as I have not reconciled the problem of evil. If God (or Om as the author calls God) is everything then is God also evil? Or is there such a thing as evil? Perhaps people are not evil but only make bad choices. But taking into consideration karma, then the bad choices have energy which brings us back to the premise if Om is everything then Om is also negative energy along with positive. I have issue with including God as being bad along with good. When I get on these kicks of thinking this through I always come to the same conclusions. In my opinion there is still a lot we do not know and can't know yet. Someday perhaps we will find out. Until then I am happy with my level of understanding and see no need to read this book and shift through it all again at this point in life. Perhaps some time I will have a major life event that will cause me to want to delve into my belief systems again but for now I am happy with where I am. If anyone reading this wants more information on the differences between Deism, Theism, Pandesim and Panendeism/Panentheism, an excellent blog can be found HERE which explains the following diagram:
Please follow the links by clicking on the book title and authors name, and the places indicated in the text for additional information. And here is a video that also explains more about some of the concepts raised in this blog.
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