CRITICAL  IDEAS

1. RADICAL GRACE ... is a matter of consciousness-raising coming from within each of us, ultimately suffusing the whole of embodied human consciousness:   "We think it is likely that the basic meanings revealed by these experiences, once they become potentiated into EHEs [i.e., once they become active agents for transforming the experiencers' identity, life and worldview], is the key to the evolution of consciousness and also to saving planet Earth because of the types of changed consciousness that are associated with EHEs."   [Rhea A. White]

2. "POST"-DT-EHE CHARACTERISTICS:  Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino [in Lessons from the Light, 1998] offer a list of the most common characteristics of those who have had NDEs, as observed in their and others' research.   They also appear to apply just as well to any / all types of death-transcendent EHEs, and according to Rhea A. White, they apply to virtually anyone who has had an EHE of any type.   Paraphrasing these traits, NDErs [and by inference, EHErs] ...

   • appreciate life more fully

   • experience increased feelings of self-worth

   • have a more compassionate regard for others and, indeed, for all life

   • feel a heightened ecological sensitivity

   • experience a decreased interest in purely materialistic and self-seeking values

   • tend to become more universalistic in religious orientation

   • become more inclusive and spiritual in feeling and expression

   • become aware their fear of death is most often completely extinguished

   • have a deep-rooted conviction, based on their direct experience, that some form of life after death awaits us, which becomes unshakable and a source of enormous comfort

   • spontaneously experience or are aware of increased powers of higher sense perception, increased psychic ability and intuitive awareness, and/or the gift of healing

3. EHE AUTOBIOGRAPHY:  "[T]he act [of writing an EHE autobiography] has value for society, and even for the planet as a whole.   This is because we need a new story to make sense of who we are as human beings and why we are here.  The story of mechanistic, behavioristic science has resulted in anomie, loss of meaning and connection, boredom, and the need for ever more violent "kicks" and dangerous "highs," as in drug abuse.   In our society today there is a dangerous lack of reverence towards other humans, other life forms, and life itself.   Perhaps the most practical thing we can do is write a better story.   What better place is there to begin than with ourselves?  ....   The big surprise in all of this is that in writing about our most secret, intimate, personal EHEs -- those that are uniquely our own -- we come to experience ourselves as rooted in our common humanity and as connected to all life.  ...   People who are centered in this experience are bound to live vastly different lives than those who are bent and twisted by anger, doubt, fear, and pain, such that their best hope is ...  at worst, to seek kicks in killing or maiming other humans or animals or to get lost in drugs or pornography or crime."   [Rhea A. White]

"... What we need is a story that will unite science and spirituality, self and world.  But first it must occur at the individual level. ...   Each of us needs a story that charges our daily lives with meaning and puts us personally in touch with the sacred.   There are many books about writing or better yet, living one's own story, one's own myth.   But the myths of old contained an element that is missing from most stories told today, and that is a link with the sacred.    Exceptional human experiences [and specifically, recording one's EHE-based story] can serve as those links; they are those happenings in our lives that can pull us out of boredom and disconnection into a world of meaning and connection.  We have to learn how to honor these experiences and let them into our lives."   [Rhea A. White]

4. MONISTIC IDEALISM:   The philosophy that defines consciousness, not materiality, as the primary reality.  I don't know if this idea originally comes from Dr. Amit Goswami or not -- does it?  His work is what introduced me to the concept.

5. PAN-EXPERIENTIALISM:  "This is the radical idea that sentience / consciousness is inextricably and ontologically connected with matter all the way down. It is written as a bold challenge to the dominant myth of reductive materialism and its inherent pathological implications for our world. The primary assumption that matter is only "dead" stuff , pushed around by blind , external forces without purpose , has been our legacy for the past 400 years. From the fundamental assumptions of Bacon ,Newton, Descartes,Darwin, etc., we have discarded any possibility for embodied mind, the concept that matter has meaning, or is "ensouled."

   "Although panexperientialism is not a novel idea in the history of Western thought, Dr. De Quincey is able to explain it with a new perspective and bring it back to light, first, tracing its development throughout the great philosophical thinkers of the past, and then, integrating quantum theory, Arthur Young's epistemological theory, Whiteheadian process theory, and lastly, the neo-Confucian ideas of Chu Hsi."  [Source:  Nick Kondax's review on amazon.com of Christian De Quincey's book, Radical Nature: Rediscovering the Soul of Matter, 2002.]

   Further commentary along this line comes from another reviewer of de Quincey's book, Radical Nature, who only identifies hirself as 'from Sunnyvale, CA, United States', re:  "a very old 'one substance' view of nature.   Some draw backs are that the author doesn't go enough into the more modern history of this position.    Panpsychism was a popular view in the 19th century and was the competing position to 'emergence' associated with materialism.   I find materialistic emergence as a non-sense doctrine when it comes to things like consciousnes, others like Ernst Hackel and William Clifford found it unsatisfactory as an underlying philosophy for Darwinian evolution, preferring the panpsychist alternative instead.   In the early twentieth century the debate between panpsychists and materialists was cut short as the supposedly anti-metaphysical philosophy of logical positivism / empiricism became dominant.   Later on as positivism fell out of favor, materialism became the fall back position in many sciences.   Ironically, the twentieth century also witnessed the death of classical physics with the advent of quantum theory, and QT is compatible with a panpsychist world view."

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Other useful onsite reference material for wHeretwoworldsTouch.com:

DT EHE List

DT EHE Characteristics

Glossary and Notes

Plato's Cave Allegory