Glossary and Notes

After-Death Communication (ADC):   Louis LaGrand defines ADC as "an exciting new field of research which focuses on a variety of extraordinary experiences in which a person believes he or she has been spontaneously contacted by a deceased loved one.  It is important to emphasize that the living person is not actively seeking to make contact with the deceased; the experience does not in any way involve a psychic.  Instead it is the deceased (or the unconscious or perhaps a Supreme Being) who seems to reach out to the bereaved and in doing so provides much-needed comfort and solace.  Although a contact experience may occur at any time, it commonly takes place when one is grieving the death of a loved one and becomes the basis for the bereaved person to deal with the loss and go on with life.

"ADCs include sensing the presence of the deceased, feeling a touch, smelling a fragrance, hearing the voice or seeing the deceased, and meeting the loved one in a vision or dream.  Messages are also received in symbolic ways, such as finding an object associated with the deceased, unusual appearances of behavior of birds and animals, or other unexplainable happenings which occur at or shortly after the moment of death."

Aftereffects of EHEs:   [more familiarly seen within the context of NDEs] 

These may just as well, according to Rhea A. White and also Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino, apply to virtually anyone who has had an EHE of any type.   Paraphrasing [Ring and Valarino], NDErs, and by inference, EHErs in general ...

Anomalous Experience:   According to Rhea A. White, an "experience that cannot be explained in terms of physics, psychology, sociology or other accepted discipline." 

Death vs. "Death":   Death, without quotes, refers specifically to the mortality or end of the functional integrity of physical forms of life.   What people generally refer to as death in the sense of the end or demise of a human being [or perhaps any physical life form as we know it], I think of as in quotes:  "death," meaning, regardless of how things appear to our physical senses, there is no death as such.   Instead, by whatever means and with whatever result, the consciousness that once inhabited a body that has died transitions to another state of being within the larger life reality.   Concerning humans, this consciousness apparently does not ever lose its sense of I-ness, of self awareness or essential authenticity as a being beingness.

Deathbed Experience (DBE):    As the time of one's physical death nears, those who are transitioning out of the physical consensus reality and sometimes even those who are with them, who then become corroborative witnesses, become aware of beings and contextual realities not normally perceived by the five physical senses.    These are as a whole referred to as deathbed experiences or deathbed visions.

Death-Transcendent [referring to a connotation given by the author of this site to some EHEs]:   Those dramatically life-altering EHEs leaving us first and last with the unequivocal awareness that, regardless of the body's ultimate fate, there is no death of one's conscious self.   Specifically this speaks to something at the deepest levels of the human condition pointing to one of our most fundamental of all needs -- to know what and who we are as living beings.   How can we begin waking up to all the implications of this innate beingness if we are bereft of the knowledge in the first place that we are something quite other and more than our physical bodies?   

Death Transcendent 'Exceptional Human Experience' ( EHE):   An exceptional, anomalous, transformative and 'Humanizing' event which leaves us first and last with the unequivocal awareness that, regardless of the body's ultimate fate, there is no death of one's conscious sense of self or beingness.   

Exceptional Experience (EE):   [Rhea A. White:]  "(An) unusual, nonordinary, anomalous, supernatural, transpersonal, metanormal, transcendent experience."

Exceptional Human Experience (EHE):   [Rhea A. White:]   "(When an 'exceptional experience or EE) is instrumental in transforming the identity, life, and worldview of experiencers in the direction of realizing their full human potential. ... [I.e., in generating a transformative process, they become full-blown 'exceptional human experiences' or EHEs, and as such] they play a catalytic role in humanizing the experiencer. ... enabl[ing] a person to contact what William James called the MORE in human experience....   As James wrote, the More is both inside and outside the individual and it provides a sense of life direction that comes both from within and without, often in the form of additional EHEs, especially intuition and synchronicity. ...   [This] EHE process integrates both one's outer and inner worldview."   

Elsewhere Ms. White describes a number of outstanding qualities of exceptional human experiences:   "[T]he major characteristics are that they promote self-integration; they engender a sense of connection to other people, life forms, and the sacred; and they can serve as a  seed or nucleus around which one can weave and sometimes even rewrite one's personal story so that it is much more meaningful than before.  By remembering, cherishing, and fostering their exceptional experiences, people ... [can] live more fully and responsibly because they are more integrally connected to the past, to the future, and to life as a whole, including death.   Heeding one's exceptional experiences can lead the person to become more helpful and accepting of others and to experience a fuller life."

EHE Autobiography:   A life chronicle based specifically on our exceptional encounters [EEs and EHEs] with and within the larger life reality.  The importance of this process cannot be over-emphasized; it has its own powerful life-changing impact.   First, the practice produces 'global shifts' at the deepest levels of being, often subtle and sometimes quite dramatic, increasing one's core self concept and awareness and thereby producing increased self worth and a greater joie de vivre.  In essence, the cultivation of an EHE autobiography has an impact not unlike EHEs themselves, with all the attendant aftereffects of an EHE!  You begin to see yourself and all about you and within you with the eyes of an EHEr.  [a Rhea A. White term; visit her website for more about the how and why and what of EHE autobiography at:  www.ehe.org.]    

EHE Empath:   [R. Rocamora's word for] someone who has not hirself  been transformed through a direct, personal EHE, but who has, through a deeply resonant, intuitive recognition  or empathy with someone else's or others' such experiences, so inculcated the mental, emotional, and spiritual nuances and implications of such an experience or experiences, s/he has come to live out of the same realizations, almost as if s/he hirself  had had such an experience.  

EHEr or EHEer (also EEr or EEer):   Referring to one who has had an "exceptional human experience."   Rhea A. White uses EHEer, and "EHE" IS her term, so this would be the preferred spelling.   However, in the spirit of the 'r' vs. 'er' endings applied to OBE [OBEr, OBEer] and NDE [NDEr, NDEer], different authors who are either experiencers or students of such experiences and those who have them, tend to have their own preferences, and since Miriam Webster hasn't caught up with us yet to make one 'wrong' and one 'right' in each case, it's your call; this is just to ensure that regardless of our creative spelling, you know what we're talking about!

Dogma:   Those things we have believed -- or many powers-that-be have instilled in us -- so long and so undeviatingly, it has become an act of sacrilege to question them, even in the light of new knowledge.

Exceptional Human Experiencer (EHEr or EHEer):   One who has had an exceptional human experience.

Exceptional Human Experience Paradigm (EHE Paradigm, also called the "Experiential Paradigm"):   In her own 'EHE Glossary' in the front of most of her journals, Exceptional Human Experience, Rhea White says:   "The EHE process integrates both one's outer and inner worldview.   Outerworld evens may occur that change one's relationships, work, and avocational activities.  Innerworld experiences in the form of successive EHEs and an open participatory response to them catapult the EHEer into a whole new worldview, the Experiential Paradigm (EP), which is based not on physical data and logic but the sum total of one's EHEs.   These experiences eventually lift a person into a whole new way of perceiving reality.   He/she is no longer enmeshed in the old worldview, but sees it as if from outside.  At the same time, he/she is aware of being in a new worldview that is based on heart knowledge and inner knowing of a connection with the entire creation.  It must be experienced to be known.

"Once this sense of connectedness, which is the essence of the EHE process, becomes part of daily experience, it ushers in a new view of one's life.  You sense a continuity underlying life from birth (or before) to death (and after).  You come to think of your life as part of the life of planet Earth and all existence from the beginning and as being related to the universe at large.  This new view engendered and informed by one or more EHEs is a lifeview.  It is similar to worldview, except the personal element -- your own individual place in the scheme of things -- is part of the whole and the whole in the part."

Experience-Centered Approach:  Rhea A. White explains, "[I]n developing the concept of exceptional human experiences I have taken an experiential rather than an evidential [i.e., traditional Western scientific] approach.   I have chosen meaning instead of proof.   I think they are like the waves and particles of quantum mechanics – you can’t have both at the same time."

Experiential Paradigm (see "Exceptional Human Experience Paradigm"):   An experiential rather than an evidential approach toward understanding the nature of who and what we are and life's meaning.

Know, 'know-that-I-know', Knowing Awareness (or something similar):   A context-heavy word specific to wHeretwoworldsTouch.com, usually italicized or capitalized referring to direct personal exceptional experiences that bequeath the experiencer with the clear and absolute knowledge there is a "larger-life reality," that is, a perceptible reality falling beyond the limited scope of awareness available to the five physical senses.   Typically, such knowing awareness leaves the experiencer with the broader realization of our conscious existence beyond and even simultaneous to the physical body's anchoring of 'a life' or life as we in the consensus physical world understand life through our physical senses.   In other words, specifically death- transcendent EHEs gift us with the direct realization that we simultaneously co-exist within this larger-life continuum (albeit, inclusive of physical reality) throughout our physically embodied lives, even though most of the time we may not be directly cognizant of  this.

Larger Life Reality:   The infinite continuum of existence or consciousness inclusive of the physical consensus reality but not limited to that.

Near-Death Experience (NDE):   An event in which the physical body dies or nearly dies temporarily and in which the conscious inhabitant of that body becomes aware s/he is indeed very much alive, still clearly possessing hir conscious sense of self or I-ness but within a larger-life context of reality that supersedes the normal consensus physical reality.

Near-Death Experiencer (NDEr or NDEer):   One who has or has had a near-death experience.   Both abbreviations are frequently used.

Out-of-Body Experience (OBE or occasionally OOBE or even OOB):   An event in which a (normally -- in the conscious sense) physically embodied person finds hir "I" point-of- reference to be located literally outside the physical vehicle.   Different authors/experiencers may use different abbreviations.

Out-of-Body Experiencer (OBEr or OBEer):   One who has or has had an out-of-body experience.   Both abbreviations are frequently used.

S/he:   An abbreviated and neutral term for 'she or he', implying either gender.

Transpersonal Psychology:   According to one of its notable proponents of Naropa Institute fame, John Davis,  transpersonal psychology is "the overlap and integration of psychology and the world wisdom traditions (spiritual systems).   Thus, spiritual views and practices are incorporated into psychology, and psychological concepts and methods are applied to spirituality.   I count nonduality as its most central insight."   For example, in my simple mind, I think of the 'dualistic' way we treat science or psychology as seemingly opposed to or unrelated to spirituality.   Mr. Davis continues:  "From this come two other central insights:  the intrinsic health and basic goodness of the whole and its parts, and the validity of development and experiences ‘beyond the mask’ of the conditional and conditioned personality."   This very much reflects the heart of Ms. White's approach to the experiential paradigm, as I hope will become clearer below,  and resolves beautifully in its way her old argument with parapsychology.   Experience was finally getting some respect!

=============================make sure the ones below are integrated into the above material !

Death-Transcendent Exceptional Human Experience/d-t EHE:

EHE Empath:  [my word for] someone who has not hirself  been "classically" transformed [see research about near-death experiencers, a profile of their post-NDE characteristics], but who has so inculcated the emotional nuances and cognitive implications of experiencers, s/he has come to live out of the same realizations, as if s/he hirself  had had [and remembered] such an experience.

Exceptional Experience/EE:

Exceptional Human Experience/EHE:

Dogma -- those things we have believed -- or many powers-that-be have instilled in us -- so long and so undeviatingly, that it has become an act of sacrilege to question them, even in the light of new knowledge.

Exceptional Human Experiencer/EHEr/EHEer:

Near-Death Experience/NDE:

Near-Death Experiencer/NDEr/NDEer:

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Other useful onsite reference material for wHeretwoworldsTouch.com:

Critical Ideas

DT EHE List

DT EHE Characteristics

Plato's Cave Allegory