Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  Abraham nodded in agreement, and added, “Another word of caution: What we heard tonight seemed to be a very ‘rosy’ view of the whole subject; but some of these guys—and Reverend Montaine in particular—may not be giving us the whole story. For example, you remember that he said that hardly anyone ever had a ‘Hellish’ experience? Well, I remember seeing an Evangelical Christian author being interviewed on one of those TV talk programs—don’t look at me like that; it just happened to be on—anyway, this Christian said that numerous people had a ‘hellish’ experience, and not just people that were on drugs or trying to commit suicide.” Waving his hand abound the lobby of the church, he said, “But of course, that’s not what a ‘liberal’ group like this wanted to hear, so he downplayed it. But by being so theologically ‘open,’ they are really contradicting everything that most major religious traditions—Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and I think some Buddhists believe in Hell, also—have taught on the subject.”

  “That’s true,” Jobran acknowledged, “But there’s only so much detail you can go into in a 60-minute lecture.”

  Abraham ignored this comment, and said, “And quite frankly, a lot of what he said seems almost too good to be true. I read Moody’s first book a while ago, and he said in his first book that the highest value endorsed by the ‘Being of Light’ seemed to be pursuing knowledge—which just happens to be what people like Dr. Moody, with his twin academic specialties, are into anyway. Such things as laws, beliefs, traditions, or practices have no part in any of this.” Abraham removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose, then replaced his glasses, and said, “While I’m not one to suggest that God demands that a person living nowadays should invariably follow all 613 commandments of the Torah, it seems to me that God might have some ideas for our conduct, that involve more than just ‘pursuing knowledge,’ and doing whatever you wish.”

  Jobran laughed, and clapped Abraham on the back. “Sounds like you’re turning Orthodox on me,” he said, teasing.

  “Ja, und I vill be letting my forelocks grow,” Abraham joked in an Eastern European accent, fingering his neatly trimmed sideburns. “Actually, it sounds like we just aren’t able to come to a complete conclusion after hearing only one lecture.”

  “Agreed,” Jobran replied. “So how about we pay the good Reverend Montaine a little visit at his Institute, like he suggested?”

  “Sounds like an ideal way to spend my day off,” Abraham said, nodding his head.

  23

  STUDYING THE PHENOMENA

  Abraham set the emergency brake of his car, with a sigh of relief. “Jobe, I don’t know how I let you talk me into these things.”

  “You love it, and you know it,” Jobran replied, with a straight face, getting out of the car.

  Abraham continued complaining, “Why do they always have to put these ‘Research Institutes’ out in the middle of the woods? What’s wrong with putting an Institute in a nice air-conditioned office building in the city?”

  Jobran stretched, and took in a deep breath, and said, “That’s why; just smell the freshness of that air! If you took a breath that deep in the city, you’d be choked by the smog.”

  Abraham took a short, sniffing breath, and said, “It’s OK, I guess,” and they set off down the short path to the largest building, with the sign reading, Light From Beyond Research Institute. “But I’ll bet you that they don’t have either electricity, telephones, or flush toilets,” he added, and Jobran laughed.

  Entering the door, they found a young Asian woman with very short blond hair sitting at the front desk. “Welcome!” she said, in a cheery voice. “What are you here for?”

  “We’re supposed to meet with Reverend Montaine,” Jobran explained. “I’m afraid we’re about thirty-five minutes late; we didn’t realize how winding these roads were.”

  She nodded, and said sympathetically, “No one else does, either. Just have a seat, and don’t worry about it; we’re pretty loose about times and dates, up here.” Pressing something on her telephone console, she waited a moment, then said, “Dr. Montaine,” (stressing “Dr.” rather than “Reverend”), “Your 10:30 appointment is here now…no, not until 11:30; then you’re booked for lunch, and until 2:30, when you need to return that call to the radio station for the afternoon show.” She disconnected, and said, “You gentlemen can go in now,” and pointed to a door to her right, which they entered.

  Unlike his lecture at the Unitarian Church, Dr. (Rev.?) Montaine was now wearing a suit and tie—except that now his tie had been loosened almost to the point of its coming off, and his jacket was draped over the back of his chair. He smiled, and rose from his chair to come greet the two visitors. “Rabbi Kaplan and Rabbi Winter; it’s good to see you two again.”

  As Abraham suppressed a smile, Jobran corrected, “Actually, Abraham’s the rabbi; I’m just an independent researcher.” They shook hands.

  In a reassuring tone, Dr. Montaine said, “Look, Rabbi Kaplan; I’m sorry if I appeared to be abrupt or rude in the question-and-answer session after my lecture. But now that I’ve discussed the matter more fully with you over the phone, I understand both the nature and sincerity of your quest.” And to Jobran, he said, “And please let me extend my personal sympathy, Mr. Winter, in your situation. The loss of a loved one is always traumatic, the more so when it is under such tragic circumstances.”

  “Thanks,” Jobran said. “But call me Jobran; or Jobe.”

  “Glad to,” Dr. Montaine said. “I’m Mike.”

  “Abe.” And they all smiled, now that the formalities were over.

  “So tell me, Mike,” Abraham said, waving his arm to take in the whole grounds outside the window, “How long has your Institute been here? This looks like a fairly well-established place.”

  Mike wrinkled his brow, and said, “Well, this location has been here since the 1980s; it was originally built by one of those intensive, est-type therapies, that finally had to close down shop—no one’s into that kind of thing any more. We bought it from them for a good price, and had hoped to do some major expansion and renovation.” With a note of discouragement in his voice, he added, “As with most projects of this nature, the major problem is funding. My lecture tours, and now my book sales, are intended to raise money to keep the Institute afloat, while we try to obtain more substantial institutional financing.” He patted one of the walls affectionately, and said, “Fortunately, this place has many of the types of

  working areas that we need for our work.”

  “Just what is your work?” Jobran asked.

  “Well, why don’t I just take you on a Grand Tour of the facilities?” He put on his suit coat, and motioned for them to follow. As they entered the Reception Room, he said, “Stella, we’ll be out on a pilgrimage; I’ve got my cell, if anything critical comes up.”

  They left the main building, and headed over toward a smaller building. “Nice grounds,” said Jobran. “Thanks,” Mike replied, pleased. He indicated a vacant clearing, and said, “This is where I want to build an auditorium, and classrooms, so that we can sponsor lectures, and seminars, as well as classes.” He sighed, wistfully. “Unfortunately, in tight economic times, it’s a lot harder to get organizations and groups to sponsor general research into such ’impractical’ fields as spirituality.” He gave a small laugh, and said, “Now, if you want to research practical things—such as the effect that daily Yoga classes have on worker productivity—they’re minds and pocketbooks are both open.”

  He opened the door to the smaller building, which led to a hallway with a row of offices down both sides, except that there was a large, glass-enclosed room at the end of the hall on the left side, which looked like some sort of scientific testing room; it was empty. “This here’s our offices, where we do most of our work.”

  “Speaking of work, just what is it that you do here?” Abraham asked. “Unless you’re planni
ng on deliberately killing people and then reviving them—like in that movie Flatliners—NDEs seem like they would be a hard subject to conduct ‘research’ on; they’re too spontaneous to be subject to traditional scientific analysis.”

  “Well, once we get the funding, we want to perform Out-of-Body Experiments here, combining the most sophisticated techniques and technology of psychology for sleep and dream research with OBE research,” Mike said. “I’m sure you can both appreciate the relevance of OBEs to NDEs, because both are demonstrating that there is an immaterial aspect to the human being, that is separable in certain situations. It is of considerable scientific interest because it is at least potentially reproducible. It can be repeated, under scientific conditions, which is one of the demands for a scientific theory. It is also subject to rigorous experimental controls. We plan to conduct controlled experiments such as having people read something in an adjacent locked room, and so on.”

  As they walked back down the hall, Jobran asked, “Do you also investigate telepathy, ESP, and similar phenomena?”

  Mike shook his head, and said, “That’s not currently in our plans—although if we had the funding for it, it would certainly be of interest to us. But there are quite a few places—universities, other research institutes—that are already studying traditional Parapsychology, anyway.” Mike suddenly stopped, and faced them, and said, “But ESP and other psychic phenomena don’t necessarily have any direct bearing on the question of life after death, because although they demonstrate the fact of incorporeal forces in the universe, what we are looking for is evidence that the individual soul survives death. Telepathy alone won’t do this; even a person that had telepathic powers might still cease to exist and rot in the grave after death, if his or her powers were somehow tied to her personal physical body. The only aspect that would be of interest to us would be showing that these kinds of powers are due to the spiritual self.”

  “That’s an interesting point,” Abraham said. “So I guess it’s possible that these immaterial parapsychological powers might just dissolve after death, even as the body dissolves, right?”

  Mike nodded his agreement, and said, “Right; it’s like a radio receiver can pick up invisible signals—unless you destroy the radio receiver.”

  “Well, so far, you’ve been telling us about your future plans, and what you’d like to do if you had the money, but you haven’t told us what you actually do,” Jobran said. gesturing down the row of offices, several of which had a red light above them presumably indicating that they were “In use,” and said, “What is going on in these offices, for instance.”

  “Past-life regressions,” Mike said, evenly.

  “Past-life regressions?” echoed Jobran, in a voice filled with horror.

  “You mean, like reincarnation?” Abraham asked.

  “Exactly like that,” Mike agreed. He either didn’t see—or pretended not to see—the look of increasing dismay on Jobran’s face, as he said, “These individual rooms are where we conduct past-life regressions; that is, sessions where people are hypnotically regressed so that they can recall their previous lives. We have half-a-dozen psychic counselors and hypnotherapists that we contract with to provide these services to the public.”

  With a straight face, but eyeing Jobran all the while, Abraham said, “From the percentage of your space that is devoted to it, it seems like past-life regression is a major focus of your work.”

  Mike said, with a small sigh, “Well, frankly, that’s where the majority of our funds come from—people that want to find out more about their past lives. Reincarnation is rather a popular notion, these days.”

  Suddenly Jobran exclaimed, “But at your lecture, you didn’t even mention reincarnation!”

  Mike was taken aback by the vehemence of this sudden outburst, but then calmly replied, “Actually, when it came up in the Q&A session, I said that it would take more time than we had that evening.”

  In an accusatory tone, Jobran said, “And even in your book, you mentioned that some other researchers believed in reincarnation, but hinted that you didn’t endorse these ideas yourself! You were just using it as an example of similar types of phenomena.”

  Mike held up his hand, in a defensive gesture, and said, “Look, I have to try and walk a kind of ‘mainstream’ position, here; our Institute is just getting off the ground. I do a lot of speaking in ‘liberal’ Christian churches and Mormon meetings, and reincarnation would turn them off—although I suppose that a lot of the people at a Unitarian church would be hip to the idea. So I present the widest, most inclusive path.” With more assurance, he added, “But the major researchers believe in reincarnation: Kübler-Ross has always believed in it, Moody has accepted it since 1986, Morse has since about 2000, and so on.”

  Jobran wasn’t buying it, and said, “Isn’t the notion of reincarnation inconsistent with the NDE? Many or most of the experiencers interpret the experience as being like Heaven in the Bible, and Heaven is supposed to be a once-and-only situation.”

  Mike nodded his head sympathetically, and said, “I understand what you mean—and certainly lots of our experiencers would interpret the NDE that way—but I don’t think that’s the only, or necessarily the best, interpretation of the data.” He thought for a moment, then said, “NDErs are basically saying that after death, they went to a spiritual realm. They obviously also returned from that spiritual realm. So why couldn’t you go and return to the spiritual realm more than once? In successive lifetimes?” Jobran just leaned against the wall, shaking his head, and Abraham stood next to him, in sympathy.

  Seeming oblivious to Jobran, Mike continued, “This also accounts for why NDEs are so similar to other kinds of experiences, such as are encountered in sensory deprivation experiments, through drugs, meditation, and so on: The NDErs are not going to the Heaven of the Bible, which would be a once-only experience, but they are getting in touch with the spiritual realm that has always existed alongside our realm.” Mike shook his head, and said, “Besides, if the fundamentalist quote, ‘It is given to a man once to die, and after that the Judgment’ were true, how could any NDEr come back? Wouldn’t that have already experienced their own ‘Judgment Day’?” Finally, Mike paid attention to Jobran’s distress, and said, “Look, I know that for a person in the Western world, reincarnation is a notion that takes a little getting used to. But it clears up a lot of problems, such as how a just God can allow one person to live a long life, and another…”

  “I’m thoroughly familiar with the arguments in favor of reincarnation,” Jobran interrupted, with an acidic tone.

  “Well, then, what is your problem with it?” asked Mike, starting to get a little bit peeved. Jobran didn’t answer.

  Finally, Abraham said, “I think it’s the fact that reincarnation seems to diminish a lot of the importance of people as distinct and individual personalities.” He thought a moment, then added, “Even if you meet someone that you knew from a previous lifetime, your relationship can’t possibly be the same.”

  Mike nodded his head, beginning to understand. “Well, personally, I’ve been married twice, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a blessing that the slate gets ‘wiped clean’ at death, in at least some cases.”

  Jobran scowled at him, but said nothing.

  Abraham broke the silence, asking Mike, “Is your Institute planning on ‘branching out’ into other areas, then?”

  Mike seemed pleased with the question, and said, “My vision for the future, would be for the Institute for serve as a sort of ‘clearinghouse’ for information about metaphysical topics. For example, the average person may come into contact with the new spirituality via such things as attending a one-day Psychic Fair, but once their interest is piqued, how would someone go about contacting a reputable psychic? Or past-life hypnotherapist? Or medical intuitive? Or expert in Spiritual dream interpretation? Sure, you could just pick up one of th
e free magazines and newspapers that are distributed at these events, and look at the classified ads, but so many of them are filled with fakes and charlatans, doing Palmistry, Astrology, Tarot cards, crystals and candles, mystical Auras, and similar nonsense. There’s no certification program, no ‘quality control,’ and so a lot a good money is thrown away on such things.” Mike pounded his fist into his palm, and said, “The reason that most of the people come to the Institute for past-life regression is because we provide certified hypnotherapists—or at least Psychic Counselors—that do the work. So I can certainly imagine that they would be glad to use our services in related areas as well, if we provided similar assurances.” Then, the faraway look left his eyes, and he said slowly, “But I’m afraid that expansion will have to wait until we finish developing our funding base for our ‘major’ area of work.”

  Sadder but wiser, Jobran asked, “Are all of the NDE researchers going into these other fields, or is it just a few?”

  Mike looked thoughtful, then said, “Most. Sure, there are some lecturers and researchers who just seem to stay stuck at the same stage—but they usually drop out of the lecture circuit, and don’t last too long. I mean, you can only make the same speech, over and over again, for so long. But those who stay on the circuit tend, as they hear more and more new ideas at conferences where they are guest speakers, talk to other speakers, and so on, to realize that they are just one part of an overall revolution of the spirit that is occurring right now in our nation. That’s why, in my opinion, Kenneth Ring has been studying UFO encounters since 1992; why Raymond Moody has worked with mirror-gazing and visionary encounters since 1993; and why Melvin Morse is studying precognitive dreams and angelic visitations.”