Homily November 2, 2025 In Person Service
The reading today is a short poem on death by Walt Whitman.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses.
And to die is different from what any one supposed,
And luckier…
They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if there ever was, it led forward life,
And does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
Again, that was a short poem on death by Walt Whitman.
Today, of course, is “All Souls Day,” as yesterday was “All Saints Day” and the day before was Halloween Eve, the day of the year when the Veil between life and death is the thinnest and why across the world, in many religious traditions, we dwell on death. And it is right so to do.
Today is also “El Dia de los Muertos,” the Day of the Dead in many countries, when families set aside the day to honor those who have passed this year, a day of Remembrance, but not of sadness or grief. Rather, we remember our loved ones with fond memories of who they were, of the joy and love we shared, their personal likes, their funny, silly moments, and their foibles too. In Mexico, families create altars in their homes with photos of their departed dear ones, placing a favorite food or drink beside them. They also visit cemeteries to decorate the graves with flowers, mainly orange marigolds, while sharing a picnic lunch and reminiscing. It is a beautiful, meaningful tradition that may remind us of our own mortality, but which reinforces those bonds of love that bind us to those who have left, with the hope of being reunited with them someday.
Even though the Judeo-Christian theology does not now include the concepts of reincarnation and past lives, that was part of early Christian beliefs until the Emperor Justinian had them stripped from the Bible in 325 AD. However, these concepts, as well as their basis that one’s soul lives on after the death of the physical body, are essential beliefs of three fourths of the world religions. Certainly, our ISD community not only follows these principles but practices them in many ways. At every service, we receive messages from Spirit to help and inspire our congregants. We have learned how the power of our connection to God inspires us and guides us in our daily lives.
Today we are exploring one of the most powerful spiritual experiences one can have: that is a Near-Death experience or NDE, which to many experiencers has been the catalyst to believe in life after death. Dr. Raymond Moody in his 1975 book, Life After Life, was the first to use the term NDE. Dr. Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist devoted to studying NDE’s, defines them as “Profound, psychological events with transcendental and mystical elements, especially occurring to individuals close to death or in situations of intense physical or emotional danger.” For several years, Dr. Greyson, who headed the major research unit in the country at the University of Virginia medical school, studied 3,000 adult experiencers and 277 children. The unit
is called the “Division of Perceptual Studies” or DOPS, which has always had a scientific focus. Dr.Greyson has written a book called After, based on his research, many articles, and is the authority consulted by the Encyclopedia Britannica on this topic.
Historically, references to life after death go back to the Bible and the Greeks. In Plato’s Republic there is a story of a soldier named Er who dies and 10 days after being killed, revives on his funeral pyre and tells the story of his journey but is told that he must return to life and share what he has learned. In a 1997 poll in U.S. News and World Reports, it was estimated that 15 million Americans have had an NDE. Research in the field has grown in the last 50 years not just in the U.S. but in many parts of the world, with the major organization being the IANDS or the International Association of Near-Death Studies which holds annual conferences (I attended a class a few years ago at Virginia Beach), gathers information, supports research, publishes a Journal of Near-Death Studies, and a newsletter, Vital Signs.
What are the common elements of a Near-Death experience? Interestingly enough, most of them are very similar across the world, across history, even back to cavemen times, across cultures, even among pets who were injured, died and recovered but exhibited a change of personality after the NDE. Dr. Moody’s original work identified 15 elements as follows:
1. Ineffability—beyond the limits of language to describe (the word “ineffable” has been my favorite English word my whole life)
2. Hearing yourself pronounced dead; sensing your death
3. Feelings of peace and quiet
4. Hearing unusual noises
5. Seeing a dark tunnel
6. Finding yourself outside your body
7. Meeting “spiritual beings” such as Jesus, or Buddha
8. A very bright light experienced as a “being of light”
9. A panoramic life review (except in children)
10. Sensing a border or limit to where you can go
11. Coming back into your body
12. Frustrating attempts to tell others about what happened to
13. Subtle “broadening and deepening” of your life afterword
14. Elimination of the fear of death
15. Corroboration of events witnessed while you were out of your body (2 years later, after more interviews, he added 4)
16. A realm where all knowledge exists
17. Cities of light
18. A realm of bewildered spirits
19. Supernatural rescues
Two more that I’ve read about: meeting departed loved ones who come to greet you (except in children); and having a very vivid memory of the experience that doesn’t fade with time. Still another common trait is hyper-alert faculties (heightened sense of hearing, vision, smell, touch, and taste) as well as sudden overwhelming floods of emotion or feelings. Others are greatly enhanced cognition where your thoughts are clear, rapid and hyper-lucid and the sense of a presence. One very significant aftereffect is that people are highly motivated to do good, to make their life worthwhile, and to make truly positive changes in their lives, as if they have seen what really matters.
What do you think the following historical figures had in common? Winston Churchill, Carl Jung, Napoleon Bonaparte, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Edgar Cayce, Elisabeth Taylor, and Marilyn Monroe? You’re right! They all had Near-Death experiences!
What about any effect on people’s religious beliefs? One analysis is that in the last 40 years or so, people in this country have moved slowly, or even quickly, away from organized religion but it appears that the NDE experience, because it seems to make people more spiritual, fills the void that organized religion has left.
As I was researching the NDE experience for this homily, it slowly dawned on me that as I grew spiritually by learning metaphysics from my mother who was a medium, as well as my own ministerial and esoteric studies, I had felt many of the effects of an NDE, and truly lived with a sense of mission and a desire to do good as part of a meaningful life. For sure, the NDE can be a confirmation of what we have always learned that there is life after death, that we must live a life of service, that when we die we may be reunited with our loved ones, that death is not to be feared, and above all, that God exists. How grateful we must be to have these reassurances from those who have experienced NDE’s to give them knowledge, and peace and abiding love from the spirit world.
END OF HOMILY