What Happens When We Die? Near-Death Experiences, Books of the Dead, & Swedenborg on the Afterlife

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Open Your Scripture

Can represent how God(dess) speaks to us deeply and symbolically through the Word: both in scripture (Biblical or otherwise), in our experiences, and in the world around us

Light some Candles

This practice may represent the presence of Divinity giving us life: light (wisdom) and heat (love) 

Amazing Grace Harlem Gospel Choir

Tears in Heaven Eric Clapton

Opening READINGS

From Biblical & Hebrew Scripture

Revelation 20:11-13

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.

Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings

What Happens When We Die?

Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts

         “What happens when we die?” What a question, right? Personally, I don’t have any concrete answers – I haven’t been dead that often. But we do find it explored in ancient texts, including the Tibetan Book of the Dead and others, a bit throughout the world’s scriptures, as well as fictionally in many texts, like Dante’s Inferno. Emanuel Swedenborg’s book, Heaven and Hell, is considered to be the first Western book of the dead by literary historians, and we have quite the exhaustive account from him! Specifically, Olof Lagercrantz, the famous literary critic and writer, uplifts this idea that there are no other in-depth Western accounts of the afterlife before Swedenborg.

         The other main sources we have to explore what might happen when we die are people’s near-death experiences (NDE’s), which often include intense visions of a spiritual realm. There are tens of thousands of near-death experiences collected online, and those are just scratching the surface, according to recent studies and polls. Often we don’t share our experiences like this due to a perceived stigma about them, but it’s a popular topic in pop culture and online. And what we find is that these experiences transcend specific cultures and can be found in every demographic of people, even atheists.

         Most of these NDE’s speak to similar themes brought up by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Egyptian death literature, many Indigenous or Native spiritualities, and Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings. One theme is that the afterlife is a continued journey, where our lives continue to evolve and we can continue to grow. These journeys are often described as more embodied, atmospheric, then we might picture, as well. Ultimately, these accounts inspire us to keep eternity in mind when we reflect on how we behave and how we uplift health within and in society.

         I actually had a near-death experience myself, which is part of the reason I’m an ordained Swedenborgian minister, even though I was a staunch atheist at the time I had it, in my early 20’s. It began by me falling on the floor and starting to convulse (I’m still not exactly sure why), thankfully this was in a safe environment with friends around, and I started to have a life review – something that happens in a lot of NDE’s, in scripture as someone’s book of life being read during Divine judgment (which occurs in Hebrew, Christian, Muslim, and others’ texts), and in Swedenborg’s writings. In NDE’s life reviews tend to uplift how a person has been loving and healthy, as well as how they have been hurtful and can improve, and people tend to walk away from them feeling like they can be easier on themselves while also leaning into gratitude and health mindsets.

         For me, my review seemed to go deep into my psyche and into my life through a process of exploring what I had done, thought, and felt, as well as how these things were written on my body and connected with the world. During it, I viscerally felt something I never had felt like that before: truth. I felt a pervasive sense of “truthiness” as I saw how all things I’ve experienced are meaningful and interconnected with the world, a feeling that is often mentioned in NDE’s. And eventually I would be inspired to reflect on my heart and work toward change thanks to this profound experience.

         After the life review, the “vision” continued, although I can’t remember much of it. I do remember that I felt like I was interacting with other people, and that parts of my internal motivations were coming out into the open – a lot of which weren’t the most pleasant and in fact, centered on domination. It was shocking, because many of those aspects of myself I hadn’t seen clearly before and they had never showed up in my behavior so strongly. It was as if my shadow side had been made manifest for my own education and hope for transformation.

         Coming from that journey I couldn’t help but feel that there’s more going on within and around me than I had ever given credit to. I didn’t know where such an intense revelation could come from at the time - I had no belief in God or spirit, other dimensions or higher planes, these had all been nonsense to me before. But what I experienced was so beyond my imagination I found that I was cracked open, more willing to start a seekers journey than I could ever remember.

         Now, to give some context, I grew up hearing a lot about religion. My grandfather was the Baptist preacher of our church, and I heard plenty of Christian ideas from him and that community, as well as other churches I became involved in later. I also heard a lot about spirituality from my father (his son) as he shared his religious ideas, convictions, and research with me, even when I was really young.

         Although my dad was what he called a “hippy-Christian” when I was young, pretty early in my life he converted to Islam and would take my younger brother and I to the Mosque and would pray with us. He was also a big fan of the Hindu tradition and many others. However, my dad was quite the critic of mainline Christianity, which was tough sometimes to grapple with as I went to church with the rest of my family. So, as a kid I heard much more about religion than most young people could ever want! From this, I started to build up a wall between spirituality and myself, and pretty early on I stopped believing in God after questioning why Divinity could allow so many terrible things to happen in this world.

          Jumping ahead almost two decades, my NDE shook me up and eventually helped me to start cultivating my own personal understanding of a compassionate, loving God(dess) and spirituality. Even that wasn’t an easy conclusion to find or accept within myself. This burgeoning understanding started to further call on me to change my heart, my intentions, and my actions, which eventually helped me to start to find a greater love within.

         Often this is what NDE’s do. They encourage people to connect with Divinity, the spiritual realm, and the spirit within, in their own way. In fact, we hear from NDE’s and peer-reviewed studies on them (believe it or not they exist - like the AWARE Study headed by Dr. Sam Parnia) that those who have them often are transformed by the experience. They tend to become more altruistic, more giving, more reflective on their behavior and start to seek to transform their lives toward greater health and healthy connecting. I think this can also be true for those who learn about NDE’s, the afterlife, spirituality, as well as other sources of deep inspiration.

         As you might have noticed, there are some consistent veins between NDE’s, books of the dead, and even scripture. One is that all of these call us toward more love and healthy living. Another shared detail is that often in the spiritual realm we are described as being embodied and still in community, having an impact on those around us. Further, people who are dead in scripture have clothes and limbs; they also can interact with God and angels – beings of light – in environments much like our earth, with ground, nature, and animals.

         It may seem a little out there, but yes, NDE’s are quite consistent on the theme of interacting with beings of light that convey love with their light, as well as finding communities that share spiritual aspects of ourselves. Funny enough, these themes are sometimes conveyed in scripture and are greatly emphasized by Emanuel Swedenborg’s 18^th century work Heaven and Hell. 

         Heaven and Hell, the first Western book of the dead, explores how everything in the spiritual world is similar to what we experience in the natural world. Indeed, these spiritual attributes give rise to how our material realm evolves and behaves. However, in the spiritual realm, all things that we see and interact with there are symbolic and describe spiritual states – this is why a loving, heavenly person (called an angel, by Swedenborg) seems to literally share their light and warmth there with those around them, which relates to their wisdom and love. Our environments also change depending on our spiritual state and the state of those in our community. Further, even the community that we settle in depends on us being in a like-spiritual state: the greater the difference of spiritual state and love, the greater the seeming distance between people. Depending on how we center ourselves, it may or may not horrify us to think about living for part of eternity with like-spirited people!

         Swedenborg relates all of this to how scripture often uses similar symbolic imagery (called parable) to describe spiritual modes of being and paths, both heavenly ones and destructive or hellish ones. We see examples of this in Christ’s parables, but also pretty clearly in somewhat trippy books like Revelation. Fascinatingly, like in today’s reading, much of the trippy imagery described in Revelation (whose author, John, is said to be “in the spirit” when seeing its events) is very similar to those of NDE’s and Swedenborg’s visions. Revelation goes on about a dragon, strange angels, a majestic God and amazing imagery. Swedenborg points out that Revelation is describing spiritual truths and journeys with the spiritual symbolism seen in the next life. (I’ll note that he says he’s seen all this thanks to the Lord’s blessing.)

         As I mentioned early, even given all of these things and my deep appreciation for scripture and Swedenborg, I still ultimately can’t know for certain what the afterlife is like. But with my experience, the evidence, and the spiritual sources that inspire us, I have a general assurance and comfort that there is something more going on than just physical reality and that part of it probably resembles the accounts that we hear. Whether or not you agree, like myself I’d have to say that there is no way that you can know for certain, and that’s a mystery we’re all called to hold.

         Ultimately, awareness of the afterlife calls on us to reflect: to look at what we’re about and how we’re behaving and whether or not we are truly living, truly loving, and truly being someone that we want to be and want to be with to eternity. As we explored today and will continue to touch upon, most accounts of the afterlife say it is a continued journey in community, where our motivations and drives continue to truly matter in the making of our environment, connections, and life. It is a realm within and around us where our internal selves are made more manifest and help shape our communities, which hopefully encourages us to greater transformation toward health, toward heaven, within and without.

         God(dess) always invites us to greater openness, wisdom, and love. Tools like accounts of the spiritual realm are meant to uplift us and connect us with each other and Divinity, as are our experiences, our scriptures, our communities, and our traditions. May we allow these things to encourage us forward toward our higher selves and Divinity, living in and cultivating the present moment as if we are to carry that moment forward… forever.

Candle in the Wind Elton John

Island in the Sun Weezer

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