Proof Of Heaven? My Ongoing Search For The Pregnant Of Huntington’S Affliction Inwards Life Together With Death
The cognition that I comport the Huntington’s illness genetic mutation as well as volition inevitably railroad train devastating, ultimately deadly symptoms has led me to intensify my search for the pregnant of life, specially afterwards the decease of my woman parent from hard disk 8 years agone this month.
Dr. Martha Nance (photo from HDSA website)
As a historian tracking neuroscience developments as well as the bespeak for an hard disk treatment, I am also deeply interested inwards the nature of the hear as well as consciousness. This growing acre of enquiry is total of novel insights as well as challenges.
In 2010, I wrote an article titled “God, Huntington’s disease, as well as the pregnant of life,” inwards which I explored human evolution every bit the crusade of the hard disk mutation but also the impetus towards greater consciousness of our species, a vast network of thinking beings.
hard disk may serve “a purpose every bit of yet undiscovered,” I wrote. “HD people receive got a huge cross to carry, but they should regard their lives every bit component of the evolutionary surge towards a meliorate life for all.”
I saw that thought partially confirmed inwards Brazil lastly September at the 6th World Congress on Huntington’s Disease, where renowned hard disk researcher Dr. Elena Cattaneo noted that the normal huntingtin gene, nowadays inwards all humans as well as many other species, has a “social function, because it brings cells together…. Huntingtin is a good gene.”
Dr. Cattaneo offered an insight from a written report of 300 normal brains: the greater the expansion of the huntingtin gene’s deoxyribonucleic acid (HD happens when the expansion is likewise great), the greater the amount of grayness matter, or neurons, as well as hence the larger as well as potentially to a greater extent than complex the circuitry of those brains. (Click here to lookout adult man Dr. Cattaneo’s presentation.)
Thus, because encephalon enlargement has played a key role inwards human evolution, the huntingtin factor mightiness receive got had a component inwards the creation of human intelligence.
In my 2010 article, I also explored the oft-denied nexus betwixt faith as well as scientific discipline as well as the centrality of consciousness inwards the human experience yesteryear analyzing the life as well as writings of the so-called Catholic Darwin, the Jesuit paleontologist-priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
In other articles, I receive got described how faith has given me the courage to human face upward the many challenges posed yesteryear HD.
An intriguing title
H5N1 large component of my focus on spirituality involves its effectiveness every bit a coping mechanism.
Last year, I augmented my morn meditation amongst a reading from Living Faith: Daily Catholic Devotions. Based on Biblical passages, the practical spiritual advice offered inwards this booklet helps me focus on coming together life’s challenges as well as becoming a meliorate person.
Like many believers, however, I haven’t thought much nigh sky as well as the afterlife – until lastly calendar month a majority championship flashed across my TV covert as well as intrigued me amongst its seemingly incongruous combination of ii words: “heaven” as well as “neurosurgeon.”
I felt moved to almost similar a shot download onto my Kindle Dr. Eben Alexander III’s trouble concern human relationship of his near-death experience (NDE) as well as purported encounter amongst God, the bestseller Proof of Heaven: H5N1 Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.
I knew almost zero nigh NDEs other than what I glimpsed on TV programs nigh them over the years, but at nowadays that a neurosurgeon had experienced i as well as written nigh it, I felt the demand to accept the affair to a greater extent than seriously.
Because of my hard disk advocacy, I receive got delved into the public of neuroscience research, where scientists seek to explicate phenomena such every bit NDEs purely inwards damage of the brain. Many scientists spend upward the supernatural, although notable exceptions do be such every bit Dr. Francis Collins, the caput of the National Institutes of Health as well as i of the individuals responsible for the regain of the huntingtin gene.
Quite frankly, thank you lot inwards component to the intellectual rigor of both believing as well as non-believing scientists every bit good every bit my ain experience every bit an academic as well as historian, I receive got also learned to maintain an opened upward hear amongst regard to practically whatsoever enquiry or mystery.
As an hard disk advocate, I was also anxious to larn what Dr. Alexander mightiness receive got to say nigh the encephalon as well as disease.
I had another, rattling of import argue to read Proof of Heaven. Seeing a championship that hinted at the existence of scientific proof for sky fulfilled a growing wishing for promise stirred inwards me yesteryear the approach of one-time historic catamenia as well as specially the inevitable onrush of HD.
Discovering the soul
According to Dr. Alexander, he had lain inwards a coma for a week, his encephalon nether a severe laid on from an untreatable, unique shape of meningitis. He should receive got died, but, inwards the words of i of the attention physicians cited inwards the book, staged a miraculous recovery.
Dr. Alexander claims that, during his fourth dimension inwards coma, he was transported to to a greater extent than or less other realm, where he encountered a form of guardian angel as well as learned truths nigh the universe as well as the overwhelming ability of love. He explains that he institute many of those truths extremely hard to push clit inwards the linguistic communication of earthly existence.
Once a typical, scientifically oriented skeptic nigh the spiritual dimension, Alexander became a homo of deep faith committed to revealing the significance of NDEs.
Dr. Eben Alexander III (photo from author's website)
“Science – the scientific discipline to which I’ve devoted so much of my life – doesn’t contradict what I learned upward there,” Dr. Alexander writes. “But far, far likewise many people believe it does, because for certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, receive got insisted i time to a greater extent than as well as i time to a greater extent than that scientific discipline as well as spirituality cannot coexist. They are mistaken….
“In fact, I experience confident inwards maxim that, piece I didn’t fifty-fifty know the term at the time, piece inwards the Gateway as well as inwards the Core (heaven), I was really ‘doing science.’ Science that relied on the truest as well as most sophisticated tool for scientific research that nosotros possess: Consciousness itself.”
According to Dr. Alexander, during his NDE he had discovered the existence of his ain soul – a shape of consciousness exterior of the torso as well as the brain-generated mind.
He summed upward the message from heaven: “Love is, without a doubt, the footing of everything. Not to a greater extent than or less abstract, hard-to-fathom form of honey but the day-to-day form that everyone knows—the form of honey nosotros experience when nosotros aspect at our husband as well as our children, or fifty-fifty our animals. In its purest as well as most powerful form, this honey is non jealous or selfish, but unconditional.”
A convincing yet disappointing story
As I read Dr. Alexander’s trouble concern human relationship as well as gained promise for the future, I became ecstatic. Finally, I thought, I tin genuinely aspect forwards to the afterlife! I volition move on to struggle for the cure of HD, but I don’t receive got to worry nigh dying! Finally, someone has nailed downwards proof of heaven!
As I read the book, however, I also felt disappointed at how piddling Dr. Alexander could say nigh God as well as heaven, because of the admitted human limitations inwards describing the experience.
At nigh 200 pages, the majority also struck me every bit rattling curt for a theme of the utmost importance.
In addition, his description of the cosmos seemed to echo scientific hypotheses set forth on earth. Of course, inwards reality scientific ideas as well as divine revelation nigh the cosmos should coincide. However, I wondered whether his perception was a truthful insight from God or only a projection of his professed honey for physics as well as cosmology.
Despite these criticisms, I institute the majority highly convincing.
A hallucination?
But as well as so I thought to a greater extent than or less to a greater extent than as well as dug to a greater extent than deeply.
Jesus was the boy of a carpenter. Eben Alexander III is a neurosurgeon who taught many years at Harvard University.
Here on earth, Dr. Alexander’s status validates the thought of the NDE. People crave such validation when considering an thought – or buying a majority – fifty-fifty though the thought could stand upward on its ain when carefully considered.
Wanting to regard what others thought of Dr. Alexander’s book, I discovered the expected response from to a greater extent than or less inwards the scientific community. An article inwards Scientific American, for instance, concluded that Dr. Alexander’s experience was “proof of hallucination, non heaven.”
Esquire mag contributing editor Luke Dittrich wrote a long, unflattering expose of Dr. Alexander’s divergence from Harvard, his status every bit a accused inwards a serial of malpractice lawsuits, the pause of his operating privileges, publisher Simon & Schuster’s manipulation of as well as shortening of the master copy manuscript, as well as inaccuracies inwards Proof of Heaven. Dittrich describes Dr. Alexander every bit a self-proclaimed “prophet,” a homo inwards reality seeking inwards the time-honored American tradition to remake himself inwards the wake of legal as well as professional person difficulties.
Dr. Alexander’s website contains a rebuttal to the slice yesteryear Esquire, which it accuses of “journalistic malpractice.”
In Proof of Heaven, Dr. Alexander states that cloth success became unimportant to him afterwards his glimpse of the afterlife. Aside from to a greater extent than or less bracelets for sale amongst one-half the proceeds intended for charity, I could observe zero nigh the goal of the presumably millions of dollars inwards royalties Dr. Alexander has earned from sales estimated inwards mid-2013 at nearly ii i M k copies.
For me, the jury is soundless out on Dr. Alexander’s story.
The larger context
Ultimately, alone God would know precisely what happened to Dr. Alexander during his near-death experience.
For me, the majority is of import because it contributes to the travail to create a synthesis of faith as well as science.
Proof of Heaven also rekindled my involvement inwards the afterlife as well as introduced me to the seriousness as well as breadth of NDEs. Whether i believes inwards the soul or not, NDEs tin as well as should live studied inwards the larger context of agreement how the encephalon as well as consciousness work.
Seeing patients every bit persons
While I can’t justice the veracity of Dr. Alexander’s NDE, reading his majority made me reverberate on my mother’s terminal days inwards Jan as well as Feb 2006. Proof of Heaven has also helped me come upward to a fuller as well as to a greater extent than compassionate agreement of Huntington’s illness patients.
My woman parent struggled amongst hard disk for nearly ii decades.
In the hard disk community, because nosotros demand to cook awareness, nosotros are so used to emphasizing the destruction of the disease. The destruction is real. But at that topographic point is to a greater extent than to the person. Some readers of this weblog receive got reminded me that I receive got non recognized this.
I regret non having the emotional strength as well as presence of hear to receive got seen my woman parent to a greater extent than every bit a person, with a consciousness as well as maybe fifty-fifty a soul, as well as less every bit a hear as well as torso racked yesteryear the symptoms of Huntingon’s. Because I had tested positive for the mutation, “my fright of hard disk kept me from sitting downwards amongst her as well as attempting to converse,” I wrote inwards a weblog entry titled “Saying good-bye to Mom.”
My mother’s astonishing gesture
Only nigh the terminate of her life did I really perceive that a powerful life strength continued inwards my mother.
The outset bear witness of this came inwards a telephone phone yell upward from my California habitation to my mom’s nursing habitation inwards suburban Cleveland. I wrote: “The nurse bluntly revealed an emotional bombshell: Mom had said that she was ‘not afraid to die.’”
I was struck yesteryear that revelation, because for years she had non spoken inwards whatsoever intelligent manner.
Looking dorsum on our good-bye, I at nowadays regard to a greater extent than clearly the increased presence of her consciousness as well as the score of her “cogency” (Dr. Alexander’s discussion to push clit to a greater extent than or less other situation) every bit she prepared to die. Demented elderly people on their deathbed sometimes ambit an “astonishing clarity of mind” known every bit “terminal lucidity,” he notes.
I wrote: We as well as so wheeled Mom to a reception room amongst to a greater extent than comfortable furniture. There nosotros took to a greater extent than or less pictures.
Then I asked my sis as well as virile individual parent to acquire out the room briefly so that I could say my terminal farewell to Mom.
I told Mom that I was maxim goodbye as well as that I mightiness non regard her again. I told her what an fantabulous woman parent she had been, as well as I apologized for all the times that I had non been the best of sons.
I looked her inwards the eyes.
I hugged as well as kissed her.
I set her paw on top of mine on top of the tray that was component of her special chair.
I told her I loved her. She said she loved me too.
In the yesteryear duet days Mom had non moved her hands at all. When nosotros asked her to betoken out things, she had been unresponsive. But then, inexplicably, Mom started to displace her left paw upwards. Slowly it moved until it touched my face.
I took her paw as well as pressed it against my face.
Miraculously nosotros had touched each other’s hearts.
I felt a warm glow of honey as well as relief.
A wonderful gift
Wanting to know a Huntington’s illness specialist’s assessment of my mother’s cogency, I asked Dr. Martha Nance, a neurologist as well as the manager of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America Center of Excellence at Hennepin County Medical Center inwards Minneapolis, to comment via e-mail.
“I don’t know what to say nigh consciousness independent of hear as well as body,” Dr. Nance responded. “My piece of job as well as personal worlds do non operate on that plane, if at that topographic point is such a bird of existence.”
However, Dr. Nance has heard extraordinary stories nigh as well as from patients suffering from neurological disorders, similar the adult woman dying from progressive supranuclear palsy who on her lastly twenty-four hr catamenia had a vodka martini amongst her hubby as well as their best friend from college days.
As Dr. Nance told it, the patient “raised her paw that hadn’t moved inwards a week, as well as took her ain glass. She as well as so raised the drinking glass upward inwards the air – a toast to life – as well as set it to her lips. She died quietly that night.”
What causes these moments of lucidity? Science hasn’t yet institute the answer, Dr. Nance replied.
“If you lot play your cards right, this form of thing tin as well as does happen,” Dr. Nance wrote. “The betoken is, if you lot acknowledge the coming of death, maybe fifty-fifty encompass it, that it tin live at to the lowest degree peaceful, as well as sometimes beautiful. And foreign moments of lucidity or awareness presently earlier the terminal 2nd do seem to occur (sometimes, non always) – as well as are a wonderful gift to the theatre unit of measurement when they do.”
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