Heaven and hell

Many moons ago, when The Illustrated Weekly of India serialised Raymond Moody's Life After Life, your columnist was the scribe in charge of the pages. Dr Moody had put together what seemed like an unbelievably fantastic account of the near-death experience (NDE) from testimonies of people who claimed to have gone over to the other side but had somehow returned to tell the tale.

They spoke about passing through a narrow dark tunnel and meeting with a dazzling loving presence of light along with spirits of friends and family. Dr Moody's respondents also claimed to have been subjected to a rapid review of their life after which they had been ordered to return to earth because of 'unfinished business' or karma! Dr Moody went on to exploit the theme in more than a dozen titles, which did brisk business around the globe.

In the process, he pioneered a cottage industry that analysed the so-called NDE for what it was worth. Not surprising, this also yielded a negative version of the near-death experience. Instead of the tunnel and a loving white psychic presence, some people claimed to have gone over to emptiness or a total absence of experience. This meant that there was nothing at all after life, they said. More negative NDEs entailed a feeling of being dragged down into a pit rather than a tunnel with demonic elements.

So how does one account for the eerie parallels between the reports of NDEs and traditional views of heaven and hell? Can it be due to cultural conditioning? Or is something more complicated: the sort of afterlife that Dante sings about is involved?