April 1976
The Case For Survival
An Interview With William Roll
To determine whether consciousness continues, as far as I am concerned, the best approach is to explore it where we are certain of finding it, that is in ourselves. Since we are concerned with the continuation or survival of consciousness, then this consciousness also exists before death and presumably can be studied there.
Sports
“The Boundary”
To many sport is another word for television or packed stands and six packs. To others it is a reminder of tanned muscles and small brains. Sport is quite simply thought of as entertainment and athletes tend to assume the properties of race horses or even motor cars.
Transformative Experience
A determining characteristic of a transformative event is its immediate, absorptive, focalizing power. It dominates and literally becomes the field of awareness. In one overwhelming moment of being, a pattern is perceived and imprinted, providing the awareness with a model for unitive functioning.
In The Web Of Illusion
The Tibetan Wheel Of Life
The Tibetan Wheel of Life is a graphic representation of basic Buddhist philosophy. Though some say it was drawn first by the Buddha, historians say that it originated in India around the second century A.D. as a means of exposing an illiterate people to the Buddhist ideas of reincarnation and the cause of suffering.
The Eye Of The Needle
The small gathering of students listened with a quiet awe to the wizened professor. Research techniques had become very sophisticated. They were about to travel on a series of levels within the volunteer lying smiling on the surgery table. She looked a little embarrassed.
In The Eye Of The Beholder, Or Death Is What You Make It
First of all, let us consider the fact just mentioned. There is no separate, indivisible, specific point of death. Life is a state of becoming, and death is a part of this process of becoming.
Rehearsal For Dying
Is there a way to practise, or rehearse, for the supreme adventure none of us can avoid taking — dying? Plato thought so — in fact he defined philosophy as the art and knowledge of dying — and modern-day parapsychology shows the way towards what Grosso calls “an experimental science of death.”
Blood, Sweat And Tears
Photographs of birth capture what an intense physical event it is: lots of grimacing, blood, nakedness and sweat. A film can transmit much of the emotion of the experience: pants, groans and cries, the anxiety and the joy.
Taking Responsibility
You want to give birth to your child naturally. You want childbirth to be a positive experience. You have read about, talked about and surely thought about the labor and birth that lie ahead. Maybe you have taken childbirth classes to prepare yourself.
Natural Birth: From Whiskey To Lamaze
It wasn’t long ago when all births were “natural” home deliveries. The birth of a baby was a common family affair attended by husbands and midwives for the most part. It was the exception when a doctor was present.
Home Vs. Hospital: Everyone Loses
Traditions are cornerstones in any society. They develop out of what are usually common-sense responses to common needs. Usually, the needs are basic and deeply felt, and the responses are simple, becoming more sophisticated and complex as time passes and the society evolves.
Soul On Ice?
If you’re looking for a way to control your money from the grave and religious promises of spiritual immortality don’t grab you, then your brass ring may be cryogenic internment.
Channel One
I imagine that you associate other people’s desire of you as determining your own worth. This is common for most Homo sapiens, as we were raised to believe that what other people thought was good or bad, desirable or undesirable, loveable or unloveable were the correct criteria for evaluating our own behavior.
And What Remains
Selecting a coffin for my father, I noticed that the salesman, solicitous at first, turned cool when I asked for the cheapest box. This was hidden in a closet.
The Experience Of Dying
Although — with the possible exception of mediumistic communications — no one has returned from the dead to give an account of his experience, reports of people who have nearly died suggest that it is a profoundly transcendent experience.
Another Appetite
While nursing my rosey two-month-old, I read of the death by starvation of a three-month-old child in — no, not India — but within the “Golden Triad,” in Winston-Salem. The child lived one block from a federally-sponsored health center and her mother qualified for ADC benefits and food stamps.
The Culpable Cadaver
The author of an article I recently read took up the task of listing the twenty worst news stories of 1975. Despite the evidence produced it was a very amusing business, as indeed, any post-mortem of such atrocious fare would have to be to make it palatable.
Lou, Turn Up Your Hearing Aid
Birth and death is a continual cycle. Like corn, you have a season. You grow, flower, give seed, fade away. But the energy within you keeps going — like the energy of corn. Have you ever been in a corn field and felt that energy?