Resonant Mind: Life Review in the Near-Death Experience

This book was first published in 1990 under the title Whole in One - the near-death experience and the ethic of interconnectedness. The new title, Resonant Mind with the subtitle referring to the life review, better expresses the purpose and theme of the book. About 10% of those undergoing a near-death experience also have a life review in which they re-experience events in their lives not only from their own viewpoint, but also as if they were other people involved in the same event. The very fact that this is possible indicates that our seemingly separate minds are in fact connected at a deeper level, and that in truth we are all aspects and expressions of the same One Mind. Each event has as many dimensions as there are people who experience it. Other indications of a shared mind include psychometry, or the ability to read past events out of objects like rings; also telepathy, which for many of us is an everyday experience. Some medical intuitives are able to sense in their own bodies what is wrong with their patients. Twins and closely bonded people can also share experiences at a distance. For example, a mother may experience contractions when her daughter is giving birth. I call this phenomenon empathetic resonance. If mind were confined to the brain, this should not be possible. And yet it happens. So mind can be shared and non-local. It follows that any theory insisting that mind and consciousness are confined to the brain and body is quite incapable of explaining these well-attested experiences. We therefore need a new field theory of mind able to accommodate these experiences. This shared mind or capacity to experience what is happening to another means that we are effectively each other. Hence what we do to others we are in fact doing to ourselves: what goes around comes around - we reap what we sow. I suggest that this model of a shared or universal mind provides a metaphysical basis for the Golden Rule and what I call an ethic of interconnectedness. We are told by the Golden Rule that we should treat others as we would like to be treated. Now we find that we are one another, so there is no fundamental separation between us. The highest expression of this insight lies in the principles of Love and Wisdom - loving one's neighbour as oneself and realising that the cultivation and personal embodiment of Love and Wisdom is the ultimate human achievement, the one we most admire. I hope that this book will help you on your journey. David Lorimer, St Colombes sur l'Hers, August 2017