A phenomenon similar to the panorama of life usually takes place
when a person is drowning. People who have been resuscitated speak of having seen their
whole lifein a flash.
That is because under such conditions the vital body also leaves the dense body. Of course
there is no rupture of the silver cord, or life could not be restored. Unconsciousness
follows quickly in drowning,[pg 157]while in the usual post-mortem review the consciousness continues until the
vital body collapses in the same manner that it does when we go to sleep. Then consciousness
ceases for a while and the panorama is terminated. Therefore also the time occupied by the
panorama varies with different persons, according to whether the vital body was strong and
healthy, or had become thin and emaciated by protracted illness. The longer the time spent
in review, and the more quiet and peaceful the surroundings, the deeper will be the etching
which is made in the desire body. As already said, that has a most important and far
reaching effect, for then the sufferings which the spirit will realize in purgatory on
account of bad habits and misdeeds will be much more keen than if there is only a slight
impression, and in a future life the still small voice of conscience will warn so much more
insistently against mistakes which caused sufferings in the past.
When conditions are such at the time of death that the spirit is
disturbed by outside conditions, for instance the din and turmoil of a battle, the harrowing
conditions of an accident or the hysterical wailings of relatives, the distraction prevents
it from realizing[pg 158]an appropriate depth in the etching upon the desire body. Consequently its
post-mortem existence becomes vague and insipid, the spirit does not harvest fruits of
experience as it should have done had it passed out of the body in peace and under normal
conditions. It would therefore lack incentive to good in a future life, and miss the warning
against evil which a deep etching of the panorama of life would have given. Thus its growth
would be retarded in a very marked degree, but the beneficent powers in charge of evolution
take certain steps to compensate for our ignorant treatment of the dying and other untoward
circumstances mentioned. What these steps are, we shall discuss when considering the life of
children in heaven, for the present let it be sufficient to say that in God's kingdom every
evil is always transmuted to a greater good though the process may not be at once
apparent.
Purgatory.
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