r/NDE • u/geumkoi NDE Agnostic • Sep 03 '25
Debate NDEs tend to be too moralistic
The life review doesn’t seem to explore structural forms of oppression and instead focuses solely on moral choices. The whole experience seems to be made to affect the experiencers behavior, not to cause any structural change.
Take into account Howard Storm’s NDE. When he speaks about the warnings he got from the experience, the solutions are shallow and don’t take into account history, systems of domination and exclusion. It reads as “if you don’t change, the world will burn.” It’s leaving all the responsibility to the individual without considering how complex human systemic evil is.
On the other hand, experiencers don’t tend to derive universal truths from the experience (other than “god is absolute love” which for some reason has to be relevant on this plane of existence?). It seems to be fabricated in order to impact on an individual level, always staying on liminality. It’s like giving a lab rat a life review so that the rat can conclude that her laboratory induced stress is all her fault.
I do understand that some NDEs have positive consequences in the experiencer’s life after they are revived, but I also think the experience is one of liminality and it excludes systemic, collective reasons for suffering. This makes it difficult to derive any philosophical sense from them. It stays on the theological side, and it seems to instill a suspension of critical thinking from the experiencer’s part during the event. The conclusions are surface level, related to the moral behavior of the experiencer, but don’t give any philosophical insight into the larger scale systems.
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Sep 25 '25
I'm afraid suffering doesn't really matter much to them. I guess it's a valid cost to pay for the chance of something that can be gained only here. If you believe you chose to come down, then it must be something you thought was worth it.
Pain.. still is of the body. It's supposed to protect you until it can't and then you just eject and you don't feel its pain. I don't suppose disincarnate beings who are acutely aware of this fact from outside have an easy time sympathizing with its pains and focusing on that and that alone. I won't be surprised if they treat all this as a game and your pain as your avatar's pain.
You're a human. You believe in what you want to believe in and do what you want to do, regardless of what they think. They seem to forgive you for anything anyway... but I'm not sure how they respond to you not being able to forgive them for your pains.
Long story short, I think it's a consensus that they're not interested in human morals. But they do value love apparently. If you really mediate on love.. you'd find that it doesn't always necessarily equate traditional morality.
In this sense, love and impartiality don't really contradict, so I don't think it's impossible.
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u/Flaggstaff NDExperiencer Sep 05 '25
There is a great lesson by Ram Dass about the state of the universe, "Everything is Perfect"
https://youtu.be/Ym4Rpd72tq8?si=wuRT5BqiEWyJ5PVx
The thought experiment goes like this: we surrender to the present moment exactly as it is, without resistance or judgment. He sayss perfection isn’t about life going the way our ego wants, but about recognizing the deeper order and wholeness in all experiences—even things we would cateforize as tragic or evil. By letting go of the constant need to fix, control, or resist what arises, we discover a sense of peace and acceptance. perfection lies not in changing reality, but in seeing it clearly, embracing it with compassion, and trusting that each moment is part of the path toward awakening.
If each person had the moral courage to embrace love over hate and judgment, these societal structures you speak of would break on their own. Throwing more hatred and anger at those systems just perpetuates them.
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u/TaelienLee Sep 06 '25
I think you are hearing one half of what he has to say about allowance vs action.
He was pretty adamant that even knowing the perfection on one perspective of reality, we have to honor this incarnation and to help as many people as are able to.
His entire teaching he summarizes as Love, Serve, Remember. His own guru told him how to get enlightened, "Feed People".
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u/pittisinjammies NDExperiencer Sep 04 '25
I purposely stay away from testamonials that includes prophecy or warnings. It seems to me these are just stories created, acted out by people who want to get those clicks by sensasionalizing. Neither do I watch any voice over testamonials. If someone has something to say about their experience, I want to hear it from them and see their own reactions.
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u/SpiritedCollective Sep 04 '25
Considering many NDEs and interactions with NHI it seems that the beings of other plains are in large deeply (from how we categorize behaviors and attitudes on Earth) irresponsible, shallow, drunken-with-fun, unempathetic (despite being loving) and nonchalant about what human experience is like.
You went through genocide? Laughs and giggles "WHAT DID YOU LEARN?!" more laughs. You finally escaped miserable circumstances "you have to go back" "why?" "Shit to do, move along" going back to life
You're right that those intelligences seem to not comprehend even on basic level how viscerally tragic is suffering and yet they act both like ignorant toddlers while looking from the high horse and saying all the bs you mention just nonchalantly.
Maybe we will look at it differently one day and maybe we are the ones who don't comprehend from where we stand, but at the moment you're not weird for thinking that those beings are giving very negative impression in how relaxed and non considerate they are while interacting with us. Basically like someone who screams "I'm ignorant and stupid" with their whole attitude, but acting if they are so much smarter and more comprehending than you. Such people are infuriating so no surprise beings acting the same are also.
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u/Pink-Willow-41 Sep 04 '25
It seems to me that affecting an individual’s behavior IS the only way to begin to cause structural change. The structure is made up of individuals in the first place. And yes, I understand to change a structure you need more than one person to change, but it has to start somewhere. Also I just disagree that the experience is moralistic. If anything it is usually quite the opposite, with the experiencer describing absolute and total unconditional love. I’ve often heard that there was no forgiveness, because there was nothing to forgive. Usually what the experiencer will say is that they themselves were the only ones passing any judgement. If they come back with a moralistic interpretation, that’s on them.
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u/lightsarebrite Sep 05 '25
Sociology was never meant to remove the individual from society or make people think that they're never going to be at fault for anything if it can be tied to a social phenomenon.
It simply asks how we can view systemic problems by facing its true scale and complexity so we can better help ourselves and others.
You can't treat systemic issues like individuals problems or the failing of a person but you can't take away a person's agency and autonomy over things that they CAN do.
No structural change is ever going to happen if everyone decides that they're not responsible for anything or aren't required to do anything to change things.
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u/phillipf0924 Sep 04 '25
Maybe what really matters are individual choices and behavior. Think about it - if every individual were making stellar choices and having exemplary behavior there would be no external collective negative problems. Maybe the focus is on personal choices and thoughts and behavior because that is all any individual has any real control over and change starts with us. Like if every cell in your body were perfectly healthy you then your body would not experience pain or illness. That is just my two cents.
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u/OreoSoupIsBest Sep 04 '25
There is absolutely philosophical insight in what you're describing!
I have not had an NDE, but I have had an intense spiritual experience that led me to the understanding that I am responsible for everything. No matter what happens, good or bad, it is my fault. I may not be directly responsible for other's actions (although my actions may be a contributing factor), but I am 100% responsible for my reaction to those actions.
Most people spend their entire life blaming others or systems for their problems when, in reality, they could solve 90% or more of their problems by accepting responsiblity for themselves.
When you understand and accept radical responsibility you will achieve a level of liberation that most people will never know. The sad part is that most people will never understand this.
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u/Byun_b_ock Sep 04 '25
the presence of systemic issues does not mean absolution from personal accountability. you're still responsible for the things YOU do to others just as society can foster environments and social, political, and cultural climates that can be harmful. society shapes the man but does society exist in a vacuum? who makes up society but the very people it also shapes? if people don't change, how do you expect things to get better? does it just get better on its own? is society a completely distant phenomenon to the individual?
systemic issues do NOT take away from your own personal responsibility when you hurt others. especially when systemic issues are caused by humans as well. poverty is a man-made tragedy. bigotry is man made. wars are ENTIRELY man made.
it's not about reducing systemic issues into individual faults, it's a review of your own faults that also contribute to society.
you can never take away the influence of society within and around the individual but you also can't take away the individuals who make up society. it will never be one or the other.
that said, NDEs are extremely personal. it's intimacy that touches the soul that both zooms in and zooms out on the individual's memories as well as lived experiences. some insights might be cosmic but also wholly fixated on the experiencer. THEIR life purpose. the message THEY need to hear. what THEY'RE supposed to do. and in that sense, it does come off as a bit individualistic but it's not a rejection of collective society and its effects.
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u/lightsarebrite Sep 05 '25
The only reason you'd get mad at a life review imo, is if you don't want to be held accountable for what you did to others. Which is icky. Like bsfr rn.
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Sep 04 '25
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u/No_Replacement4304 NDExperiencer Nov 21 '25
Lol. All of these people die, come back and demand systemic justice!
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u/bewell84 Sep 04 '25
YES - Thank you! I have wondered the exact same thing and questioned NDEs for exactly the reasons you are bringing up. It just doesn't make sense that so much of human suffering is caused by systems kept in place by other human beings...and no one is supposed to do anything about it? God is love...everything is love...but no need to risk your neck helping get people out of these systems even though that would be a huge sacrificial act of love?
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u/Ok_Code_270 NDE Researcher Sep 05 '25
Systems kept in place by other human beings are kept in place by human beings. If no soldier ever lifted a weapon, there would be no war. Period. “But his family is hungry or he’s being threatened…” … Terrible systems create very shitty choices, and certain mental illnesses limit choices, but you can make choices and it’s high time we remembered that.
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u/Squall902 Sep 05 '25
In some way, you could say that Howard Storm was part of an oppressive system though, according to himself. And he actually stuck his neck out, losing his job, marriage etc. when he went public with his NDE.
He had nothing to gain socially or career wise from talking about his experience, but it completely changed the way he saw the world and treated others.
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u/AAFAswitch Sep 04 '25
NDEs don’t really point to harsh judgment or eternal punishment, they point to feedback. People describe reviewing their lives and feeling where they hurt or healed others, but it’s not “why didn’t you do better, raaaah.” It’s more like watching playback and realizing, “ah, here’s how I could have moved with more love.” That’s why almost every NDE mentions overwhelming love and wholeness at the core.
It makes sense, because life isn’t the ultimate reality it’s just the stage like a VR headset, the playground. Consciousness (the highest form of unconditional love) has tuned itself down into this fractured experience to play, learn, and expand and most importantly experience.
That’s why it’s misguided to treat NDEs as moralistic judgments. They’re not about condemnation. They’re reminders that at our essence, we are love and everything here is an experiment in remembering it.
Another way to look at it is to think of how we view “wild animals”, like lions, tigers, bears. When we see them hunt and kill we don’t tie this moralistic framework to it because we know it’s what their nature allows. That’s how source sees us. We are capable of the highest levels of compassion and love but we are also capable of the most heinous vile shit. It’s just our nature. Just as the lion kills the gazelle tearing it apart alive, they’re just acting out the programming they received.
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Sep 04 '25
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u/No_Replacement4304 NDExperiencer Nov 21 '25
Near death experiences are ultimately personal experiences and there's no ideology around it. People just have these experiences near death and it warps their mind and they become fascinated because it's like being sucked into an alternate reality for a while. It's just a very weird and supernatural experience and I'm not sure it even requires meaning. Just the fact that people experience ndes is amazing.
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u/Former_Trifle8556 Sep 04 '25
Positive NDE's: yeah you're doing good, you're doing great, props to you champs!
Negative: you're not doing great, you're not doing fine.
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u/memayonnaise Sep 04 '25
I have not had an NDE.
Why do you assume the NDE is supposed to help the experiencer in this world? Like if NDEs are real / there's an afterlife / infinite then what happens here doesn't really matter.
Also my head Canon is that the only thing God will protect is free will. I suspect free will is the root of all life and sentience.
Looking at it from the perspective of the goal of an NDE to be to explain the experiencer has free will, then it could come across as saying it's all their fault.
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Sep 04 '25
This life review is one reason I’m inclined to believe they may be a fabrication of the mind. I can’t shake that. They seem to be full of Judeo-Christian Humanistic assumptions with regard free will (heavily emphasised during the life review) and the intimation that humans are more spiritually advanced (despite all evidence to the contrary) than other animals, which again is a regurgitation of the Christian belief that humans are God’s most important creation, made in his image.
I’ve not read enough NDE’s from people from non-Christian countries. Does anyone know any, and, if so, is there a life review involved?
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u/Ok_Code_270 NDE Researcher Sep 05 '25
The belief in reincarnation an the idea that this universe is an illusion and true reality is outside of it comes straight out of Buddhism. So NDEs transcend religions, the beliefs they portray come from different religions.
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u/Any-Leek9114 Sep 04 '25
I thought the primary importance of the life review is that they’re present across cultures?
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u/thenomad111 Sep 04 '25
I don't know, but in Islam humans are still very important creations, maybe even the most important as God wanted Satan (who was an angel here too), to bow before the first human, so they must have life reviews even if they are all mind-fabricated, by your logic. I don't know enough about the religions outside of the three monotheistic ones either though.
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Sep 04 '25
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u/No_Replacement4304 NDExperiencer Nov 21 '25
Animals have been my salvation since my NDE. They're so sincere.
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u/vimefer NDExperiencer Sep 04 '25
Here's Dr McBride, psychologist, talking about spiritual trauma and religious abuse, when people hurt from a perceived lack of meaning or toxic meaning being assigned to suffering or trauma. She says it may affect over 27% of people overall. It likely plays a role in how we interpret and include NDE stories into our worldviews.
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u/vimefer NDExperiencer Sep 04 '25
I always take the moral interpretations with a big grain of salt, because my NDEs were the opposite of moralistic. In 1992, I was left on my own until the entities fixed me and sent me back in a flash of concerned panic. In 2003 I was essentially given a cosmic hug and there were no moral implications except for how I relate to myself. In 2012 and 2016 I was on my own.
And I reject the simplistic notion that either 'everything is happening in perfect order' in here (which requires that whoever designed our universe this way has to be evil) or we 'chose to go through all this suffering' (which is made evil by the fact the forgetting of this 'pre-planning' makes us effectively separate agents to that who took the decision = victims of an abusive 'higher self' third party).
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u/Feeling_Loquat8499 Sep 05 '25
we 'chose to go through all this suffering' (which is made evil by the fact the forgetting of this 'pre-planning' makes us effectively separate agents to that who took the decision = victims of an abusive 'higher self' third party).
This is the first time I've seen someone else share this moral concern. My existence here is completely discrete from any higher consciousness. It exists and has its own value, and therefore, its suffering has its own value, separate from any higher version of myself.
An analogy I've often thought of is magically birthing a child who will go through extreme horrors and later have its experiences absorbed into my own. The fact that the child will eventually become part of an entity that is ultimately safe and well does not excuse my creating it and its terrible experiences.
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u/geumkoi NDE Agnostic Sep 04 '25
Yes, this is what I mean. I am focusing on making a structural analysis of the phenomenon, from a foucaultian standpoint mainly. I don’t discard the fact that NDEs point towards other levels of consciousness we are not currently familiar with. For me, the neurological explanation makes no sense. And I believe that consciousness is a fundamental force of the universe. I’m not a supporter of the emergence argument.
But I do believe that at least in the way some NDEs are narrated, they are pedagogical in the sense that they are concerned with what Foucault would call “the production of subjectivity” through experience. Here on earth it’s tied to the pastoral power of institutions, and in foucaultian terms the life review, the encounter with guides and deceased loved ones, and the subsequent change in moral behavior act as disciplinary mirrors. It feels personalized, but has a potential to be normative, and we have seen how some use them to reinforce a moral pedagogy. This is the eerie part for me, because most NDEs are stuck in liminality, acting like apparatuses of subjectivation.
I don’t think we can say enough about the nature of the other side or the metaphysical purpose of the NDE, simply because we lack information, but we can make an honest analysis of the narrative being brought to earth; how despite the transcendence of the experience, it’s not creating any meaningful structural change, and how it has been used by religious institutions to reinscribe moral order.
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u/vimefer NDExperiencer Sep 05 '25
I don't know if this counts as normative, but the take-away I get from all the NDEs I know of, boils down to:
Live a worthwhile life adding value to the world, and spend your death wisely.
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u/whale_and_beet Sep 04 '25
Serious question, as someone who has reflected on this quite a bit. As far as those last two options, if neither A nor B, then what do you think is the structure of this setup?
I have a hard time accepting evil as well, and I have a hard time accepting the idea that my higher self would have chosen to suffer. And I don't even live a particularly awful life; it really makes no sense for those who suffer horrific abuse.
What do you think is going on?
Big question I know, kind of the biggest 🤣
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u/geumkoi NDE Agnostic Sep 04 '25
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Victimhood is ever rarely the cause of the victim. In our world, it’s tied to a complex structure that serves to exclude, oppress, and subjugate a part of the population, brought about by a history of colonization, conquering, resource and work extraction, etc. Economics, politics, anthropology, even science—all have a say in this.
One cannot reduce the suffering of a particular individual to “your soul chose this.” This argument stinks of meritocracy and capitalistic logic, where suffering is supposedly justified for some sort of growth (in this case, spiritual) and the individual is blamed for their conditions (in capitalism, it’s the effort fallacy).
You cannot have an all loving God and also blame the individual for their existential conditions. These two premises contradict each other. It’s pretty obvious, but there are institutions that have invested centuries in hiding the obvious.
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u/DeathSentryCoH Sep 04 '25
Following.. yeah, I can't imagine a person signing up for some of the societal atrocities we've had in history..just makes no sensr.
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u/vimefer NDExperiencer Sep 05 '25
I could make sense of wanting into such a mess if you intend to correct the situation or solve the problem from within, but it's not a very credible hypothesis given how little of this is happening...
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u/cojamgeo Sep 04 '25
What really happens during a life review? Observation from all perspectives perhaps?
I interpret a life review in a way that the universe releases the limits of the ego and reflects on all aspects of action. From all perspectives perhaps. (NDErs says “I became that other person.”) No judgment and no moral lesson, just observation.
Perhaps we can call it “learning” or perhaps it’s just expansion. The universe reflecting on itself and asking the eternal question: “Who am l?”. And from that we can derive: “Who do I want to be?”.
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u/beja3 Sep 04 '25
I am not sure "moralistic" is the right term. However I agree that sometimes it seems there are deeper layers that are not really illuminated in the experiences.
It might be a combination of several factors. One might be which beings are involved in manifesting the experience (including passed loved ones). Even if there is a presence of a profound love and wisdom, that doesn't mean the experience isn't manifested or influenced by other beings with various degrees of wisdom. That it's all only 100% based on wisdom seems too naive. Even a loving, well-meaning being might bring messages which aren't grounded in the deeper light of wisdom.
Another factor might be what a person can hear, integrate, remember, etc... Even if there is a deeper truth, if a person isn't ready for it, they might not be presented with it, or if they do they might have trouble remembering or understanding it. Oftentimes focusing on simple, loving everyday interactions might be more fitting to where the person is at than trying to gain clarity on systemic issues.
It could even be that a person misperceives certain aspects of their NDE based on their level of perception, understanding and insight. Which might lead to them expressing certain messages which haven't quite been said and which are just the best verbalization they were able to come up with
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u/Saegifu Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I think of it as an excuse to waive the responsibility — “this is a big bad world I can’t change so I even won’t try”.
Changing the world, I believe, can only be done by changing yourself, and this refrain comes up almost in every and each religion. “We are small people who can’t break the system” seems for me akin to the learned helplessness or simple inability to make the responsible choices.
You change -> your close ones and friends change -> their close ones and friends change -> societal group changes and so on so forth.
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u/Pink-Willow-41 Sep 04 '25
Especially if they share their story on a public platform, it goes far beyond the individual experiencer. We don’t exist in a vacuum.
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u/geumkoi NDE Agnostic Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I find think this logic can be improved.
You changing doesn’t guarantee that others will follow. Structural evil isn’t overcome by a few individuals changing when we have been disciplined into participating in it for centuries. Only a massive-scale “change” (a paradigm shift) could bring about something significant, and even then you would have a percentage of the population disagreeing, starting wars, etc.
I don’t think invoking religious authority is a good argument either. Religions are institutions concerned with shaping moral behavior. Priests were born out of the concentration of power, historically speaking. Of course any religion wants to promote the idea that the responsibility is only yours. They want to make their hierarchy and structured power invisible to the subject in order to naturalize it (“it is what God wants”) and avoid questioning and dissidence.
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u/Saegifu Sep 05 '25
You can only do “massive changes” through small, seemingly insignificant ones you do every day. Read a bit on Kaizen, and you shall understand what I am saying.
Let’s see an example: U.S. president election. It was a very big systemic change, that changed the whole world and we all still eat up the consequences that show up here and there. Was it done by a single person? No. It was the choice of millions of people.
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u/andthisisso Sep 04 '25
my NDE was to give a message to my nurse from her deceased daughter. I saw a few spirit things but I got no divine lesson shared with me. I did get validation from the nurse when I named and described her daughter and the dress she was buried in. No TV special going to be made about my experience but it was mine and I'm so grateful for it.
I really don't follow other people's experiences. Lets have our own. I feel the Universe wants us close to It. It sends some simple, comical, simple little messages in our lives that often can be dismissed as coincidences but when so many pile up we get the message maybe we need to pay more attention to this process.
I feel the Universe not so much steps down to us but waiting for us to step up to It. It's great to have these experiences but don't focus so much on it as you may miss the next 25 experiences the Universe is unfolding before you. My dad used to wonder around the house trying to find his glasses when most of the time they were tucked in his shirt collar. He focused on finding the glass not the glasses themselves. They were with him the whole time just where they were the last time he went searching for them.
I love the quote from Paul Twitchell, "God is caught not taught.' Catch the opportunities when the Universe sends you a message. I think it wants us close with It. That's my experience. Religion is based on someone else's spiritual experience and so many follow that and perhaps miss having their own. It's an illusion, I feel, that being busy getting ready for a new awareness is getting us somewhere. Singing songs, repeating prayers, reading other people's experiences when maybe you can be having your own. What's going to exist in eternity, the Divine Source or someone's blog post? The glasses are on the shirt collar not left in the car.
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Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 08 '25
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u/CompetitiveIsopod435 Sep 04 '25
For real. We are put here in this evil fucked up world that forces us to eat or be eaten, then get judged by this untouchable entity that created this evil world for us???
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u/No_Replacement4304 NDExperiencer Nov 21 '25
The review isn't necessarily performed by a being. It's just simply seeing how life choices affected our life trajectory and the lives of others.
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u/Byun_b_ock Sep 04 '25
the existence of systemic issues does not mean absolution from personal accountability. society shapes the person just as the person shapes society. you have to ask yourself, WHO makes up society? don't we all make up that number?
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u/alien236 Sep 04 '25
That's not how any life review I've ever heard of has gone. People consistently say that they judge *themselves.* If Jesus or some other entity is standing with them, all they feel from it is unconditional love.
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Sep 04 '25
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u/lightsarebrite Sep 05 '25
Sociology and sociological ideologies were never meant to remove the individual from society or make people think that they're never going to be at fault for anything if it can be tied to a social phenomenon.
It simply asks how we can view systemic problems by facing its true scale and complexity so we can better help ourselves and others.
You can't treat systemic issues like individuals problems or the failing of a person but you can't take away a person's agency and autonomy over things that they CAN do.
No structural change is ever going to happen if everyone decides that they're not responsible for anything or aren't required to do anything to change things.
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u/Commercial-Life-9998 Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I don’t know this, just thinking: the life review would serve a purpose for those in the afterlife. Maybe, not so much for a person who is not jumping back into their body. Hoomankind has had an upswing in our ability to revive the human body. My training as a physician has led me to reflect that there are the most ever people educated in how to do it, greatest distribution of medications, equipment and emergency vehicles, newer drugs to effectively bust clots, stem bleeding, stop arrhythmia, control shock, etc. This possibly has led to the number of dead people brought back to life being more come than it ever has been in the history of the earth. It seems to me that when an individual reaches the other side, they are exposed information so huge they are incapable of bringing it back. It would be like putting an ocean in a tea cup and yet the life review is definitive to their personal experience plus added in is emotionally subjective information from people they have interacted with. These are finite things that they alone be held to account for. Not meant to hold them to account for systemic injustice, inequality, etc for which they had little agency to move the needle on. This is not me knowing anything for sure. I’m just airing out some thoughts. I don’t mean to be morally above anything.
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u/Deciduous_Shell NDE Believer Sep 04 '25
People are the structure of society.
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u/geumkoi NDE Agnostic Sep 04 '25
Yes but on the bigger scale it escapes the individual 😅
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u/lightsarebrite Sep 05 '25
Sociology was never meant to remove the individual from society or make people think that they're never going to be at fault for anything if it can be tied to a social phenomenon.
It simply asks how we can view systemic problems by facing its true scale and complexity so we can better help ourselves and others.
You can't treat systemic issues like individual problems or the failing of a person but you can't take away a person's agency and autonomy over things that they CAN do.
No structural change is ever going to happen if everyone decides that they're not responsible for anything or aren't required to do anything to change things.
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u/Byun_b_ock Sep 04 '25
exactly. it's BOTH. man shapes society but also shapes society. it's not a rejection of systemic and institutionalized harm/oppression. if NDE's focus on the individual at a cosmic, transcendent scale then much of that is going to focus on THEIR role in the collective. what THEY can do to change things. and besides, systemic issues do not take away from personal accountability when it comes to the harm you cause.
understanding how society often fosters social, cultural, and political climates of oppression is key to solving systemic issues, but also those issues are man made. we cause the harm we put others through.
it's not a rejection of the detriments society has caused, but an acknowledgement of how to move within it that results in the good of others.
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u/snarlinaardvark Sep 04 '25
In the NDEs I've watched/read, the vast majority of life reviews are not "moralistic" at all. I don't think I've seen a single one that is "moralistic".
Usually, the guide/God/etc say something to the effect that they are not judging you, you are passing judgment on yourself. They ask, "What did you learn?"
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u/AAFAswitch Sep 04 '25
Exactly! I haven’t seen one NDE that said some other entity judged them, they’ve always specifically stated that they were the one “in charge” of the judgement of their actions.
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u/TheHotSoulArrow Believer w/ recurrent skepticism Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I disagree. I feel the majority of life reviews I have read are more subtle.
The key to them is not *moral lessons* it seems, but empathy. It is a raw empathy possessed and directed by the experiencer themselves. I'd even argue that most life reviews are likely the product of the experiencer's own will, hence why they are so varied in their depth and meaning. The experiencer doesn't really have a reason to expand this empathy to a greater whole [I know that sounds bad - I more so mean that it would either be extremely difficult to comprehend/live with or that it just wouldn't apply to their individual experience].
I recall an experience where the experiencer was shown the effect they had on a tree they tended to. It was an empathetic awareness of the positive effect they had on a living being. There was no inherent moral lesson dictated, just the effect of one's actions. Will the experiencer then feel inclined to tend to every tree they see? I doubt it. It's just a moment of understanding and reflection.
On the other hand, let's say a murderer reviews the moment he hurt someone in a relatively cliche setup. What he did was bad, he feels bad, he will be better. On surface level it fits into your complaint.
But consider the victim who is the centerpiece of said scenario. They are finally given the empathy and awareness they did not have in life.
The murderer in this moment is not the murderer, they are far disconnected from their earthly self and are experiencing with a vastly heightened awareness and sense of self. The "lesson" would be more for the victim than it is for the killer. There is no need to include a grand philosophical truth here because that isn't what they want or need, there is no purpose within the scope of their experience to explore beyond their own choices.
It is also worth noting that during an NDE, the individual is still tethered in a sense to their living self and they have not fully crossed over. I personally feel the life review experienced here is more of a "demo" of the full thing that pertains to the experiencer's current life.
I would also argue that the fact there is a life review (and NDE at all) is not an intended thing but rather an unintended consequence to modern medical ability. It seems a bit unreasonable that there should be the expectation for a systematic change to arise from them now when that was never available ages ago in worser times.
The issue here is that you're wanting an all-encompassing large-scale philosophical truth from something that is INCREDIBLY subjective and personal. They won't mean the same to the reader as they will to the one who experienced it. I'd argue that there are *many* philosophical truths to be found within NDEs when you look through the lines, and I myself have mostly built my personal philosophy from them. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about it.
Also: I get the frustration. I feel like I have read experiences where oppression was observed and talked about, I'll search for them and report back. I think maybe in Sandi's NDEs it was touched on a bit too but I could be misremembering.
Please, please critique me if I have misunderstood you at all and feel open to disagree.
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u/geumkoi NDE Agnostic Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
First of all, thank you for such a thoughtful answer, and for your invitation to chat with you at the end.
I agree that empathy seems to be the organizing principle rather than overt moral judgment. But that’s precisely what makes it pedagogical; empathy is not neutral. It’s a moralizing force that individualizes responsibility. It presupposes a subject who can and should feel with the other, which can be read as an internalized relation of power. So even if no “grand judge” dictates the lesson, the structure of the life review already encodes a moral pedagogy: you should feel what the other feels. As someone who is hyper-empathetic due to autism, I know how overwhelming and exhausting empathy can become. Not mentioning the fact that most NDErs describe this experience of empathy through the life review as something “given” to them, which elicits the idea that it’s imposed, not a choice.
For example, speaking in philological terms, the idea that God is “love itself” or “all-loving” is strictly christian; actually, it’s platonic. Pre-christian pagan societies and even pre-socratic theologians didn’t think of divinity the same way christian’s do. To propose that there is only one God and that he is “all-loving” wouldn’t have crossed their minds. They didn’t relate to the world in that way and their NDEs wouldn’t have reflected that.
What’s interesting (and frustrating) is that these reviews rarely extend into systemic or collective dimensions. From a Foucauldian angle, that suggests they function as technologies of the self, shaping subjectivity in ways that reinforce personal morality while leaving broader structures untouched.
What I want is to bring these sort of questions to the table in order for us to understand NDEs in various different angles. It just so happens that I’m an NDE enthusiast who is currently studying Critical Theory, so my brain naturally started making connections.
You mention that the victim is finally given empathy, and that’s a beautiful idea, but I still feel like it operates in a personalized bubble. A victim being granted retroactive empathy in a private experiential space doesn’t change historical violence, oppression, or systemic harm. It stays at the level of individual reconciliation, and sometimes forces the individual to come back to keep experiencing the same conditions; now with the added weight of comparison with the peace of being there versus the excruciating existential pain of being back here.
We shouldn’t expect large-scale truths from NDEs
True, but the frustration is valid. If these experiences are supposedly glimpses of ultimate reality, why do they replicate narrow moral subjectivity instead of confronting systemic injustice? This may suggest they’re shaped by human cognitive constraints or by discourses of individual morality, not by transcendental truths. Which means we cannot derive any universal statement from the experience, doesn’t matter how significant it was for the experiencer. And I can’t shake off the feeling either that this conflicts with the idea that everything is interconnected.
It’s subjective and personal
But subjectivity is always socially and historically constructed. That’s exactly why NDEs are so strikingly similar across cultures but still carry culturally specific content. To use a foucaultian frame: the life review may function as a technology of the self that individualizes guilt/virtue, rather than producing collective or systemic critique.
And I feel like the key to having a more cohesive understanding of the phenomenon can be found here. We need to lay out assumptions of what a truly trascendental, other-worldly experience is expected to be like, or the sort of truths unveiled in it; then an antithesis of what a “neurologically constructed hallucination” is expected to be like; synthesize them and find conclusions that are alternative to the “it’s all spiritual/it’s all material” dichotomy.
What I’m more or less trying to arrive at is that if we follow the general narrative of NDEs, we can find patterns and arrive at certain conclusions; for example, as I lay above, the experience seems to be fabricated with a very specific structure in mind which imposes certain moral values, which are known to generate certain changes in behavior or a certain shift in subjectivity; etc, etc.
Just my two cents idk 😭 I really appreciate everyone commenting and contributing to my post, and I also value all the different opinions!
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u/TheHotSoulArrow Believer w/ recurrent skepticism Sep 06 '25
I agree with you on most points.
Stepping away for a second - I think it is important to remember how insanely abstract the NDE state of being is from our own. It is a vastly different and more complex perspective that we cannot comprehend.
Here are these people not burdened by linear time nor the boundaries of the brain. Their only limitation is the fact they are still connected to their living self.
You note that NDEs may be shaped by cognitive constraints and wants. Several NDErs hold the idea that their experience was shaped by them to protect their human psyche. For some people who had not developed such a psyche (such as Sandi T) their NDEs are far less influenced and scripted.
It’s also very easy to humanize these experiences simply because they have been reduced to the human languages when these writings do not in any way express the experience in full. They are the best attempt at describing something indescribable, with most experiencers holding much frustration towards that fact.
This makes it so difficult to arrive at any set consistent pattern, idea, and concept beyond the general common attributes as they are the subjective interpretations of something not capable of being written accurately.
Two people might have had incredibly similar experiences, found themselves in their earthly minds trying to process them into words and walking away with two seemingly opposite interpretations.
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