‘I understood that while hell might not be eternal, it can certainly feel like it.’ Photo: Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement
What the hell? Neil Crabtree finds a lesson in a near-death experience
‘I instinctively knew that this was what is understood by hell.’
Thirty years ago I walked off a mental heath unit, where I had been sectioned after a severe psychotic episode. It was evening, and I was wet and cold. I believed that I was the devil, and that everyone on the street knew that too. A quiet voice in my head urged me to kill myself. I was full of fear and terror, and I could stand it no longer. I threw myself in front of a speeding car.
Like many people, I have tried to do the right thing in life, but I have made mistakes. It was these failures that came to haunt me as I lay on a hospital ward in agony after my failed suicide attempt.
My ankle had snapped and, combined with other damage caused by the accident, I was in excruciating pain. I was barely conscious, but I managed to refuse medication because I believed that I was being punished for all the evil I had caused. At this point I felt dragged into a world of pitiless terror whose sole aim was my torture. In my mind it was real, with people I knew, some of whom I had hurt. They hated me, and sought only to cause me pain and terror. I believed I was in a dirty, tight-fitting tube, with little air, and this tube could be manipulated to crush parts of my body and induce a heart attack. When this happened there would be no help, just joy at my fear and agony.
There were other scenarios, too. The worst was being crouched naked at the centre of the earth, with nowhere to move. It was hot and I had to control my breathing. There was a small hole through which poked a wriggling spider. I had to stay still or I would attract its attention. But I couldn’t, and it slowly drilled a hole through my skull and into my brain, where it laid its eggs. From these emerged small spiders, each of which ate at my brain, creating a multitude of worlds dedicated to my suffering.
All of this, I believed, was being watched on computers all over the world, by people who could design their own torture for me.
When I came around after an operation on my ankle, the pain had gone, and so had the hellish chamber. As I lay there I recognised that it had happened in my mind, but I instinctively knew that this was what is understood by hell, and that it can be triggered by extreme pain, deep trauma, and a close proximity to death. My heart was close to exploding; if I had been left much longer I believe I would have suffered a cardiac arrest. I also understood that while hell might not be eternal, it can certainly feel like it.
It took me some time to get over the feeling that I was a bad person, and it was only the love of friends and family that assured me that I was a good bloke. But something else happened to put my experience into a wider context.
Five years later I was staying with my dad in the Highlands of Scotland. Suddenly he collapsed, and stopped breathing. I called an ambulance and tried resuscitation, but to no avail. It was quite a distance for the ambulance to come, along narrow and winding roads. When they arrived, the paramedics couldn’t get my dad going, and they asked me to call a doctor, which took more time. Then, somehow, they and the doctor managed to get my dad to breathe, and they rushed him down to the local hospital. He had suffered a massive cardiac arrest but, to cut a long story short, he lived.
The incident I want to talk about occurred three days later, in my dad’s hospital room. The family was there, and he was silent for a while until he quietly said that he had been with his mum and brother in law, both of whom were dead. My dad was well known for his common sense, so my mum quickly changed the subject to avoid him embarrassing himself. It was some months later when I was having a pint with him that he spoke again of his mum and brother in law, but also he described how he had been in the presence of a light that was pure love. He said that he wasn’t afraid of death.He lived for another ten years, and he didn’t talk to me again about what had happened.
After his death I started to read books on the near-death experience. These were typically written by medical personnel working on the front line of emergency care. At the core of these books are descriptions of most patients’ experiences as they hover between life and death. These include meeting loved ones, often dead, and a loving light which nearly all describe as being God. A surprising number of contributors refer to a non-threatening life review.
A small minority of people, however, describe something altogether different. This is referred to in the literature as the ‘inverted’ experience. It has not been widely researched, but there is a belief in the field that this inversion might sometimes be related to behaviour. And, to bring this back to my circumstances, those who have attempted suicide are over represented in this minority. I am not equating suicide with bad behaviour – although such experiences might have contributed to the belief among many religions that suicide is a sin. No, as one of my books suggested, it probably has more to do with the intense emotions such as terror, grief and rage that people in this position bring with them to the experience. Much as it did with me.
I think there may be a lesson here. There are people out there who have lived lives of much brutality and exploitation. As they near death, they may feel as if they have gotten away with their bad behaviour. Perhaps these experiences are of no concern to them, something that is ‘all in the head’. But there are people who have been in the same position who can assure them that the mind is capable of creating places where it is best not to be, especially when you are dying.
Perhaps Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement serves as a metaphor here. It features a damned soul, alone, one of the most soul-shaking pictures of despair in the history of art. The naked man has realised, too late, just what it means to be damned. His pose, with arms crossed and hand over one eye, conveys his state of mind as the demons drag him down (see image above).
Few sufferers believe that the near-death experience is proof of hell, of course. I am not saying that all people who experience hellish episodes are bad. They are not. In fact, one Friend told me of a woman who experienced both kinds of experience – the heavenly and its inversion – on two different occasions. So this aspect of the near-death experience is complex and under researched. But I believe, from my experience and the writings of others, that it will one day serve as a warning to people who are ruthlessly mistreating others. It might even be a tool in the hands of people who yearn for peace.
Comments
Please login to add a comment
