How to Reduce Suicides and Mass Shootings ASAP? Make Death’s Newfound Reality Go Viral (Revised)

Reducing tragic suicides and mass shootings is a significant benefit of a newly found reality about death. However, it will only accrue as knowledge of this reality becomes more widespread. So, the purpose of this article is to urgently help “get the word out.”

Here, I first briefly explain the newfound reality. Then, I elaborate on the related benefit by quoting text from the final chapter of my book, A Natural Afterlife Discovered: The Newfound, Psychological Reality That Awaits Us at Death. The book thoroughly explains this surprising, orthodox-shattering, scientifically based reality. It also tells how its discovery evolved, gives the evidence that supports it, and discusses its potential impact on religion and philosophy.

A hint of this reality can be gained by considering a common human experience, dreaming. When do you know a dream is over? Answer: only when you wake up. But suppose you never do. How will you ever know the dream is over? Answer: you never will.

The reality is expressed by the theory of a natural eternal consciousness (NEC), or NEC theory. It states that with death—unless we experience some supernatural afterlife—we are eternally and imperceptibly paused in the last conscious moment of our final experience—be it an awake one, a dream, or a near-death experience (NDE). From a material perspective, the experience will be over, but from a psychological one, i.e., from your perspective, it will not. You’ll never know your final experience is over. More so, you’ll forever be anticipating that it will continue. You’ll retain your sense of self, time, and place. Thus, a before-birth kind of nonexistence is impossible.

Now, suppose you’re having an NDE wherein you believe you’re in heaven, like many NDE survivors have reported. However, if you don’t survive, you will always believe you’re in heaven. Just as you’re not aware of the moment you fall asleep or pass out (for example, with general anesthesia), you will not be aware of the moment of death. So, no conscious moment occurs that can destroy your self-awareness of the experience, resultant emotions, and expectation of more heavenly moments. Your NDE has become your timeless natural afterlife , and it can be a heaven of ultimate happiness.

If you find the NEC theory hard to believe and want to investigate further, you’ll need to read the book. However, in the interest of “spreading the word” ASAP, I give this excerpt from Chapter 12, “Appreciating the Theory,” pages 196 to 198, along with the related references:

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The NEC is beneficial not only to the individual but also to society. I believe it’s good for society when one’s final fate at death—now, by default, the content of one’s NEC—remains a mystery. It may stop some from committing crimes and acts of violence. Hopefully, it may cause individuals planning to shoot up a classroom or other venue to pause and ponder what final conscious moment and karmic NEC could result from such action. One can no longer take comfort in believing, “Oh well, whatever I do in life doesn’t matter in the end because when I die, I’ll just cease to exist.” I believe that today too many have come to such belief by the misguided notion that it is scientifically supported when it is not.

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Prevention of Suicide and Mass Shootings. To close this last chapter, I emphasize two other significant individual and societal benefits of the NEC theory. First, the general knowledge and acceptance of the NEC, even its mere possibility, can result in fewer tragic suicides. The NEC theory gives much more meaning to Hamlet’s soliloquy. Because now, those contemplating suicide might, like Hamlet, pause to think, “aye,” but “in that sleep of death, what dreams may come.” (See Chapter 1 epigraph.)

Studies have shown that fear of death, especially in the non-religious, is associated with less tendency toward suicide. According to an article by Courtney Beard (2023), a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School, “in the scientific literature … less fear of death has been shown to predict suicidal behavior.” Also, a recent study of 155 adults by Beard and others found, “In line with current theories of suicide, higher fear of death predicted lower suicidal ideation, but only in non-religious patients.”

Given the NEC, suicide can no longer be fearlessly viewed as simply the means to escape from life into “nothingness” and rid oneself of self. When someone is in a distressed state of mind where such escape and riddance seem attractive to them, they will now realize that with suicide, they will never die from their perspective. In fact, they may be paused forever in the execution of their death or perhaps in some other experience even worse. I believe the NEC theory will likely cause many to reject suicide, thus sparing those who love them from much grief. Then, they will hopefully get the help they desperately need and go on to live a happy and meaningful life. And I hasten to add that a distraught suicide victim can still end life paused in a heavenly dream or NDE and thus a glorious natural afterlife.

Not only might the NEC theory result in fewer suicides, but also, as alluded to before, fewer mass shootings. Studies have shown that mass shooters have been overwhelmingly suicidal (Dunn 2019; Koerth 2022). As previously mentioned, even if not suicidal, potential mass shooters may question what final moment, and NEC, would be in store for them if they were killed in carrying out their horrific plan.

The beneficial impact of the NEC theory in preventing suicides and mass shootings will only accrue as more and more people become aware of it. To this end, I hope Shakespeare’s Hamlet continues to be commonly studied in high schools with new emphasis. (I distinctly remember having to memorize and recite Hamlet’s soliloquy, I think, in my first or second year.) The new emphasis would be that, indeed, “in that sleep of death, … dreams may come” (possibly, even nightmares and hellish NDEs).

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Beard, C. (2023, April 6). Religious identity may impact suicide risk – Religion, fear of death, and suicide: Untangling a complicated relationship. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/from-lab-to-real-world/202304/religious-identity-may-impact-suicide-risk

Dunn, L. (2019, August 11). How suicide prevention can help stop mass killers before they start shooting. NBC NEWS. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-suicide-prevention-may-help-stop-mass-killers-they-start-n1040836

Koerth, M. (2022, June 6). Suicide prevention could prevent mass shootings. FiveThirtyEight: abc NEWS. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/suicide-prevention-could-prevent-mass-shootings/

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