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The afterlife is a shared delusion…created to make our actual life bearable.
Einstein had famously declared: Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.
he always reminded them that Nostradamus wrote “Copiously, Cryptically, and Commonly.” That was to say, the prophet wrote a copious collection of 942 separate poems, using cryptic and ambiguous language, and predicted commonplace events like wars, natural disasters, and power struggles.
Langdon explained that eagerness to find personal truth in general statements was known as the Barnum effect—so named for the sideshow “personality tests” that P. T. Barnum had employed to fool so many circusgoers into believing he had psychic powers.
Most citizens prefer to be monitored…than to be blown up by terrorists.
She folded the coat and set it like an offering at the base of the statue of St. Augustine, a common site at which to leave donations for the homeless or those in need.
she believes out-of-body experiences are strong evidence that consciousness resides outside the brain and therefore can survive death.
There is a reason, Langdon often reminded his students, that mirages of oases are seen only by thirsty travelers in the desert—and never by college students walking on the quad. We see what we want to see.
Religions had learned long ago that a human mind facing the terrifying prospect of eternal nothingness would believe almost anything. Timor mortis est pater religionis, Langdon mused, recalling the ancient saying made famous by Upton Sinclair. Fear of death is the father of religion. Sure enough, every world religion had produced copious writings suggesting an afterlife—the
“How do you take your tea?” With coffee, he wanted to say.
Miracles and mystery had always been catalysts for hope—“reality softeners,” as Langdon sometimes called them.
“Halos are entirely misunderstood,” she had said. “They have always been imagined as radiant streams of light encircling the head and depicting energy flowing out of an enlightened mind. But I believe we are interpreting halos in reverse. Those rays represent beams of consciousness…flowing in…not out. To say someone has an ‘enlightened mind’ is simply another way of saying they have a ‘better receiver.’ ”
In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit flowed into the apostles and gave them the instantaneous power to speak in multiple languages so they could preach the gospel. Sudden savant syndrome?
When Christianity adopted the symbol of the halo, the rays were gradually removed in favor of a simple disk hovering over one’s head.
“Throughout the dying process,” Katherine continued, “I saw rapidly rising levels of key neurotransmitters—including adrenaline and endorphins, which function to subdue pain and help the physical body through the stress of the death process. In other words, a shutdown of the sensory systems.
“What’s more,” she continued, “in the sixty seconds before the patient’s heart stopped, his brain flooded with high-frequency oscillations that included gamma waves! These are associated with intense memory retrieval, and his levels were off the chart.” “So he was…remembering something?” “No, at these levels, he was remembering everything.
If we know our individual consciousness comes from outside our brain—as so much noetic research now shows—then to my ear, it sounds like consciousness simply abandons the physical realm at the moment of death…and reintegrates back into the whole. You no longer need your body to receive the signal…you are the signal.”
“U.S. intelligence budgets have been slashed in recent years, and the CIA functions under an oath to defend the nation from all enemies—including the shortsightedness of our own Pollyanna politicians—and so the agency feels morally empowered, if not obligated, to find outside funding to facilitate important CIA programs that otherwise could not exist.”
“I have no idea where that decision came from…but does it really matter? Isn’t the illusion of free will enough?”
prolonged exposure to hyperrealistic first-person shooter games had been shown not only to shape people’s sensitivity to the graphic subject matter—but to rewire the brain’s structure, muting normal empathic triggers.
In addition, there were two “air showers”—enclosed cubicles with high-velocity jets of filtered air to blow particles and contaminants off clothing and skin. Like the narthex of a cathedral, Langdon mused. A room to purify the unclean…before they enter the sanctuary.
or Anima Mundi—or whatever you want to call the field of consciousness that is theorized to surround all things.”
At some point…skepticism itself becomes irrational.
As a young student of comparative religion, Langdon had been amazed by the universality of the promise of reincarnation and life after death—the lone, unswerving assurance offered by every single religious tradition that had survived the test of time.
The only religions that survived were those offering a solution to humankind’s greatest fear.
“Fear makes us selfish,” Katherine said. “The more we fear death, the more we cling to ourselves, our belongings, our safe spaces…to that which is familiar. We exhibit increased nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance. We flout authority, ignore social mores, steal from others to provide for ourselves, and become more materialistic. We even abandon our feelings of environmental responsibility because we sense the planet is a lost cause and we’re all doomed anyway.”
Unfortunately, it becomes a hall of mirrors. The worse things get, the worse we behave. And the worse we behave, the worse things get.”
The most important point in the research, however, shows that those who do not fear death, for whatever reason, tend to exhibit behavior that is more benevolent, accepting of others, cooperative, and caring about the environment.
‘The elimination of the fear of death transforms the individual’s way of being in the world.’
“Robert, when you see someone glued to a phone, you see a person ignoring this world—rather than a person engrossed in another world…a world that, like this one, is made up of communities, friends, beauty, horror, love, conflict, right and wrong. It’s all there. The online world is not so different from our world…except for one stark difference.” Katherine smiled. “It’s nonlocal.”
I’ve come to believe that our current technological explosion is actually part of a spiritual evolution…a kind of training ground for the existence that, in the end, is our ultimate destiny…a consciousness, untethered from the physical world, and yet connected to all things.”
