By Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.

"Grown men may learn from little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss." -- Black Elk, Native American Spiritual Leader

Liberation Psychology studies child development to explore the unity of mind and nature exhibited in children's play, art, predeath visions, and near death experiences. The imagination is a way of accessing the sacred unconscious. It has been described in mythology, poetry and mystical writings as that dimension of consciousness in which a person knows they belong to a great stream of life and that within the flux of life there is some continuity. The lure of God calls us through the sacred unconscious by spontaneous ideas, dreams, rituals, meditation and experiences that some great mystics refer to as the I-Thou experience that lifts us into a feeling of elation and increased self-esteem. These are spontaneous moments of freedom and liberation or breakthroughs of creativity.

Death is tragic. The beauty and majesty of life are meaningless and insignificant in the face of death. How can there be a God when I lose my child at three years of age to cancer? Liberation Psychology faces the issue of the power of death's finality by looking for evidence in the space-time-matter dimensions of life to see if there may be life after death.

Predeath Visions

Predeath visions are transforming mystical experiences that witness to the presence of something beyond the limits of the space-time-matter dimensions of life. The breakthrough of a sacred life after life experience hallows the present time and creates a tranquil serenity that can make a drab hospital room feel like sacred space-a space where a dying child can feel safe, secure and respected.

Children's predeath experiences spiritually transform the worst nightmare of a parent's life-watching their child die. After a predeath experience the child accepts the inevitability of death and wishes for the parents to let go and let her move on. The predeath vision takes away the abandonment fear from the dying child and reassures her that she is not doing something bad by leaving her parents. She can die in peace, feeling like she is going on to a life without pain and full of beauty. The parents can be present in full unconditional love for the dying child with the feeling that their child will be safe after death.

A little boy I worked with had a predeath dream of the afterlife in which he had seen Jesus. He said, "Jesus looked so beautiful and full of light. He made me feel like death is better then what I am experiencing with my cancer." The boy wanted me to help his parents to let go of him so that he could go see Jesus. During our first sessions together I had felt real sorrow and sadness from him. After the predeath dream, however, it was as if he had had a profound conversion. He became a brave six-year-old boy, wanting me to help his parents to not be mad at him or disappointed in him for leaving them. I remember crying after this boy left his session because his courage made me confront the anxiety surrounding my own death issues. With his permission I told the family members about his predeath dream in a family therapy session. It brought a lot of sorrow and pain to the surface so that they could all work on the dying process as a family. The family members felt less isolated and they were able to spend the last six months of their son's life in love and full acceptance of him and his death. The child's conversion experience through the predeath dream became a family conversion experience that transformed and changed all the family members. They felt more zest for life and they felt that life was a call to help and care for other people who have a child with a fatal illness.

Near-death Experience (NDE)

Studies on the near-death experiences of children can give us a feeling of hope. The stories of children's NDEs include the following themes: a sense of being dead, being out of one's body, traveling through a tunnel, experiencing people of light, meeting a Being of light, feeling a reluctance to return and experiencing a permanent personality transformation that influences the child throughout their lifespan. Children have more experiences of the light than do adults who experience NDEs and have no reported experiences of a review of their life.

A Sense of Being Dead: Children report feeling that they are no longer burdened with the trials of their life and that they are somehow more their true selves. Teenagers have reported this as a release from pressure to conform to their peers.

Out-of-Body Experience (OBE): Children who report being out of their body often describe in detail who was in the room with them and what each person was doing. They may recall details of the room and of the life support machines that were brought into the room. They describe the technical details of medical procedures and they report seeing their parents in another room crying. They can also describe what the doctors said to their parents or to other hospital workers who were outside of the room and beyond earshot.

Tunnel Experience: Children report a tunnel or void experience in which they are pulled through a dark space or sucked through a tunnel at a rapid pace. They see a light at the end of the tunnel or void that seems to be growing larger and more intense.

People of Light: at the end of the tunnel or void deceased ancestors who seem lit up inside with light greet the child. They can be strangers or ancestors that the child doesn't recognize. They tell the child that they are there to love them and to help them. The people and the whole area seem to be full of light.

Being of Light: A Being of light is encountered that children refer to in different ways according to their culture. For example, the Being can be described as Jesus or as Grandfather. A universal common human experience of a Being of light is described differently by each culture and also in terms of the unique individual child's experience.

Reluctance to Return: Children are instructed to return because the world is in need of the unique personality and potential contributions of the child that will somehow be of service to human life. These children usually mature into adulthood and make special contributions to an area of knowledge that they chose to pursue after the NDE.

Personality Transformation: These children seem to have more of a zest for life and they are driven to gain knowledge. They often develop a strong intuition and even psychic abilities. Children who have come close to the light in a NDE find that life is meant to be a place to develop love and knowledge in the service of helping other human beings to live a fuller life. The experience of the light is what transforms the personality. Those children who report NDEs without the experience of light do not have permanent personality changes.

Modern brain research shows us that all the NDE elements, except for experiencing the light, can be initiated by stimulation of areas of the brain located in the right temporal lobe, the part of the brain located just above the ear. This has led some brain researchers and NDE researchers to call the temporal lobes the "Seat of the Soul." This neurological research proves that our brains are programmed to receive the experience of the light in NDEs and mystical experiences. This may be the Light of the Universe finding a unity within the brain of the child who experiences the near-death experience.

While working in African-American and American-Indian cultures I was confronted by several deaths and NDEs in my practice. One Indian girl reported to me a NDE when she went over an embankment and was thrown from a car. As she realized the car was going over the embankment she left her body and watched herself being thrown from the car and landing on the rocks. This accident happened in a national park at the height of the tourist season and she saw many people come to her aide. She saw one man give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She had a real sense that she was dead. She felt relieved of her life's burdens and felt that she no longer had to conform to her friends. She knew she was truly free and was being her real self. She felt like she was being pulled through a dark cave at a rapid pace and she could feel the wings of an eagle flying with her and helping her through the cave. She saw flashes of light spark like in a yuwipi ceremony so she did not feel afraid. Then she came to the end of the cave and she met her grandfather who had gone before her. He was enveloped in a beautiful white light. The light was seen as familiar and beautiful and she didn't want to leave her grandfather. He showed her children that had not been born yet who were her own future children. Grandfather told her that for the good of her tribe and her family she had to return. Then she felt a thud and she woke up back in her body.

After this experience she was transformed. She felt closer with and had more love for her friends but she had no use for drugs or alcohol after seeing Grandfather. She came to tell me this experience because she knew I was interested in American Indian spiritual experiences. She hoped that it might assist me in helping her People because they deal with so much death. After this experience she had more faith in her spiritual ceremonies and dances. She felt like she had a calling to a life of service for her People.

Predeath experiences and near-death experiences, along with modern brain research, indicate that we need not have so much fear or anxiety surrounding the ending of life. Liberation Psychology is verifying again that the study of children and listening to the intelligence and love that is funneled to us through the sacred unconscious of the child makes us realize that we are inter-connected and inter-related with all reality. That is, as the American Indians say, "All My Relations."

References

Kelsey, M. (1979). Afterlife: The Other Side of Dying. New York: Paulist Press.

Morse, M. & Perry, P. (1990). Closer to the Light. New York: Ivy Books.

Morse, M. & Perry, P. (1992). Transformed by the Light. New York: Ivy Books.

Smith, H. (1992). Beyond the Post-Modern Mind. Wheaton, Ill: The Theosophical Publishing House.