Life Reviews: What if They’re Real?

When I was doing research on near-death experiences for my most recent novel (RETURN TICKET), many self-reporting experiencers described undergoing a supervised life review when they arrived on the Other Side—a sort of film loop of all they had done on earth, both good and not-so-good. They said the guides didn’t make the review punitive or accusative but instructive—offering insights to inform the possibilities for attaining higher vibrations if they returned to life. The hard part was they were made to feel all the emotions they had caused in others throughout their living—a painful ordeal when they had been selfish or cruel as a go-to choice. The point was to realize the impact each of us has on everyone we meet and how we might have used the same time to become better people. Wow. What if life reviews are real? What if you had been Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler? Can you imagine what it would be like to be deluged with the emotions that would penetrate your sense of self—terror, grief, or revulsion, for example? I’d guess that would be a hellish punishment you’d bring on yourself.

I don’t resent the hateful actions of autocrats who think they’re superior and thus not accountable when I imagine life reviews. I wouldn’t envy them their experience. No amount of money or earthly power would balm the pain. No accomplishment would mitigate the horror. You’d feel the hungry children weeping and women crying out for help as they die from pregnancy gone awry and old people eating the last of their cat food in despair because there’s nothing else left. You’d know the panic of war veterans living their PTSD over and over again without help. You’d experience the loss and despair of war.

And what about religious or other leaders who stack their money in piles as parishioners/followers pay for salvation and submit to moral humiliation? How would those they misled react to the betrayal once they’d recognize its identity?

What we here in the old United States are suffering as we watch values being compromised in our names is nothing next to life reviews. Those who’ve bullied their way into this new reality may discover they didn’t do themselves any favors. But maybe life reviews don’t happen.

We’ll have a chance to find out.