Near-Death Experiences and Agonal States: Insights from Tommaso Palamidessi's Christian Book of the Dead

It was the evening of January 28, 1946. Several friends were present, and since I felt disposed to splitting, I lay down on an armchair. Shortly after, I experienced the usual symptoms of exteriorization, and I left my body in the presence of my father's corpse. He was at a certain height from his body, still tenuously connected to it by a weakly luminous cord of gray-violet color. It looked like silk, cotton candy, silkworm thread. All around there was a glacial landscape, whitish with gray trees as if petrified. Then I saw my father go away slowly like a balloon with a roughly human shape. In his head I noticed a yellow-white glow, like a small flame, and in the rest of the ghost there was much gray with longitudinal pink streaks. He rose toward a mountain, always slowly. I called him, I urged him not to sleep, to look at the Light of the Lord. In vain I waited for a change in brightness, a change in color of his aura. He had already entered unconsciousness and could not perceive me. I insisted, and it seemed to me that I saw the luminosity of his head more intense. Then I lost him in the mist of that mysterious world that hungrily swallows the deceased. This happened in Turin, at via San Francesco da Paola 10, 3rd floor, when the author was 31 years old. These episodes have been narrated with some reticence, and we do not claim they should be believed. According to our practice, we can guarantee they are true, because they are part of a whole long series of experiences also made under the control of other experimenters. Believing, not believing, reasoning about it serves no purpose. The man of science wants to touch with his own hands, see with his eyes, measure, catalog. Well, forget the cases we have told you, and try to train without tiring or becoming demoralized at the first failures. Persist until you succeed, and when you succeed, you will know if we have told the truth. From these few pages one can see the practical and experimental approach of the subject who for the next 35 years of his life dedicated himself to the study of states and post-mortem conditions, which he definitively synthesized in this writing titled "The Christian Book of the Dead." This book is very interesting because it describes the result of a thirty-year study on death, made by an individual who from childhood has had certain propensities for parapsychological phenomena and phenomena of higher clairvoyance and who therefore has had more phenomena of this type and thus more opportunities for investigation. But not only, Tommaso Palamidessi also wanted to synthesize his results in the form of a BREVIARY so that it could be of help to the dying person. In fact, according to Tommaso Palamidessi's experience, the dying pass through some fundamental stages in the agonal phase and immediately after death in the subsequent 3, 7 and 49 days which are fundamental for the future destiny of the soul. This is coherent with all Eastern and Western traditions that prescribe funeral rites to help the journey of the dying person in the afterlife, but particularly with the Western and Eastern Christian Catholic tradition that prescribes a series of masses and funeral rites immediately after death and in the subsequent 40 days. Let us try to see very synthetically some of these passages that the dying person must go through to understand some important aspects and some possibilities of salvation. AGONAL STATE First of all, the dying person's struggle begins in the state called agonal. The agonal moment is not only a moment of physical struggle, but is also a moment of psychic struggle in which demonic temptations alternate with angelic inspirations. These temptations and inspirations are not only present at the moment of death, they are in every day of life if one studies them, but at the moment of death they are not only stronger and more imposing because of the individual's receptivity in this delicate moment, but are also difficultly moderatable because the individual finds himself forced to face them without being able to postpone to another moment. In a certain way all doubts or temptations of one's own, but at the same time also of all others come to the surface at the moment of death. Those who have had the opportunity to assist dying people may happen to have seen these temptations and inspirations acting, sometimes even in contrast with the ordinary character of the dying person. Temptation of the DEMON AGAINST FAITH: essentially suggests having lived in vain, not having lived life better or anyway tries to instill the temptation of doubt. Inspiration of the good ANGEL OF FAITH: act of faith. reconfirm your Creed in the Father, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Temptation of the DEMON OF DESPAIR: presents past and forgotten sins to make him despair of salvation. Inspiration of the ANGEL OF HOPE: repentance and trust in divine mercy. Conversion of heart and sacrifice of Christ. God is Love. Temptation of the DEMON OF IMPATIENCE: no one cares about you, insensitivity toward others' sacrifice, inability to accept pains and sufferings of death. Inspiration of the good ANGEL OF PATIENCE: strength in bearing sadness and dejection and pains of death. Temptation of the DEMON OF VAINGLORY: presuming to be better than others and deserving salvation and recognition. Inspiration of the good ANGEL OF HUMILITY: faith hope and salvation are a free gift from God and not personal merit. Temptation of the DEMON OF AVARICE: squandering of one's possessions by others, attachment to earthly things. Inspiration of the ANGEL OF DETACHMENT: love toward God and not toward earthly things. Temptation of the DEMON OF SLEEP: suggestions to sleep, rest, lose consciousness and not pray. Inspirations of the good ANGEL OF PERPETUAL VIGIL: Watch so as not to sleep.