2012-04-11      Ching Ming & Easter

Last Wednesday was the Ching Ming Festival.
Last Sunday was Easter Sunday.
The two days have a common theme: the "afterlife", the life after this life.

In recent decades many books and media programs have been dedicated
to what are called "near death experiences" or "life after death experiences".

These experiences happen when people actually die for a short time (usually between 30 minutes and a few hours) and then come back to life.  Some people are in hospital having an operation when they "die", others are involved in various sorts of accidents when they experience a temporary death.

When such people come back to life, they describe what happened and where they went.
For most of them, around 85%, the experience is a pleasant one: they met up with deceased relatives and friends, and
saw a most beautiful place ("heaven").
For the other 15%, the experience is not so happy. They saw a most unpleasant place ("hell")

No matter what part of the world people come from, no matter what religion or creed they follow,
they all have the same basic types of experiences

Three recent books on this topic are "90 Minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper (has sold more than 2 million copies), "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo (4 million copies), and "Evidence of the Afterlife" by Dr Jeffrey Long. I've read all three books. They are a good read at this time of Ching Ming and Easter!