Carol Zaleski's 1996 book The Life of the World to Come discusses near-death experiences in the light of Catholic traditions and doctrine. Originally delivered as three lectures, the book is a brief but interesting meditation, though I felt Zaleski was too quick to discount other types of evidence for life after death, such as mediumship (perhaps because mediumistic accounts are less easily reconciled with standard Christian teachings).
In the third and last part of the book, Zaleski spends a few pages on the "life review" reported by many NDErs. As in her earlier book Otherworld Journeys, she is interested in tracing reports of NDEs through history.
First she gives an anecdote from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, published in 1822 by Thomas De Quincey:
I was once told by a near relative of mine that, having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death but for the assistance which reached her at the last critical moment, she saw in a moment her whole life, clothed in its forgotten incidents, arrayed before her as in a mirror, not successively, but simultaneously; and she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the whole and every part.
Next she includes a passage from Euthanasia or Medical Treatment in the Aid of Easy Dying (1887), by Dr. William Munk. The passage involves a certain Admiral Beaufort of the British Navy, who nearly drowned when he was a young boy. Zaleski writes, "As soon as Beaufort stopped struggling, a feeling of contentment swept over him; his mind became calm but at the same time alert and invigorated, and he found himself reviewing his life in reverse chronological order."
Then she quotes Beaufort's account as given in Munk's book:
… the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause or its consequences; indeed, many trifling events which had been long forgotten, then crowded into my imagination, and with the character of recent familiarity.
She also includes a report given by Albert Heim, a mountain climber who survived a fall and later went on to interview other climbers who'd had the same experience. He found that they, like him, had "felt calm, lucid, even joyful as they rushed headlong toward [apparent] death," in Zaleski's words.
Part of Heim's 1892 account is given:
I saw my whole past life take place in many images, as though on a stage at some distance from me. I saw myself as the chief character in the performance. Everything was transfigured as though by a heavenly light and everything was beautiful without grief, without anxiety, and without pain.
… I acted out my life, as though I were an actor on a stage upon which I looked down from practically the highest gallery in the theatre. Both hero and onlooker, I was as though doubled.
Zaleski notes:
Among the common features are the sense of the self as a spectator, the attitude of serene detachment, the comprehensiveness and simultaneity of the visual replay of memories, and the implication that the life review constitutes a final summation and judgment of one's character and history.
I would also note the apparent vividness of the experience, in which "forgotten incidents" are not only recalled but seen distinctly "as in a mirror" and "with the character of recent familiarity," and may be bathed in "a heavenly light."
From here, Zaleski takes a look at older accounts. She writes:
The third-century apocalypse known to the West as the Visio Pauli depicts the soul's exit from the body as a critical moment in which the entire history of one's actions and intentions is displayed in visible form: first, as a written record of deeds and then as a confrontation with the souls whom one has injured in life….
Similarly, in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, those who die and return report seeing their good and evil works made manifest in the form of symbolic buildings, personifications, and dramatic encounters. Gregory interprets the other world entirely as a symbolic landscape, in which the visionary confronts his own soul and thus brings judgment upon himself.
To wrap up this section, Zaleski quotes from a contemporary account of an NDE, specifically P.M.H. Atwater's narrative in her book I Died Three Times in 1977:
And into this great peace that I had become in there came the life of Phyllis parading past my view… The reliving it included not only the deeds committed by Phyllis since her birth in 1937 in Twin Falls, Idaho, but also a reliving of every thought ever thought and every word ever spoken PLUS the effect of every thought, word and deed upon everyone and anyone who had ever come within her sphere of influence whether she actually knew them or not PLUS the effect of her every thought, word and deed upon the weather, the soil, plants and animals, the water, everything else… I never before realized that we were responsible and accountable for EVERY SINGLE THING WE DID. That was overwhelming!
It was me judging me, not some heavenly St. Peter. And my judgment was critical and stern. I was not satisfied with many, many things Phyllis had done, said or thought. There was a feeling of sadness and failure, yet a growing feeling of joy when the realization came that Phyllis had always done SOMETHING…. She tried. Much of what she did was constructive and positive. She learned and grew in her learning. This was satisfying. Phyllis was okay.
Personally, I don't think I want to be held responsible for the weather!
Zaleski feels that a change has taken place from the more ancient NDEs to contemporary ones. The modern life review, she thinks, is "from start to finish a therapeutic exercise" in which "there is no sense of being judged by an external author; the emphasis is on self-evaluation, learning, and growth." She seems a bit uncomfortable with this development, possibly because Christian doctrine emphasizes that it is God who will judge.
I'm not sure I see much of progression in the accounts she cites, however. For instance, her description of the NDE in Gregory's Dialogues indicates that "the visionary confronts his own soul and thus brings judgment on himself." This sounds almost exactly like P.M.H. Atwater's supposedly more "therapeutic" experience. Conversely, some contemporary NDEs indicate that the judging is done by a "being of light" who oversees the life review. It seems to me that the accounts, past and present, are generally consistent in saying that the review is initiated by a higher power but that the experiencer must ultimately accept responsibility for his life. As to who exactly does the judging, Kenneth Ring has suggested that the "being of light" may be an externalization of the person's higher self; if this is true, then one is actually judging oneself, whether directly or indirectly.
From my perspective, the most intriguing aspect of these accounts is the interconnectedness of people and things. Beaufort reflected on his every act — "its cause or its consequences" — thus placing each act into a wider perspective, a chain of causality. The Visio Pauli suggests that one must confront "the souls whom one has injured in life." Atwater relived "the effect of every thought, word, and deed upon everyone and anyone who had ever come within her sphere of influence whether she actually knew them or not."
The life review seems to teach us that we are strands in a vast tapestry, or ripples in a wide pond, and that everything is connected to everything else. Our isolation, our separateness, is thus an illusion, albeit a persistent one.
Albert Einstein thought so:
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.