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Nancy Evans Bush, Reckoning: Discoveries after a Traumatic Near-Death Experience, Self-published, Chapter: MY NDE 1962, Nancy Evans Bush, Pages 33-39, 2021
7
Weak Evidence
8
Incompatible
nihilistic void, reality as illusion, absence of God, Yin-Yang symbols
This NDE presents significant theological challenges from a biblical perspective. The experience contains several standard NDE elements including an out-of-body experience, encounters with beings, and lasting effects. However, the content is profoundly unbiblical in its core message. The Yin-Yang circles (Eastern religious symbols) delivered a nihilistic message denying the reality of creation, human existence, and implicitly God Himself. This directly contradicts Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and the fundamental biblical teaching that creation is real and meaningful. The message that "you are not real" contradicts the biblical teaching that humans are created in God's image (Genesis 1:27) with eternal souls.
The experience of the void as ultimate reality with no divine presence contradicts biblical teachings about God's omnipresence (Psalm 139:7-8). The absence of God, Jesus, angels, or any redemptive elements, combined with the message that everything including loved ones and the world itself is "a joke" and illusion, stands in direct opposition to biblical cosmology. The experiencer initially interpreted this through Calvinist predestination, believing herself "one of the lost," but the experience itself contains no judgment scene, no moral evaluation, and no redemptive possibility - all essential biblical concepts. The use of Eastern religious symbolism (Yin-Yang) combined with the nihilistic message makes this experience incompatible with biblical Christianity, which affirms the reality of creation, the meaningfulness of human existence, and the loving presence of God.
Nancy Evans Bush experienced a distressing NDE during childbirth in July 1962 at age 28. She was in labor with her second child when emergency induction was required three weeks before the due date. Following standard practice, she was anesthetized for delivery.
The experience began with Nancy finding herself flying over the hospital building. She could see structures on the roof and recognized the classroom window where she taught. She observed the town receding below and the Hudson River hills, even noting Earth's curvature. She described hurtling into space "like an astronaut without a capsule" at puzzling speed, drifting yet covering enormous distances at an angle toward the northeast. The darkness transformed into a different kind of immensity - "thinner" and not opaque, with a pale brightness suggesting God's presence. Her movement slowed and six circles appeared, half black and half white, clicking as they moved toward her, alternating between white-to-black and black-to-white. These circles delivered a devastating telepathic message: "You are not real. You never were real. None of that life ever happened. This is all there is." Despite her intense arguments citing personal memories and facts she couldn't have invented, the circles insisted everything was "part of the joke" - that her mother, babies, all the books, and the entire world were never real. Following this encounter, Nancy found herself entirely alone in an experience of absolute void. She existed as a wisp of consciousness in twilight darkness with nothing to see - no objects, only vastness. She experienced overwhelming grief not just personal but universal - "Rocks mourning, and moose in the woods, and whales, and seasons. Everything. The Universe grieving for itself." She then awakened groggily in a hospital bed, initially interpreting the experience through the lens of Calvinist predestination, believing she was "one of the lost." The experience left her with lasting trauma and the terrible conviction that death would mean returning to that void. |