Many people report apparitions of their loved ones after death, and even of loved dogs and cats. But how do these after-death communications align with the Christian teaching of the resurrection of the body?
In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore the evidence for the post-mortem appearances of humans and non-humans, and ask how it fits with the accounts of Jesus’s resurrection in the Bible.
The appearance of Jesus to the disciples and others is often taken as evidence of a physical revival of Jesus after his crucifixion but a subtler, arguably more compelling interpretation is that after-death communications are relatively common – which is the experience the disciples had. Then, the resurrection of Jesus shows something about the nature of the spiritual body, as Saint Paul calls the body that awaits us.
But what to make of the empty tomb that had contained the body of Jesus and the variety of activities Jesus reportedly engaged in after his resurrection, and what this might mean for existence after death and the presence of other worlds that are also here and now?
For more dialogues between Rupert and myself, click here.