The beginning of the Dark Ages are usually dated to the deposition of the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 AD. It is widely held that following this event Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages by the combination of the Germanic invasions and the spread of Christianity. Many documentaries and books depict barbaric hordes of German Goths, Vandals and Other tribes descending on the Roman provinces in the 400 and 500’s AD and destroying the high culture of the Mediterranean Basin. This disaster was supposedly supplemented by the spread of a backward, superstition ridden Christianity. Early Christians are usually depicted as not only backward and superstitious but also devoted to ignorant, anti-intellectual blind faith and according to this received version of history the combination of these two cultural calamities plunged Europe into ten centuries of chaos which destroyed classical learning and economic prosperity.

This is the anti-Christian picture that was popularized by Edward Gibbon in 1776 with his publication of the very widely read “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It was a theme picked up by many who followed and is still prominent today.

If you believe this scenario you should definitely read “Mohammed and Charlemagne” by Henri Pirenne, after you read this book you will realize that the above is an extremely inaccurate picture of what actually happened.

Pirenne was a leading medieval scholar of the early Twentieth Century. He published “Mohammed and Charlemagne” in 1937 long before the current chaos in the Middle East. His ideas were widely accepted among the academics of his time but unfortunately have been largely forgotten or ignored of late. The basic argument of the book is simple; the Fall of the Roman Empire is normally dated to 476 AD when the last Western Roman Emperor was deposed by the Odoacer the leader of Germanic Foederati. In the aftermath of this action German Tribes moved into Italy and other Roman provinces and established a series of Gothic Kingdoms.

The current view is that Europe then plunged directly into the Dark Ages. However when Pirenne examined everyday life inside the provinces of the former Roman Empire following the Germanic invasions he found that little changed. The aqueducts and sanitation systems continued to work, the schools remained open, taxes were collected, the road system was maintained, foreign trade was abundant, money was coined and the standard of living remained high. His detailed examination of the period’s records shows very clearly that life continued virtually unchanged for the next 250 years.

This is no surprise, as it must be remembered that the German invaders had no desire to destroy the Roman Empire, their objective was to live in it and enjoy the fruits of its higher standard of living. While the Germans did initially engage in taking of booty and pillage they nevertheless soon settled down and adopted the Roman way of life. They adopted Roman agricultural practices, Roman law, Christianity and in most areas Romance languages.

The Coming of the Dark Ages

However when we get to the early 700’s AD life begins to change drastically: coinage disappears, artisans are forced to give up their trades and go back to living on the land, books disappear, schools close, the roads and aqueducts and other infrastructure are no longer maintained and the standard of living throughout the Roman world begins to decline sharply.

What happened? The answer is quite simple. This was when the Islamic armies began their war against the West. Starting in the late 600’s AD these armies invaded Egypt, North Africa and the old Fertile Crescent area. With them they not only brought Islam they also brought practices, which resulted in economic catastrophe for the entire region from which it has never recovered even to this day.

Roman, Egyptian and Persian agricultural practices were destroyed in most of the conquered territories. As a result food production plummeted and ancient agribusiness was replaced by subsistence farming. Cities were abandoned as their inhabitants were forced back on to the land in order to avoid starvation. The Fertile Crescent area of Iraq and Iran suffered particularly harshly as the loss of the old technology, especially well planned irrigation works, resulted in the use of crude methods of irrigation, which led to the contamination of the Tigris – Euphrates Basin through salt percolation and turned it into the barren desert seen today.

The other economic killer was the Islamic destruction of the old overland trading system. In the ancient world there had been large scale foreign trade extending from China to Britain. The Islamic refusal to deal with the “Infidels” led to the decline of this trade and the destruction of the second most important component of the ancient economy: trade with India, China, Persia, Egypt and the other advanced economic centers of the ancient world. This trade did not recover until the Age of Exploration when Europeans discovered how to sail around the Islamic barrier to foreign trade.

Why is this Important?

The Dark Ages were an enormous setback for European civilization. Today most of the world believes that Christianity shares a great deal of the blame for causing this disaster, even going so far as to compare it unfavorably in a revisionist version of history which depicts Islam as the savior of ancient western knowledge.

This revisionist version of history is far from the truth, if you doubt it I challenge you to read “Mohammed and Charlemagne.”

During clinical death 80% of the blind report being able to see. That is correct; your eyes are not deceiving you. This holds true even for people who are born blind and have never experienced vision. This is the stunning finding of research done by Dr. Kenneth Ring, Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and his co-researcher Sharon Cooper. Dr. Ring co-founder of the International Association for Near Death Studies has been researching near death experiences (NDE) for over 20 years and is a well-known author in the field.

NDE has become the acronym for that set of phenomena that people all over the world report during periods of clinical death. By now many people have heard about these phenomena that occur when people die and are resuscitated. During the period when they are considered dead about one third undergo an NDE. The NDE’s usually have several common elements. These include the experience of leaving one’s body and viewing oneself, the people and environment in the immediate surroundings. Many also report traveling through a tunnel and coming out on the other end in the presence of a Being of Light, frequently identified as Jesus Christ. They often report going through a review of their lives. The most important impression that these people are left with is a feeling of intense, total love that they experience from the Being of Light. Those who experience an NDE almost universally report not wanting to leave this love to return to Earth. Most people who undergo an NDE report that the experience transforms their lives and leaves them more focused on the truly important things such as loving and serving others and appreciating what they have, especially their families.

Interestingly, when the blind have NDE’s they report exactly the same phenomena. They see both this world and the next. When people who are born blind recover their sight through a natural process, such as a medical procedure, they report an initial period of disorientation because it takes their minds sometime to learn how to interpret the new visual input. This is exactly what the blind report during an NDE. Those who were blind from birth report having difficulty relating to what they are seeing, whereas those who lost sight later in life immediately recognize the return of vision.

This research is reported among other sources in the Summer 1997 issue of “The Anomalist”. Given the rather amazing result the authors try to come up with a naturalistic explanation for this phenomenon. They are able to eliminate certain explanations such as fantasy by independently verifying details through corroborating evidence. For example those who died in surgery were asked to describe the surgery room, the hospital and other environmental factors, which a blind person could not know, were there. This sometimes included such observations as relatives in the waiting room that they had no way of knowing were there at the time. Dr. Ring and his co-researcher Sharon Cooper were also able to eliminate a host of other natural explanations for why the blind can see at death, such as dream based explanations, sensory-cueing, skin based sight and a host of others.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Ring and Cooper searched thoroughly for a naturalistic explanation for their findings. This is not surprising because they are scientists and scientists in most cases argue that the proper focus of science is the realm of the natural. Many and possibly most scientists would argue further that there is no supernatural realm. However, it is not clear what the conclusion of Ring and Cooper is in this case. Their determination as to what is the cause of sight in the blind near death seems to be somewhat muddled. This is not surprising because of the clearly supernatural implications of this research.

How can the blind possibly see at death? They were blind before and they are blind after the NDE, yet during the death period some can describe what only a sighted person can perceive. They cannot see these things with their eyes, so how do the blind transcend their blindness near death?

The answer is obvious but hard to swallow for many. This is clear evidence for the existence of a transcendental part of the human being. It points to the existence of a Soul or Spirit. Vision can be impaired in the physical body with blindness resulting, but when the Soul is separated from the body this impediment is removed because the Soul does not depend on the physical body for vision. Therefore during death sight is possible but leaves again upon resuscitation.