Ghost Encounters, NDEs & Miracles Near Anshan

China is the birthplace of one of the world's oldest continuous medical traditions. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), with roots stretching back over 2,500 years, is based on concepts of qi (vital energy), yin-yang balance, and the five elements. The Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine), compiled around the 2nd century BCE, remains a foundational text. Hua Tuo (c. 140-208 CE) is celebrated as the first surgeon to use general anesthesia (mafeisan) during operations, and Li Shizhen's 16th-century Bencao Gangmu (Comperta of Materia Medica) catalogued over 1,800 medicinal substances. Acupuncture, herbal medicine, and practices like qigong and tai chi continue to be widely practiced alongside Western medicine.

Modern Chinese medicine achieved a landmark in 2015 when Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering artemisinin, an antimalarial compound derived from the traditional Chinese herb qinghao (sweet wormwood, Artemisia annua). This discovery, which has saved millions of lives, beautifully exemplifies the bridge between ancient herbal knowledge and modern pharmacology. China's healthcare system has undergone massive expansion, with institutions like Peking Union Medical College Hospital (founded 1921 by the Rockefeller Foundation) serving as centers of excellence. China also pioneered variolation — an early form of smallpox inoculation — centuries before Edward Jenner developed vaccination in England.

China's ghost traditions span over three millennia and are deeply embedded in the fabric of Chinese civilization, drawing from Confucian ancestor worship, Taoist cosmology, and Buddhist theology. The Chinese concept of gui (鬼) encompasses a vast taxonomy of spirits, from benevolent ancestral ghosts who protect their descendants to malevolent hungry ghosts (饿鬼, è guǐ) who were denied proper burial or mourning rites. The Hungry Ghost Festival (中元节, Zhōngyuán Jié), observed on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, is one of China's most important supernatural observances. During this period, the gates of the underworld are believed to open, releasing spirits to roam the earth. Families burn joss paper (representing money), paper houses, cars, and even paper smartphones as offerings to ensure their deceased relatives' comfort in the afterlife, while elaborate Taoist and Buddhist ceremonies are performed to appease wandering ghosts.

Perhaps China's most iconic supernatural figure is the jiangshi (僵尸), the "stiff corpse" or hopping vampire, a reanimated cadaver that moves by hopping with outstretched arms. Rooted in Qing Dynasty folklore, jiangshi were said to be created when a person died far from home and a Taoist priest would reanimate the body to "hop" it back for proper burial — a practice possibly inspired by the real tradition of transporting corpses over mountains using bamboo poles, which gave the appearance of hopping. Chinese ghost lore also features the nü gui (女鬼), a female ghost typically dressed in red who died unjustly and returns for vengeance, and the yuan gui (冤鬼), ghosts of those who died from injustice who haunt the living until their grievances are addressed.

The Chinese afterlife is conceived as a vast bureaucratic underworld called Diyu (地狱), presided over by Yanluo Wang (the King of Hell, adapted from the Hindu Yama) and staffed by judges who review the moral record of each soul. This underworld contains multiple courts and levels of punishment, reflecting the Confucian emphasis on moral accountability. The concept of ancestor worship — maintaining tablets, offering food and incense at household altars, and performing ceremonies during Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day) — remains one of Chinese civilization's most enduring practices, reflecting the belief that the dead continue to influence the fortunes of the living.

China's vast history contains numerous accounts of miraculous healings, many associated with Taoist immortals, Buddhist bodhisattvas, and folk deities. Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, is widely venerated as a healer, and temples dedicated to Guanyin — such as the Putuoshan temple complex in Zhejiang Province — maintain extensive records of attributed miraculous cures spanning centuries. In TCM, the concept of "miraculous" healing is often framed differently than in the West, with practitioners pointing to cases where correct qi alignment produced seemingly impossible recoveries. Modern Chinese hospitals have documented cases of spontaneous remission that combine elements of traditional practice and unexplained phenomena. The qigong movement of the 1980s and 1990s produced numerous claims of extraordinary healing abilities, some investigated by Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers, though many remained controversial.

Midwest medical missions near Anshan, Liaoning don't just serve foreign countries—they serve domestic food deserts, reservation communities, and small towns that lost their only physician years ago. These missions, staffed by volunteers who drive hours to spend a weekend providing free care, embody the Midwest's conviction that healthcare is a community responsibility, not a market commodity.

The Midwest's ethic of reciprocity near Anshan, Liaoning—the expectation that help given will be help returned—creates a healthcare safety net that operates entirely outside the formal system. When a farmer near Anshan pays for his neighbor's hip replacement with free corn for a year, he's participating in an informal economy of care that has sustained Midwest communities since the first homesteaders needed someone to help pull a stump.

The Midwest's tradition of grace before meals near Anshan, Liaoning extends into hospital dining rooms, where patients, families, and sometimes staff pause before eating to acknowledge that nourishment is a gift. This small ritual—easily dismissed as empty custom—creates a moment of mindfulness that improves digestion, reduces eating speed, and connects the patient to a community of faith that extends beyond the hospital walls.

The Midwest's tradition of saying grace over hospital meals near Anshan, Liaoning seems trivial until you consider its cumulative effect. Three times a day, a patient pauses to acknowledge gratitude, connection, and hope. Over a week-long hospital stay, that's twenty-one moments of spiritual centering—a dosing schedule more frequent than most medications. Grace is medicine administered at meal intervals.

Blizzard lore in the Midwest near Anshan, Liaoning includes accounts of physicians lost in whiteout conditions who were guided to patients by lights no living person held. These stories—consistent across decades and state lines—describe a luminous figure walking just ahead of the doctor through impossible snowdrifts, disappearing the moment the patient's door is reached. The Midwest's storms produce their own angels.

The Midwest's tornado shelters—often the basements of hospitals near Anshan, Liaoning—are settings for ghost stories that combine claustrophobia with the supernatural. During tornado warnings, staff and patients crowded into basement corridors have reported encountering people who weren't on the census—figures in outdated clothing who knew the building's layout perfectly and guided groups to the safest locations before disappearing when the all-clear sounded.

The "filter" or "transmission" model of consciousness, as applied to near-death experiences, provides a theoretical framework that can accommodate the NDE evidence within a broadly scientific worldview. Originally proposed by philosopher C.D. Broad and elaborated by researchers at the University of Virginia, the filter model holds that the brain does not generate consciousness but instead serves as a filter or reducing valve that limits the range of consciousness available to the organism. Under this model, the brain constrains consciousness to the specific type of experience useful for biological survival — sensory perception, spatial orientation, temporal sequencing — while filtering out a vast range of potential experience that is not biologically relevant. As the brain fails during the dying process, these filters may be loosened or removed, allowing a broader range of conscious experience to emerge. This would explain the heightened quality of NDE consciousness (often described as "more real than real"), the access to information beyond normal sensory range (veridical perception), the transcendence of temporal experience (the timeless quality of NDEs), and the persistence of consciousness during periods of brain inactivity. The filter model does not require postulating supernatural mechanisms; it simply proposes that the relationship between brain and consciousness is transmissive rather than generative. For Anshan readers who are interested in the theoretical implications of the physician accounts in Physicians' Untold Stories, the filter model provides a scientifically respectable framework for understanding how consciousness might survive the cessation of brain function.

The AWARE II study (2014-2022), led by Dr. Sam Parnia at NYU Langone Medical Center, expanded on the original AWARE protocol with enhanced monitoring. The study placed 1,520 cardiac arrest patients under systematic observation, with EEG monitoring, cerebral oximetry, and hidden visual targets. Results published in 2022 found that approximately 40% of survivors had memories and perceptions during cardiac arrest, including 20% who described NDE-like experiences. Crucially, the study documented brain activity spikes — gamma waves and delta surges — up to 60 minutes into CPR, challenging the conventional understanding that the brain ceases function within seconds of cardiac arrest. For physicians in Anshan, the AWARE II findings fundamentally complicate the question of when consciousness ends — and whether it ends at all.

The neuroimaging research of Dr. Jimo Borjigin at the University of Michigan, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013, demonstrated a surge of organized gamma-wave activity in the brains of rats during the period immediately following cardiac arrest. This surge — characterized by increased coherence and directed connectivity between brain regions — was even more organized than the gamma activity observed during normal waking consciousness. Borjigin's findings were initially interpreted by some commentators as a neurological explanation for NDEs, suggesting that the dying brain produces a burst of activity that could generate vivid conscious experiences. However, the interpretation is more nuanced than it first appears. First, the study was conducted in rats, and the applicability to human consciousness is uncertain. Second, the gamma surge lasted only about 30 seconds after cardiac arrest, while NDEs often include experiences that subjectively span much longer periods. Third, the study does not explain the veridical content of NDEs — a surge of brain activity might produce vivid experiences, but it does not explain how those experiences can include accurate perceptions of external events. Fourth, the gamma surge occurs in all dying brains, but only a minority of cardiac arrest survivors report NDEs, suggesting that the surge alone is not sufficient to produce the experience. For physicians in Anshan who follow the neuroscience literature, Borjigin's findings add important data to the NDE debate without providing a definitive resolution.