The screen rippled with a sickening kind of fury. Smoke canisters, crimson and acrid, plumed against the masked mob outside the hotel, obscuring the frantic dance of flashing blue lights. Figures, contorted by anger and vitriol, surged against police lines, kicking and punching vehicles, their shouts rising above the cacophony of a society tearing at its own seams. Innocent asylum seekers, seeking refuge and safety, were met not with compassion, but with a visceral, unreasoning hatred, manifesting in mindless attacks on police vehicles and a chilling display of intimidation.
Watching that shocking video, a strange, almost surreal connection sparked in my mind. I spontaneously recalled a scene from a Ghostrider movie. I recalled the villain, a thug, caught in the act of brutalising a woman. And then, the Rider’s iconic gaze – the Penance Stare. In that moment of fictional retribution, the criminal was forced to experience, in excruciating detail, every iota of pain and suffering he had ever inflicted upon another. His own cruelty became his personal hell, a self-inflicted torment born from a lifetime of inflicting it.
It’s a fantastical premise, an almost biblical concept of cosmic justice, yet it’s not as far removed from reality as one might think. I’ve read countless accounts of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), vivid testimonies from those who briefly glimpsed the other side and returned. A recurring motif in these experiences is the “life review.” People describe watching their entire lives unfold before them, not as passive observers, but actively re-experiencing every interaction, every choice, from the perspective of everyone involved. The most profound aspect is often the raw, unvarnished empathy – feeling, firsthand, the joy they brought, but also the pain, the fear, the suffering they caused others. This isn’t just an intellectual understanding; it’s a direct, emotional, and often deeply harrowing immersion into the consequences of their actions.
The Ghostrider’s Penance Stare and the NDE life review, though one is fiction and the other accounts from the brink of oblivion, speak to a similar, profound truth: that our actions ripple outwards, and eventually, they may ripple back.
I found myself wondering, as I watched the footage of the scene at the hotel, how many of those rioters had ever watched a Ghostrider movie? Had they ever considered the implications of such a fictional reckoning? More importantly, had they ever, even for a fleeting moment, paused to consider the very real, very human testimonies of those who have faced their own lives in review?
Imagine, for a second, being those innocent asylum seekers. The terror of a homeland left behind, the arduous journey, the hope for safety, only to be met with a mob chanting hatred and attacking the very forces meant to protect them. The fear, the dehumanisation – what if, in some future life review, those protestors were forced to experience that fear, that dehumanisation, from a first-hand perspective?
Perhaps it’s a naive hope, but maybe, just maybe, if we truly absorbed the wisdom whispered from the brink of oblivion, if we allowed ourselves to confront the possibility of such a cosmic mirror, reflecting every slight and every wound we inflict, some might reassess their path. The evidence of afterlife reviews, of an intrinsic universal mechanism for empathy and accountability, offers a potent call to change. It suggests that while the Ghostrider might be a fantasy, the Penance Stare, in a very real and profound sense, might just be waiting for us all. And perhaps, for the sake of our collective humanity, it’s not too late to change our ways before we’re forced to confront the full spectrum of our deeds.
Worldwide Temple of Aurora 