From the hand of the journalist and writer, Javier Sierra, comes to Zaragoza a new edition of Ocultura, to be held from 6 to 8 November. The international meeting will discuss life after death and near-death experiences in a “very testimonial” edition with the participation of actors such as Antonio Resines and Belén Rueda and professionals such as José Miguel Gaona, among others.
Sierra himself talks to us about this new edition, which is being held for the fourth year in a row in the Aragonese capital.
How would you define Ocultura?
Well, Ocultura is a serious and, in some aspects even scientific, approach to the great mysteries that surround us, especially considering that some of these mysteries and the belief in them has conditioned many aspects of our history, our literature, art, even scientific research. It is a vindication of the unknown as a source of curiosity and progress. It is the opposite of the use that has sometimes been made of these subjects from the perspective of superstition, which distances people from true knowledge. We want to use it as another source of knowledge and claim that, without the knowledge of the occult, the understanding of reality is lame.
Does it help that many journalists have dedicated themselves to vindicate precisely the unknown in this way and not from superstition?
Well, the interest of journalists in this is a very Spanish phenomenon. In other countries, those who are interested in this are anthropologists, sociologists, people who come from the world of physics, speculative physics, quantum physics, theologians, etc. But in Spain, it is true that the flag has been taken, or we have taken, for some years now, by communicators. We have wanted to make this world accessible to public opinion. For example, the term “occultism” is something that was born in Central European universities at the beginning of the 21st century. It was a very academic term, a term of scholars who, all of a sudden, were investigating, for example, the influence of spiritualism in the American independences. Apparently, spiritism is a subject more of beliefs than of sciences, but investigated from the perspective of culture, of its influence, it acquires another consideration. But in Spain, I do not know why, it has been a subject of communication, of public opinion.
Ocultura 2021 Meeting
In this seventh edition, the focus is on near-death experiences, is that what most attracts the public’s attention?
Well, it’s one of the two big questions we human beings face: What is there after death? And are we alone in the universe? And, obviously, the first is a question with profound implications at all levels. But until half a century ago it was a question that seemed almost exclusively the domain of philosophers and theologians, but not, for example, of physicians or scientific researchers. Half a century ago, several physicians, whom we are precisely honoring in this event, such as Raymond Moody or Elizabeth Kubler, began to ask themselves what death was, what could there be after death, etc. And they began to collect a lot of information from patients who had had near-death experiences that coincided in many of the details they gave. People who, suddenly, in operating rooms felt that they were coming out of the body and they could see themselves from above, or that they observed a kind of tunnel to which they felt attracted and, later, they were repelled by that same tunnel. They were able to see, for example, relatives who had preceded them in death and who were receiving them. In short, these were very curious, very singular things that had always been taken from an anecdotal point of view, but these doctors realized that it was a constant and decided to start a scientific approach to investigate these issues. And that is what we are going to pay tribute to in this Ocultura meeting. I believe that we are going to face, as I was saying, the great question that affects us all, and that is, what awaits us after death? Is there life after?
Cinema is also going to be a protagonist in Ocultura and, precisely, it has always been a magnet for attracting attention to near-death experiences?
Yes, there is a long tradition in cinema to face this kind of issues, but it has an explanation and it is that, when in the world of reason and in the world of the material there are no answers, we look for answers in the world of art. There is a lot of art in painting, sculpture, cinema and literature that tries to tell us what there is after death. And it is normal, that is to say, it is the last resort. After all, artistic expression is the last resort to imagine what there is after death and, of course, we will talk about it in Ocultura.
What is going to help people the most or what else might surprise them about Ocultura?
Well, I think that the testimonial part will attract their attention. For example, Antonio Resines, who has had four near-death experiences, is going to tell us what he has learned from them, what has happened to him and what he remembers of those moments. I think that, in that sense, that such a well-known face as his speaks to us in first person, monographically, on this issue, seems to me to be a great contribution and will give rise to much debate. We will also have, for example, the participation of a French philosopher, Bertrand Meheust, who has spent the last years of his life studying one of the great French literary figures, Marcel Proust. He has discovered that Marcel Proust was a man deeply involved in everything that was life after death. He was interested in the whole phenomenon. He approached many mediums in his time and many people who had these kinds of experiences. He himself had several of these experiences, “paranormal”, and all that influenced him a lot in his literature. His great work, the great literary monument that is “In Search of Lost Time”, is full of allusions to this. But until now, because of that pruritus that we sometimes have to this kind of things, nobody had interpreted it in a “paranormal” key. And only in that key is “In Search of Lost Time” completely understood. I think this will also be a very interesting contribution, especially for people who are interested in reading and literature, which in the end is also one of the motivations of these meetings.
How did Ocultura begin? How did it manage to establish itself?
The beginnings arise from my experience in other similar events held in other parts of the world. I realized that, in Spain, we were very isolated from this current of “occultism” and that it was convenient to launch an initiative that would integrate us and that, in addition, it would be an international initiative, which would serve to bring experts in these matters from around the world to Spain and have contact with those interested in this issue. We were born in 2007, just the year I was awarded the Planeta Prize in León. In fact, the night that Ocultura was born, was the night before the award ceremony, just imagine. Since then it has become a very acclaimed date. There are many people who travel from all over the country to be with us during those days and we are very grateful for that. That is to say, it is an event “with community”, there are many people who are waiting for us to convene it to come to where it is held.
Do we give enough importance in Zaragoza to the fact that this event is held in the city?
Zaragoza was a very thoughtful choice. We were looking for a city that was very well connected and that is the case of Zaragoza, which is in a strategic location between the two main cities of the country. We were looking for a city that could also be recognized outside, internationally, as a great Spanish capital where the event is held and, in that sense, Zaragoza seemed perfect from the beginning, so we hope to stay there for many years.
Have we lost faith in the supernatural, and have we stopped caring about what lies beyond Death?
No civilization, except our own, has looked the other way when we talk about death. All the great civilizations of the past had death as a reference and many decisions were taken, public or political of all kinds, always taking into account that death was there nearby, lurking. Our civilization has not, ours has become a very materialistic society, very consumerist, very carpe diem and “seize the moment” and death has been reified and has become something that is there, lost, about which it is better not to think. I think it is just the opposite, that is, death makes us more human. It gives us the measure of what our existence is and invites us to take advantage of it in a positive way. Therefore, I believe that being aware of death and knowing that after death there is something, or at least intuiting it from the point of view of what science tells us today, is a source of hope that we need as a civilization. As I tell you, never has a civilization been so far away from death and never have we needed to think about it more than now. I think that’s why these kinds of events and conversations are so attractive to the new generations, because they need an answer to this as well.
Any message to end with?
That you are not going to find a gloomy event and we are not going to touch death from that point of view, we are not going to talk about the clues we have to sustain that there is survival after death. The consciousness survives, not the body, but there is something that is bigger than the physical, that we all have inside and that transcends that moment of death.