Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven: A Brief Introduction in Plain Language (19 page)

Paranormal:
My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife,
Raymond A. Moody,
2012
- Moody spent a lifetime studying near-death experiences. In this book he gives
his mature reflections from a biographical perspective, which I find
fascinating and enlightening. Moody grew up in non-religious household where
his father (a surgeon) was a staunch philosophical naturalist and had no
patience for talk about the paranormal. Moody’s philosophical studies
(particularly Socrates) piqued his interest in the afterlife and led him to
present his conclusions very tentatively, lest they be shot down later by
further research and reflection.

Glimpses
of Eternity: Sharing a Loved One’s Passage from This Life to the Next,
Raymond
Moody, with Paul Perry, 2010
- Not all NDEs are private. Often, entire
families share the experience, including parts of the life review, with a dying
loved one. This experience allows corroboration from several independent
sources, which is a significant evidential leap forward from having to trust
one individual’s personal testimony of an essentially private event. Furthermore,
some report seeing deceased relatives that nobody present knew were dead at the
time. 

Moody
collected many such cases through the years and finally put together his
thoughts on them in this book. While Moody shares many stories and sometimes
tells that he independently verified it with all who were involved, the skeptic
side of me would prefer that he tell us in every case how he went about
verifying the stories. If he played the role of the detective a bit more, such
as Sabom did in his studies, I think he could strengthen his case. 

Yet,
since research has shown that lying and embellishment don’t tend to be a
problem in this field, it will be easy for some to pretty much take these
stories at face value.  

Other
Researchers

Many
researchers have studied and written extensively about NDEs. Consult my endnotes
to find many great books and journal articles. A few others who deserve special
mention are neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, Britain’s leading clinical
authority on NDEs; Pediatrician Melvin Morse, who studied childhood NDEs, Kenneth
Ring, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Connecticut, Bruce
Greyson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia; and
Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.  

A Collection
of Recommended Books

The
International
Association for Near-Death Studies
offers a
bibliography of 56 books
.
While not comprehensive, it’s especially valuable in that it contains most of
the older foundational works. A great place to start!

Journals

The
NDE is no stranger to professional literature. The
Journal of Near-Death
Studies
(originally titled
Anabiosis
), today in its 30th volume
(four publications per year comprise each volume), is a peer-reviewed journal
dedicated to the study of NDEs. If your local library doesn’t carry it, ask
your librarian about options with inter-library loan, which is free in our
system. I had to go through a local university to get the most recent volumes
through its inter library loan as pdfs. Other volumes were available at Georgia
Tech.  

The
editors commit themselves to “an unbiased exploration of these issues and
specifically welcome a variety of theoretical perspectives and interpretations
that are grounded in empirical observation or research.” I’d recommend any
serious researcher to browse every issue. 

Other
journals with relevant research include
Resuscitation, Lancet, Journal of
Nervous and Mental Disease, General Hospital Psychiatry, Journal of the
American Medical Association, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Omega, Neurology,
Brain, Death Studies,
and
the
Journal of Humanistic Psychology.

If
you aspire to exhaustive research, consider joining the International
Association for Near-Death Studies (currently $30 for the first year), and
receive a
free
index to the periodical literature on NDEs
, from 1877 to 2005. This
database of almost 900 scholarly and popular articles, with article summaries,
is searchable by 135 NDE topics.

Each
journal article typically cites scores of other articles worth perusing. Look
particularly for review articles, which sum up the scholarly research on a
subject to date.

Helpful
Websites

http://iands.org/home.html
- The
International Association for Near-Death Studies offers links to scholarly
articles, a collection of free articles, and a newsletter. It recommends over
60 books and is home to the
Journal of Near-Death Studies
. It’s a good
place to start for those wanting to follow the serious research, offering free
articles on both sides of the debate. It also contains
over 200 NDE
accounts
that people have submitted to their site. 

http://www.nderf.org
- Site on near-death experiences
by radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long. A helpful source for browsing over 3,000
accounts of NDEs that people have posted from around the world.  

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html
- Scientific Evidence for Survival. Helpful introductions to various
personalities, books, and articles on NDEs and related subjects.

http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html
- Critiques
NDEs from a naturalistic perspective.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html
- Another critique from a naturalistic perspective. Since the writer documents
his sources, this is a good place to find articles and passages that can be
taken to support naturalistic explanations.

http://nhneneardeath.ning.com
- The Near-Death
Experience Network is both a resource center and social network for those
who’ve had NDEs. Offers a helpful list of resources on the right column of the
home page. 

Acknowledgements

I
especially want to thank those scholarly researchers and empathetic listeners
who dedicated significant portions of their lives to researching, reflecting
upon, and publishing about a phenomenon that fifty years ago was typically
ignored or attributed to mental illness.

Thanks
to those who shared with me their near-death experiences. I withheld most of
their names to protect their privacy.

Thanks
to the knowledgeable and patient librarians at Kennesaw State University,
Georgia Tech, and the Cobb County library system for their help in locating and
securing journals and books that weren’t available on local shelves or through
the university databases.   

Special
thanks to those who gave candid input on my early ideas and manuscripts: Dr.
Ken Walker, Dr. Peter Schaefer, Dr. Roger Rochat, Dr. Jeffrey Long, Dr. Robert
McGinnis, Eddie Bishop, Jeff Ciaccio, Allen Massey, Lisa Russell, Alberta
Sequeira, Boomy Tokan and Katherine Wilson.

Thanks
to David Blackburn for his tips on the nature of legal evidence.  

Thanks
to family members who gave valuable input – Cherie, Ann, Paul, David, Richard
and Angela.  

Endnotes

Preface

1) Michael Sabom,
Light & Death
(Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), 37-47; 184-190.

Chapter 1

1) Todd Burpo,
Heaven is for Real
(Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 2010).

Chapter 2

11)
Consciousness Beyond Life
, xii.
12) Ibid., 284.
13) The
Index to NDE Periodical Literature
collects these titles (up
until 2005) and makes them searchable by 135 NDE-related topics, an invaluable
resource for those aspiring to exhaustive research. Find it here:
http://iands.org/research/index-to-nde-literature-1877-2005.html
.
14)
The Handbook of Near-Death Studies
, 7.

Chapter 3

1) Pim van Lommel,
Consciousness Beyond Life
(New
York: HarperCollins, 2010), 9. An Australian telephone survey of 673 people
found nine percent claiming to have NDEs. M. Perera,
et al
., Prevalence
of Near-Death Experiences in Australia,
Journal of Near-Death Studies
,
24 (2) (2005), 109-115.
2) In Sartori’s study, all but two of the NDErs “would not have disclosed their
experiences had they not been asked.” Penny Sartori,
The Near-Death
Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients
(Lewiston, Queenston,
Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), 245. Sabom noted that most of his
patients were very reluctant to share their NDEs, fearing that people would
think they were crazy. “Many had been unable to discuss it with their closest
friends or relatives for fear of ridicule….” (Michael B. Sabom,
Recollections
of Death
(New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 11,25.
3) I took these from the reports in Moody’s
Life After Life
, van
Lommel’s
Consciousness Beyond Life
, and my personal NDE interviews.  
4)
Consciousness Beyond Life, 63-65,173;
Jeffrey Long,
Evidence of
the Afterlife (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 8,35,64,65.
5)
Consciousness Beyond Life
, 150-153.

Chapter 4

1) Raymond A. Moody,
Life After Life
(New York:
Bantam Books, 1975), 153-157.
2) Michael B. Sabom,
Recollections of Death
(New York: Harper & Row,
1982), 151-178.
3) Pim van Lommel,
Consciousness Beyond Life
(New York: HarperCollins,
2010), 105-135.
4) Penny Sartori,
The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care
Patients
(Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), 59-120.
5) Chris Carter,
Science and the Near-Death Experience
(Rochester: Inner
Traditions, 2010), 5-102. Carter suggests that this is the primary objection
and devotes almost 100 pages to discussing it. Atheist Susan Blackmore,
ostensibly looking at the data in an unbiased manner, shows her naturalistic
colors in her preface when she states: “Of course, this comforting thought [the
prospect of eternal life] conflicts with science. Science tells us that death
is the end….”
Dying to Live
(London: Prometheus Books, 1993), xi. 
6) For extensive discussions of this, see
Science and the Near-death
Experience
, 6-102;
Consciousness Beyond Life
, 179-263.
7) Some naturalists tend to lump all such assertions together, dismissing any
paranormal claims as akin to beliefs in fairies and elves. To many naturalists,
talk of independently existing minds and other worlds seems so absurd that they
may refuse to take NDE research seriously. Note the tone of this statement by
neurologist Kevin Nelson: “Under the guise of science, researchers have claimed
that near-death and out-of-body experiences ‘prove’ that mind exists separate
from the physical brain. Such a claim is the most extraordinary in all of
science, surpassing even the dramatic assertion that other intelligent life
exists in the Milky Way, our galaxy.”
The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain
(New York: Dutton, 2011), 260. Yet, does his critique of NDE research show a
greater commitment to objective science? Not in my view. See my critique of
Nelson’s book in Appendix #6.      
8)
Consciousness Beyond Life,
273.
 
9) Carter, 72, quoted from Koestler,
The Roots of Coincidence
(New York:
Vintage Books, 1973), 77.
10) Carter, 59, as quoted from
The Roots of Coincidence
, 51. For more on
our present understanding of electrons, see quotes by Einstein and others in
Consciousness
Beyond Life
, 221. Also see
http://education.jlab.org/qa/history_03.html
- on not being able to see electrons.
http://mwolff.tripod.com/see.html
- a helpful visual of the wave structure of an electron.
http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/cover
- on how electrons can be in more than one place at once (non-location). “As
the photons accumulate on the film, the same old interference pattern of
alternating bright and dark stripes gradually appears, defying common sense. In
this case, there is only one thing each photon can interact with – itself. The
only way this pattern could form is if each photon passes through both slits at
once and then interferes with its alternate self. It is as if a moviegoer
exited a theater and found that his location on the sidewalk was determined by
another version of himself that had left through a different exit and shoved
him on the way out.” “…quantum theory has never yet failed to predict the
outcome of any experiment.”
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_see_an_electron
Can you see an electron? “No. It is far, far too small to be ‘seen’ in any way
in which we ‘look’ at other stuff. Light, which is the medium for seeing things
in the normal sense, is too ‘large’ for the tiny electrons. We see things
because the things we are looking at reflect light. The reflected light is what
we form images with. Electrons are too tiny to reflect light.”
http://www.preservearticles.com/201012302042/can-we-see-electron.html
  
“Similarly, we don’t see the electrons directly, but in fact, we see their ‘foot-prints’
– bursts of light on a fluorescent screen, effect on a photographic film, etc. These
foot-prints confirm their existence.”
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=145501&page=3
- “The electron
is
not a wave, and the electron
is
not a
particle. The electron
is
not the current model of wave-particle duality
we have today. These models only represent a limited aspect of our perception
of electrons with respect to the measurement devices we use. We have no access
to knowledge of what the electron really
is…” “
The electron is thus not
perceived in any apparent shape.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality
- Helpful article on wave-particle duality.
Read more here:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_see_an_electron#ixzz1vDv8At8v
.
11) James Jeans,
The Mysterious Universe
, first published in 1930
by Cambridge University Press, reprinted most recently in 2007 by Kessinger
Publishing, 137.
12) Here’s a great place to find a collection of naturalistic arguments
concerning NDEs, often with documentation:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html
.
13) Maurice Rawlings,
Beyond Death’s Door
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
1978), xi,21.
14) This seems to be an important distinction, which is often overlooked. Near-death
experiences are
near
death, not
final
death. As such, we have no
reason to expect that all people should have such an experience if they
experience clinical death. Also, we have no reason to think that such an
experience represents the final resting place of a person after death.  
15)
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html#imagery
16) Raymond A. Moody,
The Light Beyond
(New York: Bantam Books, 1988),
22. See also Carter, 210, noting that the relatives seen are almost always
deceased.
17) Another form of this argument would be to object, “This is just an example
of God of the Gaps!” By this they are saying that science will one day explain
it, just as it once explained how storms at sea were caused by weather patterns
rather than ocean gods. But regarding explaining NDEs, this appears to be a
statement of faith rather than science, for truly objective scientists should
hold theories that fit best with our current observations. As I write, the Big
Bang Theory is held by the overwhelming scientific population. Why? Because it’s
the best theory to account for several key observations over the last century.
Of course, a scientist could say, “I don’t believe in the Big Bang. I believe
that future observations will lead to a better theory.” But if there’s no
evidence for this, then it’s a faith statement rather than a scientific
statement, a prime example of an observation that Einstein once made of fellow
scientists: they’re typically poor philosophers.
            Sure, the evidence for an afterlife through NDEs may be overturned
by later studies, but at the present, the evidence weighs in for an afterlife. “But
the overwhelming progress of science teaches me to wait for a naturalistic
explanation!” some object. So what you’re saying is, “Science has explained a
lot of things naturalistically. Therefore, if science continues to move
forward, everything will one day be found to have a naturalistic explanation.”
But that’s quite a logical and evidential leap. Isn’t that precisely the
attitude that’s hindered scientific progress over the centuries? Rather than
taking seriously the observations that pose a problem with the old paradigm, we
assume that later experiments will prove the old paradigm to be true. This was
well argued by Thomas Kuhn in
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996). Rather than trying to keep fitting odd
pieces (anomalies) into our comfortable paradigms, we should occasionally step
back and see if all the pieces make more sense in a new paradigm.
18) According to Keith Augustine, “In fact, most NDE reports are provided to
researchers years after the experience itself. Ultimately, all we have to go on
is after-the-fact reports of private experiences. The constant reconstruction
of memory makes it difficult to know just what NDErs have actually experienced.”
 
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html
19) Rawlings’ first exposure to an NDE came from a patient with cardiac arrest
whose heart kept stopping after each resuscitation. The patient told Rawlings, each
time he regained consciousness, what he was experiencing. (Rawlings, 17-22)
Prospective studies typically interviewed patients while they were still in the
hospital. In Sartori’s study, some of her patients reported their NDEs
immediately after regaining consciousness. (Sartori, 260-264) Sabom interviewed
those in his prospective study “as soon after the event as possible.” (
Recollections
of Death
, 11)  
20) Bruce Greyson tested the theory of embellishment by interviewing 72 NDErs
20 years after their initial interviews. “Contrary to expectation, accounts of
near-death experiences…were not embellished over a period of almost two
decades. These data support the reliability of near-death experience accounts.” 
B. Greyson, Consistency of near-death experience accounts over two decades: Are
reports embellished over time?
Resuscitation
73:407-11 (2007). M.L. Morse
concludes, “Unlike ordinary memories or dreams, NDEs do not seem to be
rearranged or altered over time.” Near-death experiences of children,
Journal
of Pediatric Oncology Nursing
11:139(1994).
21) According to Keith Augustine, “the study of NDEs tends to attract
researchers who already believe that NDEs provide evidence for survival. NDEs
seem to be a natural lure to survivalists, since they offer the prospect, at
least, of bolstering such researchers' belief in survival after death and of
offering them hints about what exactly is going to happen to them when
they
die. Thus it is hardly a revelation that many of the researchers investigating
the phenomenon are confident that NDEs point toward the reality of survival of
bodily death.”
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html
I found no evidence for this statement in the NDE researchers I studied. In
fact, I found quite the opposite.
22)
Consciousness Beyond Life
, 310.
23)
Beyond Death’s Door
, 17, back flap.
24)
Recollections of Death
, 157.
25) Ibid., 156.
26)
The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients
, 6.
27) Bruce Greyson, “Commentary on ‘Psychophysical and Cultural Correlates
Undermining a Survivalist Interpretation of Near-Death Experiences,’” 140.
Cited in
Science and the Near-Death Experience
, 200.
28) According to Keith Augustine, “Background knowledge also surely plays a
role. Personal experience and media portrayals make it easy for us to imagine
what a hospital scene should look like (Rodabough 109). Even specific details
about people are fairly predictable in a hospital setting.”
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html
29)
Science and the Near-Death Experience
, 219, 220.
30)
Recollections of Death
, 83ff.
31) “
A priori
expectations, where the individual makes sense of the
situation by believing they will experience the archetypal near-death
experience package, may also play a crucial role.” Dean Mobbs and Caroline
Watt, There is Nothing Paranormal about Near-Death Experiences,
Trends in
Cognitive Sciences
, Vol. 15, Issue 10, 447-449 (2011).
32)
Consciousness Beyond Life
, 149. “This is borne out by Greyson’s
study, in which the subjective data of resuscitated patients show that most of
them did not even realize that they had had a cardiac arrest. The situation is
comparable to fainting. When people regain consciousness after fainting they
have no idea what happened.”
33) Elisabeth Kübler-Ross found that when people are confronted with a terminal
prognosis, their first stage typically involves denial.
On Death and Dying
(New York, Simon & Schuster, 1969), 51ff.  
34) Another example of the unexpected is that, in one-third of the cases where
people encounter the deceased, “the deceased person was either someone with
whom the experience had a distant or even poor relationship or someone whom the
experiencer had never met.” Greyson, Kelly and Kelly,
The Handbook of
Near-Death Experiences, (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2009), 231.
 
35) Greyson, Kelly and Kelly,
The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences,
(Westport,
Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2009), 215.
36) In Exhibit #3 I go much deeper into how NDEs typically differ from our
cultural expectations. Appendix #1 discusses the common elements throughout cross-cultural
studies of NDEs. Moody’s observations confirm this.
Life After Life
, 59.
37)
The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences
, 115-120. Janice Miner
Holden, Ed.D., Jeffrey Long, M.D., and B. Jason MacLurg, M.D. review the
literature on these potential variables and conclude that they make no
statistically significant difference. They conclude, “For now, the best answer
to the question, ‘Who has NDEs, how often, what kind, and with what
aftereffects?’ is probably that NDEs appear, for the most part, to be equal
opportunity transpersonal experiences.” “…research has not yet revealed a
characteristic that either guarantees or prohibits the occurrence, incidence,
nature, or aftereffects of an NDE. Perhaps the conclusion of research so far –
that everyone is a potential NDEr – is the most mysterious, provocative, and
important message for readers to take away.”
The Handbook of Near-Death
Experiences
, 133.
38)
Science and the Near-Death Experience,
172-176;
Consciousness
Beyond Life
, 116.
39)
People have often made grandiose claims that there’s a “striking
similarity”