This dramatic and sustained response to decades of research into near-death experiences (NDEs) is the first book to credibly bridge the gap between the competing factions of science and spirituality. Neither a religious argument touting NDEs as hard evidence for God, nor a scientific rebuke to religious interpretations, it balances investigation of these much-reported yet baffling phenomena, and brings fresh urgency to the study of our hopes for a life beyond.
What happens to consciousness during the act of dying? The most compelling answers come from people who almost die and later recall events that occurred while lifesaving resuscitation, emergency care, or surgery was performed. These events are now called near-death experiences (NDEs). As medical and surgical skills improve, innovative procedures can bring back patients who have traveled farther on the path to death than at any other time in history. Physicians and healthcare professionals must learn how to appropriately treat patients who report an NDE. It is estimated that more than 10 million people in the United States have experienced an NDE. Hagan and the contributors to this volume engage in evidence-based research on near-death experiences and include physicians who themselves have undergone a near-death experience. This book establishes a new paradigm for NDEs.
As we move away from worn-out dogma from both the religious and scientific realms toward a contemporary synthesis of understanding about our existence, Christophor's refreshing and comprehensive analysis of major religions in light of the profound lessons from numerous NDE journeyers offers a rich new tapestry of understanding that I find most valuable.
Argues that many episodes of transformational crisis have been misdiagnosed as mental illness, and explains how to use such a crisis for spiritual development.
The world's leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness. What happens when we die? 10% of people whose hearts stop report near-death experiences (NDEs). Stories of lights, tunnels and loved ones have been relayed — and dismissed — since ancient times. But when Dr Bruce Greyson’s patients started describing events that he could not just dismiss, he began to investigate. As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached NDEs from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence — a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety. But Dr Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to reconsider these experiences and what they can teach us about the relationship between our brain and our mind, expanding our understanding of consciousness, and of what it means to be human.
Begun in 1994, The Atlanta Study is the first comprehensive investigation of its kind into near-death experiences (NDEs). The study's name hardly captures what lies behind it: life-and-death dramas played out in operating rooms and hospital beds--and simultaneous events unseen by medical personnel but reported with astonishing clarity and conviction by nearly 50 individuals who returned from death's door. Now the founder of The Atlanta Study, Dr. Michael Sabom reveals their impact on the people who have experienced them. From both medical and personal perspectives, he shares the electrifying stories of men and women from all walks of life and religious persuasions. He explores the clinical effect of the NDE on survival and healing and discloses surprising findings. He questions some common conclusions about NDEs. And he scrutinizes near-death experiences in the light of what the Bible has to say about death and dying, the realities of light and darkness, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is a dramatic and sustained response to decades of research into near-death experiences (NDEs) - the first to credibly bridge the gap between the competing factions of science and spirituality.
Poses an argument for living a spiritual life that is not dependent on religion, explaining that an acceptance of philosophical spiritual traditions and values does not require practitioners to embrace the existence of a higher order.
In three brief chapters, Zaleski offers an extended meditation on the encounter with death, the hope for life beyond death, and the vision of last things as distilled in the testimony of near-death experience and the Christian tradition.
Nothing Better Than Death, by Kevin R. Williams, provides the full near-death testimonies (NDEs) of nine extraordinary experiencers along with summaries of fifty-three of the most profound near-death experiences documented. The author has gleaned insights involving thirteen categories of research conclusions about such topics as pre-existence, life, humanity, religion, spirituality, the future, science, God, heaven, hell, spirit guides, music, time, and reincarnation. A defense of near-death testimony in light of Christian doctrine is presented which proves that NDEs are not unscriptural, are not of the devil, that NDEs and the Bible affirm God is unconditional love, that NDEs and the Bible affirm universal salvation, and that NDEs and the Bible affirm the reality of reincarnation. The Appendix of this book presents the following sections: (a) Notes from this book, (b) A complete NDE bibliography, and (c) Information about the author. The title of this book originated from a profound insight found in NDE testimony which is that NDEs reveal how death is the greatest blessing human beings can ever experience. According to a great number of people who have had an NDE, there is nothing better on Earth than death. One experiencer, Dianne Morrissey said, "If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there's not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing." Kevin R. Williams is the webmaster of "Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife" at www.near-death.com.
