Near-Death Experience Resources
There are a number of sites devoted to the subject of the Near Death Experience, and numerous books written on the subject.
Dr. Jeffrey Long hosts one of the most informative sites on the NDE:
Hosted by author Kevin Williams, the following site provides a wealth of information regarding the NDE:
"Victor Zammit: A Lawyer Presents the Case for an Afterlife" is a site that brings long-overdue smiles to the faces of those of us who grow weary of cynical skeptics attacking concepts of the Afterlife with poorly conceived arguments.
Zammit takes such cynical thinking to task and offers a wealth of links to research and news regarding survival of consciousness.
David Oakford wrote a book about his near-death experience in a book entitled Soul Bared: A Metaphysical Journey. He has a website with resources you can find here:
Near-Death Experience Comic
Near-Death Experience Literature
One of the best introductions to the literature of the near death experience can be found in the collection The Near Death Experience: A Reader, edited by Lee W. Bailey and Jenny Yates.
Articles by many recognizable names in the field—Moody, Eadie, Brinkley, Ring, Morse, Greyson, Atwater, Tart—are included in this collection.
“Kenneth Ring’s research into the after-affects of a NDE show that the NDE is most often a spiritual awakening. It is the beginning of a challenging soul journey demanding serious self-reflection and change. He found that the NDE itself does not automatically provide easy answers to one’s life problems. It simply jump-starts a spiritual quest.”
Dannion Brinkley writes about his NDE in Saved by the Light.
“I must be dead, I thought. I could feel nothing because I was not in my body. I was a spectator of my final moments on earth, as dispassionate about watching my own death as I might be if I were watching actors reenact it on television.”
“I am dead! I thought. I was not in my body and can honestly say that I didn’t want to be. If I had any thought at all, it was simply that who I was had nothing to do with that body they had just covered with a sheet.”
Beyond the Light by P.M.H. Atwater is another classic in the NDE literature. Her web site provides information on her current activities. Here she quotes a person who experienced near death:
“You are still alive, very much alive. Actually, you’re more alive after death than at any time since you were last born. Only the way of all this is different; different because you no longer wear a dense body to filter and amplify the various sensations you had once regarded as the only valid indicators of what constitutes life. You had always taught one has to wear a body to live.”
A controversial title in the field of near death studies is Susan Blackmore’s Dying to Live.
Dr. Blackmore arrives at the conclusion that the near death experience is the product of a dying brain; she argues the NDE does not support the existence of a spirit and an afterlife.
Years ago, I wrote a critique of Dying to Live, taking issue with both her approach and her conclusions. The critique appeared on a number of NDE related web sites. A recently-edited version is presented here...
Critique of Dying to Live by Greg Stone
Downloadable PDF of the critique.
One of the most powerful texts that one can turn to for an understanding of the NDE, is the Tibetan Book of the Dead (the translation and forward by W.Y. Evans-Wentz is recommended), which describes the Bardos, or post-mortem states the recently deceased encounter.
I recommend reading the stages in reverse order as the “lower” (and thus more recognizable) states are presented last.
“If, however, the disciple has learned, as the Bardo Thodol directs, to identify himself with the Eternal, the Dharma, the Imperishable Light of Buddhahood within, then the fears of death are dissipated like a cloud before the rising sun. Then he knows whatever he may see, hear, or feel, in the hour of his departure from this life, is but a reflection of his own conscious and subconscious mental content; and no mind-created illusion can then have power over him if he knows its origin and is able to recognize it.”
Though not strictly about the near death experience, The Afterlife Experiments by Gary E. Schartz, PhD., about a series of experiments conducted with mediums, taps into the reality beyond death, and is consistent with many accounts of the NDE.
“This is the ‘brain first, mind second’ hypothesis. It is the prevailing model in contemporary science. It is assumed to be true and, for all practical purposes, it is taken on faith by modern Western science. Until a few years ago, I took it on faith, too.
However, there is an alternative model, as current as today’s visionary science yet as old as recorded history.... This model says that mind is first. Consciousness exists independently of the brain. It does not depend upon the brain for its survival. Mind is first; the brain is second. The brain is not the creator of mind, it is a powerful tool of the mind. The brain is an antenna/receiver for the mind, like a sophisticated television or cell phone.”
Reincarnation
Many NDErs return with stories of having recalled past lives. If the spirit is capable of separating from the body in an NDE, we know the spirit’s past and future is not inexorably linked to that of the body. The spirit may have inhabited many bodies over many lifetimes.
Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation by Ian Stevenson, M.D. is one text which takes up this subject in a scientific setting.
“Many persons believe they have lived before being born into what we may call the present life. To those who have this belief, it does not seem strange at all. They would agree with Voltaire, who wrote: ‘It is not more surprising to be born twice than once.’ Yet persons unfamiliar with the idea of reincarnation often find it unreasonable and even absurd. They, however, may form a minority of all the inhabitants of earth; believers in reincarnation possibly outnumber those who reject the idea or have never heard of it.”
Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation by Ian Stevenson
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