Near Death Experiences and

Naturalism/Materialism

 "I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven-whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows."--Paul (2 Corinthians 12:2)

Initially Posted: July 22, 2005

Last Updated: June 25, 2006.

Hellish Near-Death Experiences:

“ Furthermore, Kastenbaum points out, not all NDEs fit the Moody (Raymond Moody) pattern of being pleasant and peaceful. In fact, many people tell of having nightmarish, even ‘hellish’ experiences.

Dr. Maurice Rawlings, a cardiologist at the Diagnostic Center in Chattanooga , Tennessee , describes such case studies. One patient saw ‘a frightening human form with a goat’s head.’ Another talked of seeing a ‘huge giant with a grotesque face that was watching me…I could hear people moaning all around me’” (VOA:97).

Near Death Experiences in the Ancient World:

“Deep in an underground chamber a solemn group of men is seeking guidance from death. They are dressed in white robes and chanting softly around a casket that is sealed with wax. One of their members is steadfastly counting to himself, carefully marking the time. After about eight minutes, the casket is opened, and the man who nearly suffocated inside is revived by the rush of fresh air. He tells the men around him what he saw. As he passed out from lack of oxygen, he saw a light that became brighter and larger as he sped toward it through a tunnel. From that light came a radiant person in white who delivered a message of eternal life.

The priest who is attending this ceremony is pleased with the results. ‘No man escapes death,’ he says. ‘And every living soul is destined to resurrection. You go into the tomb alive that you will learn of the light.’

The man who ‘died’ but is now reborn is happy. He is now a member of one of the strangest societies in history, a group of civic leaders who induced nearly fatal suffocation to create a near-death experience.

Sound like a cult from some place in northern California ? Ex-hippies looking for a new high, perhaps? Not at all. This was the cult of Osiris, a small society of men who were priests and pharaohs of ancient Egypt , one of the greatest civilizations in human history. This account of how they inspired near death is an actual description of their rites from Egyptologists who have translated their hieroglyphics.

One of the most important Egyptian rituals involved the reenactment by their god-king of the myth of Osiris, the god who brought agriculture and civilization to the ancient Egyptians. He was the first king of Egypt who civilized his subjects and then traveled abroad to instruct others in the fine art of civilization. His enemies plotted against him. Upon his return to Egypt , he was captured and sealed in a chest. His eventual resurrection was seen as proof of life eternal.

Each new king was supposed to be a direct reincarnation of Osiris. An important part of the ceremony was to reenact his entombment. These rituals took place in the depths of the Great Pyramid and were a prerequisite for becoming a god-king. It is my guess that many slaves perished while the Egyptians experimented to find exactly how long a person could be sealed in an airtight container and survive.

Nonetheless, these near-death experiences were more important to the Egyptians than the lives of a few slaves. After all, this was the age of the bicameral mind, a period in which men believed that their thoughts came to them from the gods and were not internally generated. For the Egyptians, thoughts and dreams were gods speaking to them.

Prior to the evolution of individual consciousness, people were what Princeton psychiatrist Julian Jaynes calls ‘bicameral.’ By this, he means that they did not understand that their own thoughts and actions were generated from within themselves, but rather that they thought external gods created these thoughts and actions. For example, a fully conscious human thinks: I am hungry and I will make myself a sandwich. The bicameral man thought: The gods have created a pain in my belly and cause me to find food to satisfy them. The Iliad is an excellent example of bicameral thinking: It is one god who makes Achilles promise not to go into battle, another who urges him to go, and another screams through his throat (at his enemies). In fact, the gods take the place of consciousness. The beginnings of action are not in conscious plans, reasons, and motives; they are-to the bicameral man-the actions and speeches of gods.

This bicameral thinking has long vanished from human beings, ever since the evolution of language and writing. Once men would write down their thoughts, and read what other people have written, they came to understand that each human being has an individual consciousness, and that gods do not direct our every action.

However, ancient Egypt was a prime example of a bicameral society. Jaynes states that the Egyptian civilization was controlled and directed by the bicameral voice of their first god-king, Osiris. It was essential to their civilization that each new king consider himself to be the vehicle of the hallucinated voice of the dead king whose admonitions still controlled society. What better way to generate this absolute continuity of the god-king than to have each new king undergo a near-death experience. Just as children that I interviewed often perceived the light that they saw as the light of Jesus, these king-initiates would perceive that same light as the spirit of Osiris.

A near-death experience to a bicameral man would have extraordinary significance, more so even that it has to modern man. For one thing, it would be absolute proof of eternal life. Since they felt that the gods inspired their every thought, a near-death experience would be like having a god open the doors of perception to a mortal.

An NDE gave Egyptian rulers a sense of all-knowing. Before they were sealed into the casket, they only acted like kings. Afterward, they felt as if they had deeper knowledge of the world around them.

I also believe that an NDE as part of a king’s job description, may account for the unusual peace and prosperity that Egypt enjoyed for the nearly two thousand years that the pharaohs reigned. As happens with those who experience NDEs today, these kings were transformed by the humbling and exalting experience of near death. They developed a reverence for the love that people share with one another. They became kind and caring and interested in the universe and the world around them.

These were people who supported extensive research in astronomy. With their ‘primitive’ tools, they were able to obtain a vast knowledge of the stars, even finding dark stars that we have been able to confirm only with powerful telescopes.

The ancient Egyptians were advanced in medicine and the use of foods and antibiotics to prevent epidemics among pyramid workers. They knew of special diets of red onions, bread, and garlic that stimulated the immune system, a diet that was only recently endorsed by the National Science Foundation. They even had a fair amount of knowledge about surgery.

Archaeologists have deciphered the exact experience of these mystery rituals, and virtually all agree that its purpose was to generate an understanding of eternal life. Their understanding of the death process has been handed down through the ages in a document known as The Egyptian Book of the Dead. This book is simply a detailed description of a near-death experience. It starts with a judgment scene and goes on to reveal many gods and various voices, continues on a long boat trip through a dark tunnel, and ends with union with a bright light.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead is quite similar to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a manual for dying that was passed by word of mouth in Tibetan culture until about fifteen hundred years ago, when it was recorded by Europeans.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead gives the dying person control over his own death and rebirth. The Tibetans, who believed in reincarnation, felt that the dying person could influence his own destiny. The Tibetans called this book Bardo Thodol, or ‘Liberation by Hearing on the After-Death Plane.’ It was meant to be read after death to help the deceased find the right path.

Part of what the priest is supposed to read goes like this: ‘Thy own intellect, which is now voidness…thine own consciousness, not formed into anything, in reality void…will first experience the Radiance of the Fundamental Clear Light of Pure Reality.

‘The union of your own consciousness and the Clear Light is the state of Perfect Enlightenment. This is the Great Body of Clear Light…the source of life and light.’

How similar the Tibetan beliefs to the Egyptians and other ancient people too, from Europe to Africa .

The Aztec Song of the Dead represents a work that served to enlighten the Aztecs about the world beyond. This was a society that practiced ritual and slow death as part of their basic religion.

Their Song of the Dead reads like a poetic version of a near-death experience. It practically scores off the top of the scale of the Near-Death Experience Validity Scale developed by researcher Kenneth Ring. The Song reads like this:

‘Then the time came for Quetzalcoatl to die, when he felt the darkness twist in him like a river.’

He then had a life review, in which he remembers all of his good works and is able to settle his affairs. He then ‘saw my face/(like looking into a ) cracked mirror.’ He hears flutes and the voices of friends and then passes through a shining city and over hills of many colors. He comes to the edge of a great sea, where he again sees his own face, during which time ‘the beauty of his face returned to him.’

There is a bonfire on the beach in which he throws himself, and…

It ended with his heart transformed into a star.

It ended with the morning star with dawn and evening.

It ended with his journey to Death’s kingdom with seven days of darkness.

With his body changed to light.

A star that burns forever in that sky.

All of these cultures believed they left their bodies and embarked on a spiritual voyage, a journey that had the same traits as that of Katie, who nearly drowned in that swimming pool in Idaho” (CTL:78-83).

Near Death Experiences Patterns Across Cultures:

Anthropologist James McClenon writes:

“Near-death experience accounts from preliterate cultures reveal the same universal features, suggesting that Paleolithic out-of-body and near-death experiences followed the ‘universal laws’ and had features in common with modern episodes…Although culturally shaped features exist within near-death episodes, recurring elements probably contributed to convergence in concepts of heaven and hell in medieval Christian and Buddhist thought. Medieval accounts from Europe, China, and Japan are remarkably similar and often include narrative features that do not coincide with the prevailing theologies of their time. People from all eras found these accounts interesting and accepted them as evidence regarding the afterlife” (WHSHEOR:126-127).

 

1. China (END:25):

i.  “There is no report of an OBE, but life review is suggested by one person who saw all his “sinful deeds” (END:25).

ii.      “Once again, supernatural environs and beings of light are witnessed” (END:25).

iii.      “Overall it seems that, from the historical and survey evidence available, the Chinese NDE may be very similar to the Anglo-European NDE”(END:26).

2. India:

  i.      “There was one case report of an OBE” (END:26).

  ii.      “Finally, observing religious figures and deceased beings is part of these Indian NDE reports.  These beings are observed in a supernatural world whose features resemble the traditional view of the “other realm” (END:26).

3. Guam:

i.  “School psychologist Green reported four cases of NDE among the Chammorro of Guam” (END:27).

ii.      “Two of these cases involved direct interviews conducted by Green.  The other two cases were collected by a local man who was interested in the subject of NDEs” (END:27).

  iii.      “Like the NDEs gathered in India and China, the Chammorro cases report visits to a paradisical place of gardenlike appearance.  Here the NDEer is met by deceased beings, some of whom are relatives” (END:27).

iv.      “…OBEs are reported; the respondents recount flying ‘through the clouds’ and making invisible visits to living relatives in America” (END:27).

v.      “Indeed, the transition from the ill and unconscious state to the OBE appearance is unexplained.  Respondents suddenly find themselves flying through the sky or walking on a road.  The emphasis of the narrative is on the social experiences while unconscious, that is, of meeting deceased relatives or experiencing a flying visit to living ones” (END:27).

vi. “So far these two features of the NDE, encountering other worlds and deceased beings, is a steady, recurring feature of NDEs.  As we shall see in other non-Western cases, this trend will continue”(END:28).

4.  Native America:

i. “In these accounts, OBE and encountering other realms and deceased beings are reported.  The other realm, as in all previous cases, is similar to the former world of the percipient” (END:29).

5. Maori New Zealand:

i.  “Nga was a Maori woman who encountered her first white person when she was ‘a girl just over school age’ (BP:92).  A favorite story of Nga’s was apparently one about the occasion she believed she had died.  ‘I became seriously ill for the only time in my life.  I became so ill that my spirit actually passed out of my body.  May family believed I was dead because my breathing stopped.  They took me to the marae, laid out my body and began to call people for the tangi.  Meanwhile, in my spirit, I had hovered over my head then left the room and traveled northwards, towards the Tail of the Fish.  I passed over the Waikato River, across the Manukau, over Ngati Whatua, Ngapuhi, Te Rarawe and Te Aupouri until at last I came to Te Rerenga Wairua, the leaping off place of spirits’ (END:31).

Near Death Experiences in Children:

Dr. Melvin Morse’s account of Katie:

“I stood over Katie’s lifeless body in the intensive care unit and wondered whether this little girl could be saved.  A few hours earlier she had been found floating facedown in a YMCA pool….An emergency CAT scan showed massive swelling of the brain….I was the doctor who resuscitated her in the emergency room after the accident in the pool.”

“When she was feeling well enough, I had her come in for a follow-up examination.  One of the things I wanted to know was what she remembered about her near drowning…..Katie clearly remembered me.  After introducing myself, she turned to her mother and said, ‘That’s the one with the beard.  First there was this tall doctor who didn’t have  a beard, and then he came in.’  Her statement was correct.  The first into the emergency room was a tall, clean-shaven physician named Bill Longhurst. 

Katie remembered more. ‘First I was in the big room, and then they moved me to a smaller room where they did X-rays on me.’  She accurately noted such details as having ‘a tube down my nose,’ which was her description of nasal intubation.  Most physicians intubate orally, and that is the most common way that it is represented on television.

She accurately described many other details of her experience.  I remember being amazed at the events she recollected.  Even though her eyes had been closed and she had been profoundly comatose during the entire experience, she still ‘saw’ what was going on.

I asked her an open-ended question: ‘What do you remember about being in the swimming pool?’

‘Do you mean when I visited the Heavenly Father,’ she replied.

Whoa, I thought. “That’s a good place to start.  Tell me about meeting the Heavenly Father.’

‘I met Jesus and the Heavenly Father,’ she said.  Maybe it was the shocked look on my face or maybe it was shyness.  But that was it for the day.  She became very embarrassed and would speak no more.

I scheduled her for another appointment the following week.

What she told me during our next meeting changed my life.  She remembered nothing about the drowning itself.  Her first memory was of darkness and the feeling that she was so heavy she couldn’t move.  Then a tunnel opened and through that tunnel came ‘ Elizabeth.’

Elizabeth was ‘tall and nice’ with bright, golden hair.  She accompanied Katie up the tunnel, where she saw her late grandfather and met several other people.  Among her ‘new friends’ were two young boys- ‘souls waiting to be born’-named Andy and Mark, who played with her and introduced her to many people.

At one point in the voyage, Katie was given a glimpse of her home.  She was allowed to wander throughout the house, watching her brothers and sisters play with their toys in their rooms.  One of her brothers was playing with a GI Joe, pushing him around the room in a jeep.  One of her sisters was combing the hair of a Barbie doll and singing a popular rock song.  She drifted into the kitchen and watched her mother preparing a meal of roast chicken and rice.  Then she looked into the living room and saw her father sitting on the couch staring quietly ahead.  She assumed he was worrying about her in the hospital.

Later, when Katie mentioned this to her parents, she shocked them with her vivid details about the clothing they were wearing, their positions in the house, even the food her mother was cooking.

Finally, Elizabeth-who seemed to be a guardian angel to Katie, took her to meet the Heavenly Father and Jesus.  The Heavenly Father asked if she wanted to go home.  Katie cried.  She said she wanted to stay with him.  Then Jesus asked her if she wanted to see her mother again.  ‘Yes,’ she replied.  Then she awoke"(CTL:3-7).

Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Patients:

* The following case studies are recorded in Dr. Michael B. Sabom's book entitled Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation.

About Dr. Michael B. Sabom:

“Dr. Michael B. Sabom is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, at Emory University and a staff physician at the Atlanta VA Medical Center.  He received a B.A. degree from Colorado College and an M.D. degree with honors from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.  Board certified in both Internal Medicine Branch and Cardiology, Dr. Sabom is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, and a Fellow on the Council of Clinical Cardiology of the American Heart Association.  He has contributed more than a score of articles dealing with cardiology and the near-death experience to professional journals and textbooks.  He has also lectured widely on the topic of the near-death experience and has appeared on many national television programs” (ROD:"About the Author").

“Mr. O (I-57) was a 60-year-old retired laborer when I first interviewed him in August 1977.  In July 1976, he had suffered a heart attack associated with a cardiac arrest and a combined NDE.  The autoscopic portion of this combined NDE was described as follows:

S: I went into the third heart attack and it was a real bugger.  They said I was going into all kinds of spasms…As I was going, I could see my body lying there as I looked back with no remorse…I saw the whole show, and I didn’t know who it was at first, and then I looked real close and it was me and I thought: Oh, man, what is this?  And I didn’t feel no different than I do now.  I was looking from up, down…I was going up slowly, like floating in a dark or semidark corridor like.  They were working the hell out of me.  They were crawling on top of me with their knees.  Actually, they cracked my pelvic bone on the right side and that’s right where I saw that knee as I was going up…They were all shaking their heads as I was going up, but I didn’t see them do that…[use] these electric jobbies to hit you with…They were all done with that, I guess.  I didn’t feel rejected or any remorse or nothing…And I saw them stick the needle in there almost in the center of the chest but on the left side…They just plunged it in and gave me whatever that fluid was…I could see things very clear, very vivid…They put that needle in me and nothing happened so they started crawling all over me again, beating on my chest, pushing on my chest, banging with their fist on my chest.  I had three fractured ribs on the left side…And I kept thinking: What is this?  What’s happening?  And I kept going up and up and up…I couldn’t hear anything.  Not one peep.  I was doing all the evaluating in my mind…And I remember seeing them down the hall just as plain as could be.  The three of them were standing there-my wife, my oldest son and my oldest daughter and the doctor…There was no way, being out, that I could have seen anybody…I knew damn well they were there…I didn’t know what was going on.  I didn’t know why they were crying…And then I went further…I went to a different world…

A: Were you unconscious while this happened?

S: Oh, yes.

In other words, this man claimed to have viewed the following events during the autoscopic portion of his NDE: an injection into the heart; external cardiac massage; and the presence of his wife, eldest son and daughter standing down the hall of the hospital" (ROD:111-112).

Dr. Sabom continued:

“ I separately interviewed this man’s wife regarding his account.  According to her, her husband had been on the ambulatory floor of the hospital that night, anticipating hospital discharge the next day.  She had planned not to visit him that night since he would be coming home so soon.  Quite unexpectedly, her eldest son and daughter came by to visit her at home and the three of them decided to surprise him with a visit, ‘since we didn’t have anything better to do.’  Without phoning ahead, the arrived at the hospital and began walking down the hall that led to his room.  They noticed ‘a lot of commotion’ in the hallway adjacent to his room and a nurse stopped them, ‘at least ten rooms down,’ from going any farther.’  The woman recognized her husband’s gray hair and knew something was wrong.  He had just been wheeled in his bed out of his small double room and several doctors and nurses were working on him.  His face was pointed away from her, and all she could see was the top of his head.  He was then taken directly up to the intensive care unit on another floor without passing by his wife and children.  The next morning, when they were allowed to see him, she found him to be disoriented and unable to talk because of ‘the tubes in his mouth and nose.’  Three days later, his condition improved and he was able to describe to her what had happened.  In her words:

‘He seen everything.  He seen them working with him.  And he told me he seen us standing down at the end of the hall.  And he couldn’t have seen us because his head was facing us [the face pointed to the other way].  He couldn’t have seen us…He swore he’d seen us, and I said he couldn’t have.  And even if he had just been laying there in the hall without the heart attack or anything he couldn’t have recognized us from the distance…And what was funny was that I wasn’t always with the same people.  We have six children, and they’re all grown.  So when we went down to see him, it was never the same.  One time one daughter would go or another daughter or son would go or me.  So he couldn’t have known who I was with or that I was even there.  And he told me who was there…He said he seen us standing there talking to the doctor.  And we were…And when he told me the different things that he had seen, it’s always the same.  He never changes it.’

I also interviewed this man’s daughter who had been in the hospital that night.  Although she could not recall many of the exact details of this particular visit (her father had been hospitalized several times that same year for heart attacks and she had difficulty keeping his admission straight), she did remember arriving at the hospital with her mother and brother at the time of her father’s cardiac arrest.  She could recall this since it was an unexpected event on the night prior to his anticipated discharge from the hospital”  (ROD:112-113).

** “Four persons claimed to have ‘observed their operation from the ceiling of the operating room.  One such case was reported by a cardiac patient shortly following an open-heart operation at the University of Florida in January 1978.  This man, a 52-year old night watchman from rural north Florida, had had two previous heart attacks with cardiac arrests in 1973 and 1977” (ROD:64).

**This man provided a description of the clothing the surgeons were wearing and an injured finger of one of the surgeons while they were operating on him:

“All but one doctor had scuffs tied around his shoes and this joker had on white shoes which had blood all over them.  I was wondering why this one doctor was in a pair of patent-leather white shoes in the operating room when the nurses and everybody had green covers that they put their shoes into and it was tied…I’m morbidly curious about that.   It seemed so odd…I thought it was unsanitary.  I don’t know where he had been walking in those things, but it upset me.  I thought he ought to be covered like everybody else…And there was a doctor who had a bad little finger and it looked like he was going to lose his nail.  There was a blood clot under his fingernail on his right hand.  I could see it through his gloves, which were more or less transparent.  It was real dark and I recognized it for what it was.  He was the one who did the stitching and was on the opposite side of the table from Dr. C. (I-19s)" (ROD:66-67).

Naturalistic/Materialistic Explanations:

“ What, then, can reasonably explain the curious phenomenon of near-death experiences? The theories fall into one of three general categories: psychological, pharmacological and neurological.

One recent psychological explanation is the ‘depersonalization’ hypothesis put forth by Dr. Russell Noyes, Jr., a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. Depersonalization is an ego-defensive mechanism often seen in psychiatric patients trying to defend themselves against unpleasant experiences.

Depersonalization manifests itself in a combination of seemingly contradictory symptoms. On a biological level, the person seems more alert than usual-his thoughts are more rapid, his perceptions more vivid. This would account for the near-death descriptions of seeing things more clearly and of having rapid flashes of memory (‘panoramic’ memory).

At the same time, though, the person also experiences a feeling of detachment, a loss of emotion, of altered perceptions of time and space. This aspect of depersonalization also matches characteristics of the NDE, and Noyes thinks this is the way the mind tries to escape the unpleasantness of dying.

There are many ‘escapist’ explanations of the NDE similar to this one. Some people feel that the NDE is wishful thinking, that the person faced with death conjures up images of peaceful afterlife in which all is sweetness and light. Or, say some psychiatrists, perhaps he sees what he has long been taught to believe death would be like-a world of peace where the soul lives on.

The trouble with these explanations is that they all seem to assume that the people who experience NDEs know at the time that they are facing possible death. This is not true in many instances. Reports frequently come from people who suffered cardiac arrest during a relatively simple surgical procedure. They claim to have had no awareness of having been clinically dead until they regained consciousness hours or even days later.

And there is another strange aspect to the NDE that would seem to contradict these psychological explanations. Dr. Ring tells of a man who, as he lay dying, saw a vision of two of his brothers, both dead. Actually, one had been dead for years, but the other had died two days before-a fact the dying man did not know. If this man was ‘experiencing death as he expected it should be or was fantasizing on the basis of information stored in his own mind, how could he have expected to see the spirit of someone he had no way of knowing was dead?

Nevertheless, this idea of ‘psychological explanation’ comes back again and again in efforts to explain the NDE. Certainly, many aspects of the experience would seem to fit into the traditional Christian view of death. The ‘being of light’ is often described by patients as Jesus or God. The ‘world of light’ is like the traditional view of heaven. Perhaps the threat of death causes people to grasp unconsciously at the last straws of comfort offered by biblical stories taught them when they were young.

On the other hand, some religious scientists are apt to believe simply that the patient has literally taken the first steps toward entering heaven. Similarly, those who experience ‘hellish’ visions are getting a foretaste of eternal damnation. Accounts of near-death experiences appear throughout the ages, in various cultures. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, for example, which chronicles tales told in prehistoric Tibet, describes the early stages of dying in terms very similar to those found in Moody’s work: the sensation of being in a physical void, hearing a loud noise, separating from the body, experiencing clarity of thought,, an encounter with other beings, approaching the light, a feeling of great peace. Yet these accounts predate the Christian era.

Doctors Karlis Osis and Erleendur Haraldsson, both psychologists, have undertaken a contemporary cross-cultural study that compares reports of NDEs in the United States with those in India. According to their findings, the experiences reported are essentially the same and are therefore not based on religious expectations and teachings. The Indians do not get more Hindu-oriented visions than non-Hindu Westerners do: the core characteristics were the same.

If not psychologically triggered, could NDEs be drug-induced? For example, anesthetics administered during an operation have been known to trigger visionary experiences. This is especially true when the anesthesia raises the level of carbon dioxide in the brain. Some of these anesthetics are labeled ‘dissociative’ because they may cause the patient to feel detached from his environment, even from his own body. He may also have vivid dreams and hallucinations.

The reaction to hallucinogenic drugs-and even to marijuana-is also similar in some respects to the NDE.

Or it may be that the brain itself, under stress, releases chemicals that cause the experience. One theory is that endorphins-chemicals in the brain having certain analgesic, or painkilling, effects-are poured out in greater quantities when a person is near death, bringing on feelings of peace and the sensation of floating.

There are other, neurological conditions that trigger reactions similar to the NDE. Brain researchers have found that by stimulating certain brain lobes they can release recollections very much like the panoramic memories of near-death experiences. This phenomenon is also seen in some kinds of epileptic seizure. Some scientists, theorize, therefore, that when people are faced with extreme danger and eminent death, an adaptive neural-response mechanism similar to a seizure may be set in motion, stimulating the temporal lobes and causing the visions.

Another medical explanation is that the near-death experience may be triggered by a lack of oxygen to the brain-known technically as cerebral anoxia or hypoxia. When blood flow to the brain is cut off, as in cardiac arrest, the brain begins to be starved for oxygen.

‘The earliest effect of hypoxia consists of an increased feeling of well-being and a sense of power,’ says Dr. Ernst A. Rodin, a neurologist at Detroit’s Lafayette Clinic. ‘As anoxia persists, delusions and hallucinations occur.’

Once again, however, it must be pointed out that none of these medical theories explain away all aspects of the NDE. People who have experienced both drug-induced hallucinations and an NDE say the two are very different. Those who have dreams or hallucinations recognize them afterward as having been just that-not part of reality. But those who have a near-death experience insist that it was real.

Also, many of the people who have had an NDE were not under anesthesia or the influence of any drugs at the time. Often the experience occurs before the person is even physically harmed, as in the case of a soldier who had a near-death experience when he saw bullets heading his way and thought he would be killed. This soldier was never injured, so there could have been no blocking oxygen to the brain.

Similarly, Dr. Schoonmaker states that in the cases he studied, the oxygen level in the blood was measured at the time of the cardiac arrest. He found that experiences were reported even by persons who had a sufficient oxygen supply to maintain average brain functioning.

Because no one theory can explain all aspects of the near-death experience, there have been attempts to focus on at least some of the specific phases.The most controversial of these phases is the so-called out-of-body experience (OOBE), in which patients report floating-usually above their bodies-while observing themselves being operated on. Often they can repeat conversations that were going on at the time of the operation and describe events that occurred when they were supposedly unconscious or even clinically dead. As one patient put it, ‘It was like sitting up in a balcony, looking down at a movie.’

Many doctors say it is not unusual for patients in a semiconscious state to hear what is going on around them. Dr. David B. Cheek, a San Francisco medical hypnotist, hypnotized postoperative patients and found they recalled much of the conversation that went on among medical personal during the surgery.

But during the OOBE related to near-death, the patient not only hears what is going on around him, he claims actually to have seen things that only someone present, at the time could have observed. For example, patients describe the machinery in the operating room, the positions of the surgeons, even the pattern on the floor beneath the operating table.

Again, some doctors revert to the ‘temporal lobe stimulation’ theory, pointing out that during seizures many patients experience what are known as ‘autoscopic hallucinations,’ in which they report seeing a projection of their own double. But in the OOBE, the patient does not feel as though he is in a second body. There is no sense of body at all-just a sense of floating above it.

Is the out-of-body experience just a feeling of floating out of the body, or does the consciousness in some way actually separate from the physical form?

Michael Sabom, who began his research as a skeptic, has this to say: ‘I think it’s scientifically verifiable, since what they’re seeing and later recalling is something that actually did occur. When they said they floated up out of their body, it seems the actually did-it’s not a dream or a hallucination, because of the consistency of reports’” (VOA:97, 142).

Questions and Objections:

Are Near Death Experiences Fabricated?

Dr. Habermas and J.P. Moreland wrote:

"Some critics have proposed fabrication, either conscious or unconscious, as a plausible explanation for NDEs.  Among the natural options, this one is the weakest.  Sabom (who was mentioned above) carefully considers this proposal, then enumerates several problems with it.  We will mention several of his criticisms as well as others.

For starters, the near-death experiencer often has nothing to gain by answering the researcher's questions and frequently does not even know that the researcher is interested in his experience, thinking that the inquiry is simply part of the medical process.  Furthermore, the similar patterns of NDEs could not be best accounted for this way, at least in the beginning, before the data were popularized (These patterns also transcend cultures.  In other words, these patterns are not limited to NDEs in the West.).  The patterns themselves do not, of course, prove the NDEs to be genuine, but they are an aspect of NDEs that are very difficult to explain on the fabrication hypothesis.

Also, several authors have pointed out the aspect of radical life changes in those who have reported NDEs and in the researchers themselves.  The fabrication theory does not adequately handle this phenomenon either. 

Another problem surfaces with the many patients who had multiple encounters with death without recalling any NDEs.  Why would they not fabricate more examples?  Or for that matter, why were so many of the experiences so plain in the first place?  We might expect much more elaboration in fictitious accounts, but such is rarely present.

Another often-overlooked factor, although it is rather subjective, is the down-to-earth honesty of those 'everyday people' involved.  Why would they lie about something so strange and personal? 

Then, too, while the corroborated cases could involve some fabrication, the large number of persons who would have to be involved in many of the reported instances militates strongly against that possibility.  In fact, the thousands of persons who would have to be involved at all may be one of the tougher criticisms of the fabrication hypothesis. 

Finally, there's always this antidote: We can carry out some research personally.  This way, the process of verification can be tested firsthand and privately" (I:99-100).

Telepathy or Some Other Sort of ESP?

Dr. Habermas and J.P. Moreland also wrote:

"To begin with, the supposition involved here often presupposes the so-called ‘super ESP’ hypothesis, or some related idea, that these powers both permeate and can explain countless phenomena that are now misunderstood.  But a major problem with the grandiose portion of this thesis is that it is unproven.  Therefore, it is a shot in the dark, and not a very good one at that.  But even supposing some form of ESP actually exists, it still does not account for all NDEs.  Here’s why.

Take the suggestion that corroborative information could have been received by telepathy from a living person (or by some similar means).  That still does not account for enough of the crucial features of these evidential near-death cases, such as those we described in the last chapter.  For example, is telepathy the best explanation for Katie’s knowledge of ‘everyday’ details concerning her family at home-the specific food being served for dinner, the toys her siblings were playing with, where in the house the people were located, and so on?  Even harder to explain, could telepathy account for the blind persons who correctly described the colors and styles of clothes and jewelry?  Are we to suppose that such mundane items were even being thought about during an emergency?  Similarly, did the patients with hear stoppage ‘pick up’ the same ordinary information about the specific colors of suit coats, ties, and other articles of clothing?

Consider also that near-death experiences frequently report and describe these items from the vantage point of the ceiling.  This positioning is unexplained by telepathic contact with another person, yet Sabom’s control sample confirmed the truth of the data.

But it gets even tougher from here.  How can persons report any kind of information when their brains are not functioning, as with those who had a flat EEG?  Learning mundane information about the room and clothes is one thing, but doing that when one’s brain is not operating is another matter altogether.  How would that be possible? 

Lastly, and one of the most difficult categories to explain, is the conviction of being with other loved ones who have died, whose deaths were previously unknown to the patient or even to those in the room with him.  In particular, telepathy does not seem able to resolve the conviction that the dead person is doing fine, neither can it handle the peaceful desire of the patient to be with the deceased.  In other words, if the near-death experiencer had somehow learned of the loved one’s demise from a living individual, any such mental information would necessarily include the fact of the loved one’s death and presumably a negative emotional reaction from the one who knew the information.  After all, this situation would not generate positive thoughts.  But then this situation would not account for the patient’s conviction that the deceased was peaceful and content, or the patient’s willingness to join the deceased loved one.  So the most likely cause for the information about dead loved ones is the deceased person himself.  At least in this sense, this information yields post-death data. 

But let’s ask ourselves an important question: How many of us would react positively if we were suddenly notified of the death of a loved one?  Most likely none of us would.  Yet, near-death patients who claim to discover such tidings from the newly deceased loved one responds positively, not negatively.  They are not shocked or sorrowful, but at peace and happy, often wishing to join the deceased loved one!

Let’s extend our generosity.  Let’s arbitrarily suppose for argument’s sake that ESP involvement somehow overcame some of these seemingly insuperable difficulties and established itself.  That still would not help the thesis.  The ultimate clincher is that it by no means disproves the existence of an afterlife.  If an individual’s ESP exists after the death of the body, this would simply be another way to argue that we experience an afterlife.  After all, the NDE includes the person’s own private memories and knowledge of self-as when the patient happily greets the loved one whom he immediately recognizes, or is still concerned about family members who are ‘left behind.’  So even if someone could authenticate ESP after death as a causal thesis, it would simply provide details concerning our personalities in that state-it would not refute life after death” (I:100-101).

Some Near-Death Experience Accounts are Not Genuine:

Some skeptics have argued that Near-Death Experiences are not valid since there are cases in which individuals have claimed to have Near-Death Experiences, but have relayed inaccurate information about their environment while they were allegedly out of their body. In other words, the argument is as follows: 1. There are some questionable accounts of Near-Death Experiences. 2. Therefore, one should conclude all Near-Death Experiences are not genuine.

However, this reasoning is faulty. False Near-Death Experiences do not necessarily invalidate the occurrence of genuine Near-Death Experiences. For example, the fact that counterfeit $100 bills exist does not negate the fact that genuine $100 bills exist. Likewise, judges do not reject all eyewitness testimony simply because there are unreliable eyewitnesses in certain instances.

Poorly evidenced Near-Death Experience accounts do not negate strong-evidenced Near-Death Experience accounts. Therefore, one should not reject the possibility of genuine Near-Death Experiences a priori merely because there are some questionable Near-Death Experiences accounts.

The Relevance of Near-Death Experiences to Naturalism/Materialism:

As the reader has seen above, near-death experiences have been common throughout history and identical aspects associated with NDEs have been found to transcend culture barriers. Many individuals who have near-death experiences claim to leave their body and report details that are strongly corroborated. Regardless of whether or not near-death experiences provide evidence for an afterlife, near-death experiences create a rather specific dilemma for a naturalistic worldview, which finds it difficult to fit such data into its belief system.