Books About Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)
These books about near-death experiences (NDEs) can really help someone who is looking into the questions of what happens when we die. They give descriptions of the near-death experiences of a great many different people, which helps a lot to make them seem like they must be real, since they happen to so many people.
If you are new to this kind of stuff, at first it can seem like some of these experiences are too far out to be real. If you keep on reading about them, though, your mind is likely to start to concede that it would be extremely difficult for so many accounts like these to just be some kind of hoax, or even a figment of people's imagination. (The question of the authenticity of the experiences is also addressed in the books).
Proof of Life After Death?
Many people consider that the phenomenon of near-death experiences constitute proof that there is life after death. Some other people are skeptical of this. I'll discuss this issue separately on other pages on this website in the future.
One easy argument against the "materialist" view is: What would possibly make us as humans so special as to be able to observe (let alone understand) everything that can possibly exist?
The main argument for the modern view that only material, physical things can exist hinges on the idea that human beings have magically (or randomly perhaps) been given the ability to detect, with our physical senses and with our material technology, everything that can possibly exist — that is, "material" or physical things, and/or things which are measureable and/or observeable by humans.
Since what does "material" even mean? It means things we humans can detect and interact with, using our physical bodies, and our five normal, physical senses, and perhaps also the physical technological devices (such as scientific instruments) that we can make using our material senses and other material objects. So "material" really just means "things that are made from the same types of stuff as humans, and the other things that are similiar enough that our human senses and our human-made technologies can work with".
Yet in particle physics alone, new types of fundamental subatomic particles are discovered all the time. Only a tiny fraction of these can be detected by humans, and even the newly discovered ones we can now detect (using massively advanced modern technology) are only a tiny fraction of the ones that exist (or else we wouldn't keep finding previously unknown ones every time we build more powerful particle accelerators). And that sphere of knowledge (the field of particle physics) is just one tiny piece of all that there is out there, both discovered and undiscovered.
So the argument that only the things that humans can detect and/or know about (i.e. "material" things) can possibly exist is absolutely completely ludicrous.
Yet so many people take it seriously.
It's the exact same argument that a deep-sea fish might use to "prove" that a desert-dwelling lizard could not possibly exist.
Sometime in the last few hundred years, the majority view of the "thought leaders" of our modern culture decided that, because humans have a fairly big brain — (not the biggest brain of all, sperm whales and elephants beat us there, and not a bigger brain proportional to our body size than any other animal, mice and ants beat us there) — that meant that the human brain alone must be capable of reasoning out and understanding everything that can possibly exist in the universe. And that anything we can't detect or understand (with "logic", i.e. with the processes of our own superior human brains) cannot possibly exist. Because we have such special brains, therefore our brain must be capable of understanding everything. Or something like that...
But oops I almost forgot to mention the "neocortex" of the human brain, which is especially large compared to other animals. That must be what makes us uniquely special. And uniquely capable of understanding everything that can exist. The neocortex is the part of our brain that processes logical/rational thought. And humans have a very large part of the brain dedicated to that. So that must be the most "superior" part of the brain. And what that part does (i.e. think rationally) must be the most superior type of activity. The type of brain processing/thinking which humans happen to have in spades also happens to be what we think of as the most superior/accurate/reliable/important type. What a coindicence.
NDEs Are a Whole New Field of Study
It is certainly true that many aspects of a "spiritual life" have been made less of a priority to people in modern society than they were in ancient times (or even in pre-oil times like 100 years ago). However, the field of near-death experiences (NDEs) is one area that has greatly benefited from modern science and medical technology. Most of the people giving their near-death experience (NDE) stories were, for a period of time, "dead enough" that they would have been considered dead by most of the different ways that people use to define death. In fact many of these people would have been defined as dead by every possible definition of death, except for the final one — never waking up again, since all of them have come back from the edge (at least for a while) to tell their story. If they had gone through these experiences before the last few decades, most of these people would have remained dead — since it is only due to recent advances in medicine (say since the 1960s or 70s) that we have had the means to bring these people back from the brink of death, to tell us about what they experienced as they were dying.
Because of this, in many ways the study of near-death experiences is a genuinely new field of study. And one that was not available to religious and/or spiritual people in the past who (as some people believe) received visions and inspirations from divine sources such as God or the angels. I believe that there is a great amount that we can learn from these people's near-death experiences.
The authors of the original four near-death experience (NDE) books, that I first selected for this page, are all from scientific and/or medical backgrounds (three of them being medical doctors and the fourth a professor emeritus of psychology), and consider this question on the basis of what they have actually seen and heard and experienced with actual patients.
Survival
In this field of study, the word "survival" specifically refers to the survival of the personality, or the "self", in some sense at least, after the physical death of the body.
Therefore — although I didn't realise it when I started this website — this topic turns out to be a very relevant one for a website named after the word "survival".
The Near-Death Experience Books
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Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon - Survival of Bodily Death, Dr. Raymond A. Moody, Jr. This was the first major book published about near-death experiences. The original version came out in 1975, and by 2001 when the 25th anniversary edition was published it had already sold over 13 million copies. There are reasons for this large number of sales, and I recommend this as the first book about NDEs to get.
One thing that I like about it (and a reason why I think it's a good book to read first) is that Dr. Moody is writing it as if it is a new field of learning. Since, when he wrote it, it was a new field of learning, that had never really been researched before in scientific detail. This feeling of discovering a new area of learning, and the questioning that goes with that (like "could this really be real", "does this really mean there is life after death", etc.) is something that I felt myself as I first started to study NDEs. So I felt like I was kind of in the same place as the author was when he was writing the book.
Raymond Moody presents the facts, and adds his opinions to them to some extent, but he makes it clear which is which. He says that the evidence he has seen (and that he is writing about) does not constitute a scientific proof that there is life after death, and leaves the reader to draw their own opinions from what they read. This is another reason why it's a good book to read first if you are new to this kind of stuff, since there isn't anything that is so far out that your mind will automatically put it into the category of "not really possible according to modern science".
Also, the book is written in a way that is very easy to read, and (being the shortest of the NDE books on this page) its not so long that it takes a massive effort to get through it.
He compares what his patients have told him about with a few other (greatly varied) sources of information, mostly from ancient times. In particular, he says about the Tibetan Book of the Dead that "the correspondence between the early stages of death to which it relates and those which have been recounted to me by those who have come near to death is nothing short of fantastic". He also discusses where life after death is mentioned in the Bible (it is actually not described in detail that much at all, especially in the Old Testament), and says that the brief accounts given do compare well with what his patients have told him.
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Into the Light: Real Life Stories about Angelic Visits, Visions of the Afterlife, and Other Pre-Death Experiences, Dr. John Lerma. Full review coming soon.
This is my personal favourite of the near-death experience (NDE) books I have read. It's also one of the most Christian-biased, so be aware of this if it is likely to put you off. It's absolutely not a judgemental "believe or burn" hellfire-type of Christianity, though — in fact so much the opposite that I'm pretty sure a lot of the hardcore old-school fundamentalist types would disagree with it and claim that God could not really be that gentle, loving, and forgiving.
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NEW: Return From Tomorrow, by George G. Ritchie Jr. MD. This is my favourite NDE book where the whole book is all the one story by the one person (as opposed to a collection of different NDE stories, or research). And a very close second to my favourite overall. More description will follow later... Part of Ritchie's vision/NDE experience helped me greatly to give up drinking — and that alone was worth many many times the price of this book for me personally.
It's not only me that loves Return From Tomorrow. It's one of the best-known and most loved Near-Death Experience books ever, and regularly gets comments like "One of the most amazing visions of the after-life ever recorded".
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NEW: Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience, by Pim van Lommel. This is a great book — and it's written in quite a scientific style, which is good for people from a science background (such as myself). The author is an internationally renowned cardiologist, which definitely helps with the science side of it.
Some info from the publishers:
"Dr. Pim van Lommel's Consciousness Beyond Life is an exciting, informative, and thorough overview of near-death experiences. As one of the foremost experts in the field, his work moves us closer to rational comprehension of human kind's deepest mystery- life after death." — Raymond A. Moody MD,PhD, author of Life After Life.
"In Consciousness Beyond Life, cardiologist Pim van Lommel constructs a model of consciousness that courageously builds on all we know. The resulting view is... bright and hopeful... and has the redeeming feature of being consistent with scientific data, which in our era makes all the difference." — Dr. Larry Dossey.
"Consciousness Beyond Life confronts the apparent enigma of clear thinking, accurate perception, and enhanced memory in people who are clinically dead. This rigorous and provocative book may change our ideas about the mind and how we practice medicine." — Bruce Greyson, M.D., Carlson Professor of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
"I highly recommend Consciousness Beyond Life. Van Lommel is convinced that NDEs are real experiences, not just some sort of brain malfunction. He... has studied NDEs for more than 20 years and this is an authoritative look, with solid medical background. " — Dr. Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.
"There have been several books published which explore consciousness, the near-death experience, or the brain, but van Lommel's book is the most comprehensive... Human beings are something more than physical bodies. There is life after death. Read Consciousness Beyond Life and expand your mind with hope." — Basil & Spice.
"The most significant contribution to the field to appear in many years, containing as it does [van Lommel's] mature philosophical reflections on the implications of the findings of his study on near-death experiences in survivors of cardiac arrest." — David Lorimer, editor of the Network Review.
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The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche. Full review coming soon.
This is, among other things, an interpretation of the ancient classic "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" meant for Westerners who do not have the Buddhist cultural and religious background that is (so some people say) necessary to make sense of it. It gives far more detailed descriptions of exactly what happens (according to the book) when we die than anything else that I have seen. It's a long book, not one to read from front to back unless you are very keen. There is a chapter on near-death experiences. The four "bardos" are described in detail, which I think is really interesting.
You don't need to be a Buddhist, Sogyal explains that during the process of dying you can pray to Jesus or the Virgin Mary, rather than Buddhist deities, if you are a Westerner.
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NEW: Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics, by Chris Carter. I was really impressed with this one, and its ability to explain things like "psychic phenomena" as hard science that's totally proven — yet hugely underacknowledged in modern society, for reasons of faith (faith in the sense of faith that certain things cannot exist, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary), and an officially-sanctioned determination to ignore all objective evidince. From the publisher:
A factual and conscientious argument against materialism's vehement denial of psi phenomena.
* Explores the scandalous history of parapsychology since the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
* Provides reproducible evidence from scientific research that telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis are real.
* Shows that skepticism of psi phenomena is based more on a religion of materialism than on hard science.
Reports of psychic abilities, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis, date back to the beginning of recorded human history in all cultures. Documented, reproducible evidence exists that these abilities are real, yet the mainstream scientific community has vehemently denied the existence of psi phenomena for centuries.
The battle over the reality of psi has carried on in scientific academies, courtrooms, scholarly journals, newspapers, and radio stations and has included scandals, wild accusations, ruined reputations, as well as bizarre characters on both sides of the debate. If true evidence exists, why then is the study of psi phenomena — parapsychology — so controversial? And why has the controversy lasted for centuries?
Exploring the scandalous history of parapsychology and citing decades of research, Chris Carter shows that, contrary to mainstream belief, replicable evidence of psi phenomena exists. The controversy over parapsychology continues not because ESP and other abilities cannot be verified but because their existence challenges deeply held worldviews more strongly rooted in religious and philosophical beliefs than in hard science.
Carter reveals how the doctrine of materialism — in which nothing matters but matter — has become an infallible article of faith for many scientists and philosophers, much like the convictions of religious fundamentalists. Consequently, the possibility of psychic abilities cannot be tolerated because their existence would refute materialism and contradict a deeply ingrained ideology. By outlining the origin of this passionate debate, Carter calls on all open-minded individuals to disregard the church of skepticism and reach their own conclusions by looking at the vast body of evidence.
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NEW: Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death, by Chris Carter. This is the second book that I bought together in a lot of three from the same author. I found them all to be very interesting and enlightening, in that I got ideas I hadn't realised or thought about before from them. Though the books can stand independently of each other, you don't need to read the previous ones first. This volume had a lot of inights — one of which still stands out in my mind years later:
I'd been vaguely aware of this idea for a long time, but when I read the quote below, which I first discovered in this book, it really solidified for me. I realised how much of what we now call science is really just another version of faith.
When such [materialist] scientists and philosophers are confronted with the evidence, their reaction is often anything but rational. Philosopher Neal Grossman describes how he discovered this for himself:
'I was devouring everything on the near-death experience I could get my hands on, and eager to share what I was discovering with colleagues. It was unbelievable to me how dismissive they were of the evidence. "Drug-induced hallucinations," "last gasp of a dying brain," and "people see what they want to see" were some of the commonly used phrases. One conversation in particular caused me to see more clearly the fundamental irrationality of academics with respect to the evidence against materialism.
I asked, "What about people who accurately report the details of their operation?"
"Oh," came the reply, "they probably just subconsciously heard the conversation in the operating room, and their brain subconsciously transposed the audio information into a visual format."
"Well," I responded, "what about cases where people report veridical [verified to be genuine] perception of events remote from their body?"
"Oh, that's just coincidence or a lucky guess."
Exasperated, I asked, "What will it take, short of having a near-death experience yourself, to convince you that it's real?"
Very nonchalantly, without batting an eye, the response was: "Even if I were to have a near-death experience myself, I would conclude that I was hallucinating, rather than believe that my mind can exist independently of my brain."
He went on to add that dualism — the philosophical thesis that mind and matter are independent substances, neither of which can be reduced to the other — is a false theory and that there cannot be evidence for something that is false.
This was a momentous experience for me, because here was an educated, intelligent man telling me that he will not give up materialism, no matter what. Even the evidence of his own experience would not cause him to give up materialism.
In other words, Grossman's colleague simply stated that nothing could possibly convince him that materialism was false. Like others before him, Grossman realised at that moment that for some people materialism is an ideology, a dogma. For such individuals, materialism is not a scientific hypothesis that is open to be potentially being proved false; it is an article of faith that "must" be true, regardless of evidence to the contrary. As Grossman shrewdly pointed out, a complicating factor is that materialists are typically under the impression that their belief in materialism is not ideological, but empirical [i.e. demonstrated to be true by experimental evidence]. That is, they talk as though their adherence to materialism is rigorously scientific, when in fact it is merely an expression of faith. [Emphasis added.]
Chris Carter, "Science and the Near Death Experience", p. 236. Carter is quoting Neal Grossman, "Who's Afraid of Life After Death?", Journal of Near-Death Studies 21, no. 1 (Fall 2002), pages 5-24. The quote begins on page 8 of the journal, which is page 4 of the PDF. I've added one paragraph from Grossman's article which doesn't appear in Carter's book.
Once you realise this, it's no longer about choosing faith versus science — it's just faith versus a different type of faith.
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NEW: Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness, by Chris Carter. This is the third book of Chris Carter's that I read, and I found his arguments to be very convincing.
From the publisher:
Examines 125 years of scientific research into reincarnation, apparitions and communication with the dead showing these phenomena are real.
Reveals the existence of higher planes of consciousness where the souls of the dead can choose to advance or manifest once again on earth.
Explains how these findings have been ignored and denied because they are incompatible with materialist doctrines.
Carter's rigorous argument proves — beyond any reasonable doubt — not only that consciousness survives death and continues in the afterlife, but that it precedes birth as well. In this book, Chris Carter shows that evidence of life beyond death exists and has been around for millennia, predating any organised religion.
Focusing on three key phenomena — reincarnation, apparitions and communications from the dead — Carter reveals 125 years of documented scientific studies by independent researchers and the British and American Societies for Psychical Research that rule out hoaxes, fraud and hallucinations and prove these afterlife phenomena are real.
The author examines historic and modern accounts of detailed past-life memories, visits from the deceased and communications with the dead via medium and automatic writing as well as the scientific methods used to confirm these experiences.
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NEW: Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife, by Leslie Kean. Another newer one I'll read soon. Also available as an audio CD. From the author:
“While exploring the evidence for an afterlife, I witnessed some unbelievable things that are not supposed to be possible in our material world. Yet they were unavoidably and undeniably real. Despite my initial doubt, I came to realize that there are still aspects of Nature which are neither understood or accepted, even though their reality has profound implications for understanding the true breadth of the human psyche and its possible continuity after death.”
You can read an interview with the author here.
In the interview linked above, the author says, "When I started this investigation, I was a skeptic too, as were many of the leading investigators over the last century. The early investigators set out to disprove the existence of the phenomena, but eventually had no choice but to acknowledge their reality."
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NEW: The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences, by Anny Dirven. This is a newer one I've just discovered and yet have to read... From the publishers:
"Are near-death experiences (NDEs) just elaborate hallucinations produced by a dying brain? Or the exuberant fantasies of attention-seeking narcissists? As the accounts in this book abundantly demonstrate: Neither!
This book contains over 100 reliable, often firsthand accounts of perceptions during NDEs that were later verified as accurate by independent sources. These near-death experiencers were everyday people from all over the world-many of whom were clinically dead, unable to see or hear, and yet able to perceive new vistas of a world beyond the senses and even beyond death.
The Self Does Not Die is a trailblazing effort to present the most confirmed cases of consciousness beyond death ever compiled. In these cases, the authors have gone back to the original sources, the people involved in each case, whenever possible, rather than relying on secondhand sources. In so doing, they have assembled a unique collection of empirical data that any scholar worthy of the name must take into account.
By carefully studying and describing many convincing and corroborated cases, during cardiac arrest and other cases, the authors conclude that there are good reasons to assume that our consciousness does not always coincide with the functioning of our brain: Enhanced consciousness can sometimes be experienced separately from the body.
This book is a must read for anyone wanting to know more about this fascinating subject with its implications about the very nature of human consciousness and its survival of physical death. It has the potential to radically change the currently still widely accepted materialist paradigm in science."
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NEW: The Purpose of Life as Revealed by Near-Death Experiences from Around the World, by David Sunfellow. This is another new NDE book, I haven't got it yet, but the reviews are so good I had to add it to this page. From the publishers:
Every day, all over the world, an increasing number of people are reporting near-death experiences (and related phenomena). This book is a collection of the best stories and quotes I have come across in 40-plus years of studying NDEs. It shines a bright light on the universal truths that are championed by NDEs and reveals, in life-changing technicolor, how to apply these truths to our everyday lives.
This book was first published under the title Love The Person You're With. All 60 chapters of that book are included in this one. 31 additional chapters have been added. The book is being published under a new title to reach more people. New content has been added to explore some topics in greater depth. Other tweaks, including enhanced references, have been added to make the book easier to read, remember, and study.
The book includes stories and quotes from 52 experiencers and 10 researchers, including Howard Storm, Tom Sawyer, Reinee Pasarow, Dianne Morrissey, Oliver John Calvert, Erica McKenzie, Andy Petro, Amy Call, Mary Jo Rapini, Anne Horn, Ellyn Dye, Mellen-Thomas Benedict, Ryan Rampton, Natalie Sudman, Amphianda Baskett, Mary Neal, Julie Aubier, Julian of Norwich, Barbara Harris Whitfield, Anita Moorjani, Jeff Olsen, Cami Renfrow, Louisa Peck, Ana Cecilia, Peter Panagore, Alon Anava, Tricia Barker, Samuel Bercholz, Arthur Yensen, George Ritchie, Linda Stewart, Cecil Willy, Lorna Byrne, Rene Jorgensen, Mary Deioma, Krystal Winzer, David Sunfellow, Kenneth Ring, Laurin Bellg, Jeffrey Long, Sheila, Dennis, and Matthew Linn, Kevin Williams, Barbara R. Rommer, and John W. Price.
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