Fischer John Martin - Near-Death Experiences

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fischer, John Martin, 1952 author. | Mitchell-Yellin, Benjamin, author.

Title: Near-death experiences: understanding visions of the afterlife / John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin. Description: New York, NY: Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015038168 | ISBN 9780190466602 (hardcover: alk. paper) | eISBN 9780190466626 Subjects: LCSH: Near-death experiences.

Classification: LCC BF1045.N4 F58 2016 | DDC 133.901/3dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038168

There is tremendous interest in near-death experiences: their nature, their meaning and their implications for the afterlife. This is understandable. Few topics are of greater interest to human beings than what happens to us after we die, and near-death experiences seem to be a window into the truth on this matter.

These issues have recently been explored in a number of popular books. Three of them, Eben Alexanders Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeons Journey into the Afterlife and The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife, as well as Todd Burpos Heaven Is for Real (also the subject of an extremely successful motion picture), offer an interpretation of near-death experiences as pointing to the existence of an afterlife (as understood in the Christian tradition). Two other books that have reached a wide audience, Jeffrey Longs Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences and Pim van Lommels Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of Near-Death Experience, call into question the framework of the physical sciences. All five of these discussions of near-death experiences take them as evidence of something supernatural.

We have deep respect for individuals who have had near-death experiences. Indeed, we hope that our serious attention to these remarkable experiences displays our respect. We also respect the deep religious convictions of many who have thought about the significance of these experiences. In these pages we wish to address the implications of near-death experiences for questions about the fundamental nature of reality and the relationship between our minds and our brains. Do near-death experiences establish that there is an afterlife? Do they show that our minds can function separately from our brains? Our aim is to explore these questions with the seriousness and rigor they deserve.

Many people have provided us with helpful feedback on the material in this book. In particular, we would like to thank the following people, in alphabetical order: Yuval Avnur, Christie Coy, Richard Coy, Ari Fischer, Tina Fischer, Heinrik Hellwig, John Perry, Patrick Ryan, Eric Schwitzgebel, Allison Solso, and Howard Wettstein. We owe special debts of gratitude to Nathan Ballantyne, Shelly Kagan, and Peter Ohlin for their detailed and extremely helpful comments. The writing of this book was supported in part by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation, but the book does not necessarily reflect its views or stances on any of the issues discussed.

In his bestselling book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeons Journey into the Afterlife, Eben Alexander describes his experience during a seven-day coma. He was presented with a beautiful, incredible dream-world:

Except it wasnt a dream. Though I didnt know where I was or even what I was, I was absolutely sure of one thing: this place Id suddenly found myself in was completely real. The word real expresses something abstract, and its frustratingly ineffective at conveying what Im trying to describe. Imagine being a kid and going to a movie on a summer day. Maybe the movie was good, and you were entertained as you sat through it. But then the show ended, and you filed out of the theater and back into the deep, vibrant, welcoming warmth of the summer afternoon. And as the air and the sunlight hit you, you wondered why on earth youd wasted this gorgeous day sitting in a dark theater.

Multiply that feeling a thousand times, and you still wont be anywhere close to what it felt like where I was.

I dont know how long, exactly, I flew along.... But at some point, I realized that I wasnt alone up there.... Someone was next to me: a beautiful girl with high cheek-bones and deep blue eyes. She was wearing the same kind of peasant-like clothes that the people in the village down below wore. Golden-brown tresses framed her lovely face. We were riding along together on an intricately patterned surface, alive with indescribable and vivid colorsthe wing of a butterfly. In fact, millions of butterflies were all around usvast fluttering waves of them, dipping down into the greenery and coming back up around us again....

The girls outfit was simple, but its colorspowder blue, indigo, and pastel orange-peachhad the same overwhelming, super-vivid aliveness that everything else in the surrounding had. She looked at me with a look that, if you saw it for a few moments, would make your whole life up to that point worth living....

Without using any words, she spoke to me.... The message had three parts... :

You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.

You have nothing to fear.

There is nothing you can do wrong.

Alexanders experience transformed his life. And it has resonated deeply with a wide audience (over 2 million copies sold!). This and other near-death experiences (NDEs) understandably hold peoples attention. They are deeply meaningful and profound. We want to understand themto explain what is going on and to comprehend their significance.

This is not the stuff of everyday perception.

Near-death experiences offer a glimpse into the nature of the End to people who come back from the brink. Those who have had them can shed some light on this dark subject for the rest of us. They can speak to something that remains opaque to the rest of us until its too late. They can make sense of passing away for those They can help to reorient ones priorities and to come to grips with what matters in life. Near-death experiences offer a glimpse not only into the nature of death but also into the meaning of life.

It is no wonder that the literature on near-death experiences has so thoroughly captured the public imagination. Visiting heaven and reuniting with lost loved ones, revisiting ones life as if it were a movie, witnessing the resuscitation of ones body at the hands of medical professionals: these are incredible, profound things to experience. Naturally, we want to know why they occur and what they mean. Whether due to their transformative effects on those who have them, or simply because their contents are so fascinating, reports of near-death experiences are often quite gripping. These stories need to be told, and the experiences lend themselves to the telling with gusto. Those who come back from the brink and are able to share their experiences are often able to do so in compelling ways, and recent depictions of near-death experiences in books and films have captured the publics imagination.