The Natural Death Handbook

Chapter 3
Near-Death Experiences

[This is from the 1993 edition. For the latest version of this book order the Natural Death Handbook (4th ed).]

Accounts from past centuries

Throughout life, preparations are made for the various rites of passage, from weaning a baby, to preparing for retirement, by listening to the voices of those who have already passed through those various stages. Yet the voices of those who may have undergone at least a temporary death are only now beginning to be taken seriously by mainstream society and mainstream science. This is despite the fact that the written descriptions of changes in consciousness during Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have been available for centuries. The earliest English account comes from the Venerable Bede in the eighth century, who tells the story of a man who was thought to be dead:

An eighth century account

He came back to life and suddenly sat up - those weeping around the body were very upset and ran away. 'I was guided by a handsome man in a shining robe,' he said. 'When we reached the top of a wall, there was there a wide and pleasant meadow, with light flooding in that seemed brighter than daylight or the midday sun. I was very reluctant to leave, for I was enraptured by the place's pleasantness and beauty and by the company I saw there. From now on I must live in a completely different way.' He later left all his wordly responsibilities and entered the Melrose monastery.

Adapted extract from 'A History of the English Church and People' by the Venerable Bede.

Likewise, Montaigne, in the sixteenth century, described the pleasure of nearly dying, having been thrown from his horse. As he lay inanimate:

Pleasure in letting go

My attendants tried to revive me but in vain and, thinking I was dead, they began to carry me with great difficulty to my house.

On the way, after having been taken for dead for over two hours, I began to move and breathe. It seemed to me that life held only from the tip of my lips and I was closing my eyes to keep life out: I was taking pleasure in letting myself go. My life was merely a perception passing fleetingly though my soul, which was as weak as the rest of me, although the whole experience was not only truly free of pain but was reminiscent of the gentle sensation felt by those who abandon themselves to sleep. I believe that this is the same state that people find themselves in whom we see fainting in death agony, and I maintain that we pity them without cause.

From Montaigne's 'Essays', Bk II ch. II, On Training, translated by

Marcelle Papworth.

Not only pleasure but an elongation of time were reported by a Victorian parson caught outside in a blizzard:

Review of life during fall

The story of the Reverend Edmund Donald Carr, who miraculously survived on the Lond Mynd on a January night in 1865 can still be found in the libraries of Shropshire country houses. In the weeks preceding Carr's adventure the snow had fallen to a greater depth than in the previous 51 years; however he set off to walk four miles from Woolstaston to Ratlinghope after lunch, to preach to three people, after which he set off home in a blizzard. He was not found for 18 hours, having lost most of his outer clothing before he finally passed out. In the course of one of the many falls he had before this, he experienced what is described as the agonal phenomenon.

'The pace I was going in this headlong descent must have been very great, yet it seemed to me to occupy a marvellous space of time, long enough for the events of the whole of my previous life to pass in review before me.'

From an article by Julian Critchley in the Independent Magazine

(May 23rd 1992).

Albert Heim, writing in 1892, made a special study of NDEs resulting from falls, and gave as one instance his own such experience:

A fall in the mountains

As soon as I began to fall I realized that now I was going to be hurled from the crag and I anticipated the impact that would come. With clawing fingers I dug into the snow in an effort to brake myself. My fingertips were bloody but I felt no pain. I heard clearly the blows on my head and back as they hit each corner of the crag and I heard a dull thud as I struck below. But I first felt pain some hours afterward. The earlier-mentioned flood of thoughts began during the fall. What I felt in five to ten seconds could not be described in ten times that length of time. All my thoughts and ideas were coherent and very clear, and in no way susceptible, as are dreams, to obliteration. First of all I took in the possibilities of my fate and said to myself: 'The crag point over which I will soon be thrown evidently falls off below me as a steep wall since I have not been able to see the ground at the base of it. It matters a great deal whether or not snow is still lying at the base of the cliff wall. If this is the case, the snow will have melted from the wall and formed a border around the base. If I fall on the border of snow I may come out of this with my life, but if there is now more snow down there, I am certain to fall on rubble and at this velocity death will be quite inevitable. If, when I strike, I am not dead or unconscious I must instantly seize my small flask of spirits of vinegar and put some drops from it on my tongue. I do not want to let go of my alpenstock; perhaps it can still be of use to me.' Hence I kept it tightly in my hand. I thought of taking off my glasses and throwing them away so that splinters from them might not injure my eyes, but I was so thrown and swung about that I could not muster the power to move my hands for this purpose. A set of thoughts and ideas then ensued concerning those left behind. I said to myself that upon landing below I ought, indifferent to whether or not I were seriously injured, to call immediately to my companions out of affection for them to say, 'I'm all right!' Then my brother and three friends could sufficiently recover from their shock so as to accomplish the fairly difficult descent to me. My next thought was that I would not be able to give my beginning university lecture that had been announced for five days later. I considered how the news of my death would arrive for my loved ones and I consoled them in my thoughts. Then I saw my whole past life take place in many images, as though on a stage at some distance from me. I saw myself as the chief character in the performance. Everything was transfigured as though by a heavenly light and everything was beautiful without grief, without anxiety and without pain. The memory of very tragic experiences I had had was clear but not saddening. I felt no conflict or strife; conflict had been transmuted into love. Elevated and harmonious thoughts dominated and united the individual images, and like magnificent music a divine calm swept through my soul. I became ever more surrounded by a splendid blue heaven with delicate roseate and violet cloudlets. I swept into it painlessly and softly and I saw that now I was falling freely through the air and that under me a snowfield lay waiting. Objective observations, thoughts, and subjective feelings were simultaneous. Then I heard a dull thud and my fall was over.

From an article by Albert Heim in Jahrbuch des Schweitzer Alpenklub 27 (1892):327, quoted in 'The Human Encounter with Death' by Stanislav Grof

and Joan Halifax.

Until recently, the main reporters of near-death changes of state were philosophers, mystics and poets, from Plato and Pythagoras to Walt Whitman and Tolstoy. However, today, interest in the phenomenon of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) is more likely to be promoted by developments in psychiatry and psychology and the resultant interest on the fringes of science in different states of human consciousness. Furthermore, modern resuscitation techniques have increased the number of people now alive who have 'temporarily died' and have generated a considerable amount of new research data.

NDE investigators

The challenge to explore this phenomenon was taken up by the Swiss-born American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, renowned for her pioneering work with dying patients. She drew public attention to the fact that something quite out of the ordinary happens to a person on the verge of death. And a psychiatry professor, George Ritchie, who during his nine-minute 'death' had found himself in the presence of Christ in a heavenly realm, wrote a book entitled 'Return from Tomorrow'. This inspired Raymond Moody, an American, whose book 'Life after Life' (published in 1975) quickly became a best seller, advertising itself as 'actual case histories that reveal there is life after death' (although Moody himself said 'I am not trying to prove there is life after death. Nor do I think that a "proof" of this is presently possible').

'Life after Life' is based on 150 accounts, and from these accounts Moody extracted the fifteen most frequent elements. He labelled these in the sequence in which they tended to occur as follows: ineffability, hearing the news, feelings of peace and quiet, the noise, the dark tunnel, out of the body, meeting others, the being of light, the review, the border or limit, coming back, telling others, effects on lives, new views of death, and, finally, corroboration. This next account, a descriptive summary by Kenneth Ring, puts flesh on the bones of these elements.

The 'typical' NDE

The experience begins with a feeling of easeful peace and a sense of well-being, which soon culminates in a sense of overwhelming joy and happiness. This ecstatic tone, although fluctuating in intensity from case to case, tends to persist as a constant emotional ground as other features of the experience begin to unfold. At this point, the person is aware that he feels no pain nor does he have any other bodily sensations. Everything is quiet. These cues may suggest to him that he is either in the process of dying or has already 'died'.

He may then be aware of a transitory buzzing or wind-like sound, but, in any event, he finds himself looking down on his physical body, as though viewing it from some external vantage point. At this time, he finds that he can see and hear perfectly; indeed, his vision and hearing tend to be more acute than usual. He is aware of the actions and conversations taking place in the physical environment, in relation to which he finds himself in the role of a passive, detached spectator. All this seems very real - even quite natural - to him; it does not seem at all like a dream or an hallucination. His mental state is one of clarity and alertness.

At some point, he may find himself in a state of dual awareness. While he continues to be able to perceive the physical scene around him, he may also become aware of 'another reality' and feel himself being drawn into it. He drifts or is ushered into a dark void or tunnel and feels as though he is floating through it. Although he may feel lonely for a time, the experience here is predominantly peaceful and serene. All is extremely quiet and the individual is aware only of his mind and of the feeling of floating.

All at once, he becomes sensitive to, but does not see, a presence. The presence, who may be heard to speak or who may instead 'merely' induce thoughts into the individual's mind, stimulates him to review his life and asks him to decide whether he wants to live or die. This stock-taking may be facilitated by a rapid and vivid visual playback of episodes from the person's life. At this stage, he has no awareness of time or space, and the concepts themselves are meaningless. Neither is he any longer identified with his body. Only the mind is present and it is weighing - logically and rationally - the alternatives that confront him at this threshold separating life from death: to go further into this experience or to return to earthly life. Usually the individual decides to return on the basis, not of his own preference, but of the perceived needs of his loved ones, whom his death would necessarily leave behind. Once the decision is made, the experience tends to be abruptly terminated.

Sometimes, however, the decisional crisis occurs later or is altogether absent, and the individual undergoes further experiences. He may, for example, continue to float through the dark void toward a magnetic and brilliant golden light, from which emanates a 'world of light' and preternatural beauty, to be (temporarily) reunited with deceased loved ones, before being told, in effect, that it is not yet his time and that he has to return to life.

In any event, whether the individual chooses or is commanded to return to his earthly body and worldly commitments, he does return. Typically, however, he has no recollection how he has effected his 're-entry' for at this point he tends to lose all awareness. Very occasionally, however, the individual may remember 'returning to his body' with a jolt or an agonizing wrenching sensation. He may even suspect that he re-enters 'through the head'.

Afterward, when he is able to recount his experience, he finds that there are simply no words adequate to convey the feelings and quality of awareness he remembers. He may also be or become reticent about discussing it with others, either because he feels no one will really be able to understand it or because he fears he will be disbelieved or ridiculed.

From 'Heading Toward Omega' by Kenneth Ring.

Since the publication of 'Life at Death' in 1980 Kenneth Ring has found himself very much involved in near-death studies, helping found the International Association for Near Death Studies. His research seems to agree in most respects with the large study of the death bed observations of doctors and nurses carried out by Karlis Osis:

35,540 death-bed observations

The study was based on a large questionnaire survey; ten thousand questionnaires covering various aspects of death-bed observations were sent out, half of them to physicians and the other half to nurses. Detailed analyses were conducted on the 640 questionnaires that were returned. The respondents who returned these questionnaires claimed 35,540 death-bed observations.

Osis found that about 10% of dying patients appeared to be conscious in the hour preceding death. Surprisingly enough, fear was not the dominant emotion in these individuals, according to the physicians and nurses in the sample. They indicated that discomfort, pain and even indifference were more frequent. It was estimated that about one in twenty dying persons showed signs of elation. A surprising finding in this research was the high incidence of visions with a predominantly non-human content. They were approximately ten times more frequent than one would expect in a comparable group of persons in normal health. Some of these visions were more or less in accordance with traditional religious concepts and represented heaven, paradise, or the Eternal City; others were secular images of indescribable beauty, such as landscapes with gorgeous vegetation and exotic birds. According to the authors, more of these visions were characterised by brilliant colours and bore a close resemblance to psychedelic experiences induced by mescaline or LSD. Less frequent were horrifying visions of devils and hell or other frightening experiences, such as being buried alive.

From 'The Human Encounter with Death' by Stanislav Grof and Joan Halifax.

Music in NDEs

About 50% of people hear music during their NDE, and mostly 'music with a beautiful, floating sound', according to Dr Joel Funk, who is a professor of psychology at Plymouth State College, New Hampshire, USA. Dr Funk played various kinds of music to 60 people who had had NDEs and found that they identified New Age style synthesised music as nearest to what they had heard during their NDE. 'Some people burst into tears when they recognise the music of their NDEs,' says Dr Funk.

Steve Roach of Tucson, Arizona, had an NDE after a bike crash and heard 'the most intensely beautiful music you could ever imagine' and decided 'to dedicate my life to re-creating the exact same sound.' The result is a record entitled 'Structures from Silence'. 'Many people contact me after hearing my recordings to tell me that they've heard the exact same music during their NDEs,' says Roach (see the Resources chapter, under Videos and Tapes).

Varieties of NDE

Karlis Osis and his colleague Erlendur Haraldsson examined whether NDEs varied between cultures. In their book 'At the Hour of Death' (published in 1977) they concluded that, although there were considerable similarities between Indian and American NDEs, the religious personages and symbols appearing in death-bed visions were different for each culture.

Although the majority of reports of NDEs describe the subject as having been in a state that could be likened to heavenly bliss, this is not universally the case. The myths on which many of us were reared, which conceivably may have their roots in experiences of the ancients akin to NDEs, are myths of both heaven and hell. As mentioned earlier, not all NDEs are sweetness and light. There may, for instance, be something in the Japanese culture that predisposes them to negative NDEs, at least according to one small study:

The Japanese find death a depressing experience

A study in Japan shows that even in death the Japanese have an original way of looking at things. Instead of seeing 'tunnels of light' or having 'out of body' experiences, near-dead patients in Japanese hospitals tend to see rather less romantic images, according to researchers at Kyorin University.

According to a report in the Mainichi newspaper, a group of doctors from Kyorin has spent the past year documenting the near-death experiences of 17 patients. They had all been resuscitated from comas caused by heart attacks, strokes, asthma or drug poisoning. All had shown minimal signs of life during the coma.

Yoshia Hata, who led the team, said that eight of the 17 recalled 'dreams', many featuring rivers or ponds. Five of those patients had dreams which involved fear, pain and suffering.

One 50-year-old asthmatic man said he had seen himself wade into a reservoir and do a handstand in the shallows. 'Then I walked out of the water and took some deep breaths. In the dream, I was repeating this over and over.'

Another patient, a 73-year-old woman with cardiac arrest, saw a cloud filled with dead people. 'It was a dark, gloomy day. I was chanting sutras. I believed they could be saved if they chanted sutras, so that is what I was telling them to do.'

Most of the group said they had never heard of Near-Death Experiences before. Perhaps the idea of dark, gloomy surroundings, ponds and reservoirs and pain and suffering appeared less like heaven to them and more like their experiences of Tokyo on a wet, winter Monday.

From an item by Peter Hadfield in the New Scientist (Nov. 30th 1991).

Margot Grey's investigations also uncovered a number, albeit a tiny minority, of unpleasant NDEs. Positive experiences, as we have seen, include a feeling of wholeness, joy and a lack of isolation; those who have negative experiences, while they only occasionally describe 'hell-like' scenes, nevertheless find themselves on the edge of something unpleasant, and unwilling to die:

Hanging on, in agony, to life

I felt like I was in a great black vacuum. All I could see were my arms hanging on to a set of parallel bars. I knew if I relaxed, my grip on life would cease. It was a complete sense of knowing that life had to be clung to. I knew without any question if I let go, I would die. The feeling of agony of hanging on only lasted a brief while.

From 'Return from Death' by Margot Grey.

From negative to positive

Yvonne Malik felt that she had to pass through 'humanity's fear and ignorance' during her NDE, and that in the end she was 'allowed' to return because she wanted to show others that life after death does exist:

I seemed to be in some outside place which was dark, or almost black, and I was going towards an even blacker area. I wasn't running but was moving; aiming to go up the side of a black mountain; in the dark going upwards.

Although it was so dark, I could 'see' that I was passing or being passed by a lot of men and women who were all rushing in the opposite direction away from me.

They were telling me in both an apathetic and angry way, not to go in the direction I was going because there was nothing there, that I was a fool, that it was useless and led nowhere.

Suddenly it was as if I were up on top of the mountain on a kind of plateau, it wasn't cold and there was no wind. I could see the tops of other mountain ranges and valleys, but was too high up to see people.

I was surrounded by light, it was golden yellow, very bright and seemed to become brighter and whiter. There was no need to squint as it was not painful.

Words are only useful when used to describe parallels - in this case words do not seem to work. The light itself had a personality, it was joy (an old-fashioned word). The air itself seemed to be full of love and joy.

Although I did not look around, I felt strongly aware that two 'guardians' were standing just behind me on my left. It seemed to be that I should not turn around to see them, but as I felt so sure of their presence, it did not seem important to try to do so. I had the definite feeling also, that they had great wisdom and compassion.

They seemed to 'tell' me that I could stay there in this absolutely wonderful place/experience if I wished. I do not know why on earth I said, No, and that I must go back to tell others just how wonderful it was and that it was untrue that there was nothing beyond the dark.

The essence of the NDE is the negative shock to consciousness that forces a transition to a higher level:

Confronting symbolic death

Confrontation with the issue of death is a pivotal part of the transformation process and an integral component of most spiritual emergencies. It is often part of a powerful death-rebirth cycle in which what is actually dying is old ways of being that are inhibiting an individual's growth. From this point of view, everyone dies in some form many times during the course of a lifetime. In many traditions, the notion of 'dying before dying' is essential to spiritual advancement. Coming to terms with the fact of death as part of the continuity of life is seen as tremendously liberating, releasing one from the fear of death and opening one to the experience of immortality. As the seventeenth-century Christian monk, Abraham a Santa Clara wrote: 'A man who dies before he dies does not die when he dies.'

From 'The Stormy Search for the Self' by Christina and Stanislav Grof, Mandala/Harper Collins, 1991, ISBN 1 85274 103 1.

Swami Muktananda described how he moved from terror of 'death' to a fearless rebirth:

From terror to fearlessness

I was terrified of death. My prana (breath, life force) ceased. My mind functioned no longer. I felt that my prana was passing out of my body. I lost all power over my body. Like a dying man, whose mouth is agape and arms outstretched, I emitted a strange noise and collapsed on the floor. I lost consciousness completely.

I got up after about an hour and a half and felt amused, saying to myself 'I died a short while ago, but I am alive again!' I stood up feeling deep calm, love, and joy. I realized that I had experienced death. Now that I knew what it meant to die, death ceased to have any more terror. I became completely fearless.

From 'Play of Consciousness' by Swami Muktananda.

The after-effects of NDEs

Not surprisingly, one of the results of these joyous and timeless experiences is that the great majority of subjects, whatever they may have believed before, become unassailably convinced that there is life after death. For many, this is simply a result of the conviction acquired during their NDE that their soul, or essence, can in effect be felt as separate from the body, and is a part of an infinite essence. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross tells a dramatic story of survival after death. A patient of hers, Mary Schwartz, appeared to her in fully materialised form ten and a half months after she had died:

Kübler-Ross visited by a dead patient

She said to Kübler-Ross, who has told this story to lecture audiences, 'Dr. Ross, I want to take two minutes of your time. Can we walk to your office?' Kübler-Ross began to conduct 'reality testing' on herself as they went to the office to assure herself that she wasn't hallucinating.

As they reached the office, Mary opened the door and entered. Kübler-Ross sat at her desk. Mary closed the door, walked over and stood in front of the desk. She said 'I came back to thank you and Rennie Gaines (a minister who was in attendance when Mary was dying) for helping me to die, but my major reason is to tell you not to stop this work now. The time is not right.' Kübler-Ross had been feeling frustrated and had considered stopping her work with the dying because of the opposition she had encountered among her colleagues. And now an apparition was telling her what was going on in her own mind. At that point, as Kübler-Ross described it to one audience, 'I did something shrewd in my desperation to obtain proof that this was real.' She lied to Mary Schwartz, saying she needed a note to send to Rennie Gaines. Actually, she planned to keep the note herself to compare signatures.

So she handed Mary a pencil and piece of paper, and asked if she would write a note for him. Mary appeared to be full of love, Kübler-Ross said, and she smiled as though she knew why her former doctor really wanted the note. She said 'Of course,' wrote the message, signed her name, moved back from the desk, looked at Kübler-Ross, and asked, 'You promise you'll not give up this work?' Kübler-Ross promised. Then Mary walked to the door, opened it, walked out and closed the door behind her. Kübler-Ross ran immediately to the door, opened it, but saw only an empty corridor. Nevertheless, this incident convinced Kübler-Ross of the reality of life after death.

From 'A Practical Guide to Death and Dying' by John White.

After this, Kübler-Ross resumed her work with the dying with renewed vigour.

Many of those who have had NDEs have found, upon recovery, that the spiritual side of their lives has become important to them, whether or not they had previously been conventionally religious. In some people this change was expressed modestly, casually almost - as related by this next woman whose NDE had been the result of a car crash which had actually killed her two young sons:

Letting the universe take charge

Without knowing the purpose, the boys died and were allowed to go on. And I died, but only symbolically - to my former way of life - and had to return. Does any of this make sense? When I revived, my life took on a different meaning, a commitment. I'm still a practical, level-headed person, but whereas before I was dogmatic and argumentative, now I let the universe take charge of my life. I don't have to be in charge, I just have to be.

From 'Acquainted with the Night' by Allegra Taylor.

Imbued with all the ardour of new converts, some have felt disappointed by what they have perceived to be the empty formalities of church services. Jayne Smith, in her NDE, felt that she had entered into a paradise of bright light and a flowery meadow saturated with colours she had never seen before. Afterwards she went consciously in search of religious fellowship:

God is about joy

When you've experienced total unconditional love, and then you are back in this world and can't find it anywhere, it leaves a kind of empty feeling. I was raised Episcopalian. Before my experience, religion and God seemed such a long ago and far away thing; everything happened 2,000 years ago. But after my Near-Death Experience, I couldn't wait to go back to church.

So I went to church and heard a sermon on smoking and drinking. I found it a terrible let-down. I went other times, but the sermons weren't on anything that matters. I know God is about joy and I kept waiting for some minister to tap into love and joy and celebration, and to tell his congregation 'you are love'. Because that's what we are, I'm dead sure.

From 'Otherworld Journeys' by Carol Zaleski.

Even many of those who did not put any kind of religious label on their feelings after their NDE discovered that life as they knew it had been transformed for them. A decreased fear of death leads to feelings of enhanced health, well-being, tranquility and zest for life. The changes in life goals and values, which many view as a spiritual rebirth, include a renewed sense of individual purpose, an increase in compassion, an ability to be more loving, a desire for more wisdom, and the wish to develop their faculties and talents in order to be able to be of service to others. One woman, who took an overdose of anti-depressants, maintains that the significance of her NDE can be judged by its transforming after-effects:

NDE after a suicide attempt

The part of my story that's important is not so much the experience. What matters is how my life changed as a result. Just prior to the experience, I did my usual thing and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for about a month. And now I'm working in one. I'm the helper instead of the one being helped.

I don't drink or do drugs anymore. I just had my second year anniversary with AA. And I'm helping other people with their addictions and their feelings. And that's just amazing! If there's anything I didn't do, it was deal with my emotions. I didn't live in reality. I didn't accept life as it was. I didn't take responsibility for me. I was into blaming a lot of people.

So it's almost like my whole philosophy of life has changed.

Prior to the experience I didn't feel like I should be alive. After the experience I knew I was supposed to be alive. It was a vague feeling, but I knew.

I believe the experience was given to me to help me get on the right road, to help me see I am valuable and I should be helping people. And that's what I'm doing through my AA involvement and through my job. I'm reaching out a lot more than I did. I was really self-centered, and I'm growing out of that.

From 'Otherworld Journeys' by Carol Zaleski.

The following statements are also typical of this change:

Accepting others and showing feelings

Now I find that everyone I meet, I like. I very rarely meet someone I don't like. And that's because I accept them right away as someone I like. I don't judge people. And people respond to me in the same way and I think that they can feel this in me. I'm a very demonstrative person in showing my feelings. I haven't always been. I was with my children. But since I had that experience I kiss everyone I meet. It's just a natural thing, an expression of love.

One interviewee also stresses a more loving and healing relationships with others:

Insight into others

My joy comes from another's smile. I also notice that I reach out and touch people more, I seem to make people feel better. I know this - that when there's a family problem, everyone turns to me. I have more insight into other people. It's very difficult for me to lose my temper anymore. I can see the pain in other people's eyes. That's why they hurt other people because they really don't understand. The most important thing that we have are our relationships with other people. It all comes down to caring and compassion and love for your fellow man. Love is the answer. It's the answer to everything.

Both above extracts from 'Heading Toward Omega' by Kenneth Ring.

The president of the British branch of the International Association for Near-Death Experiences (see the Resources chapter), Dr Peter Fenwick, works as a consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital in London. The results of his survey of more than 300 Near-Death Experiences bore out much of the previous evidence. Of his sample, 38% felt more spiritual, 42% felt joy, 30% peace, 15% fear, and 10% a sense of loss. Half were convinced of survival after death; a third felt they had become more psychically sensitive; a third felt they had become better people; and a third felt they were more socially conscious. (Results reported in the Guardian, Oct. 12th 1990.)

We feel that people who have had positive NDEs would make very good recruits for any future midwifery service for the dying, since they have lost their own fear of death and in many cases report a strong urge to work with the dying, as described by another of Kenneth Ring's interviewees:

Everything went into place and I just knew what I had to do. It was as simple as that. And I had this urge - and I don't know where it came from - but I knew that I had to help people who were terminally ill. I read articles that just sort of came to me, and I said, 'That's it!' And it kept happening. And so it's been growing ever since. It's a nice feeling to work with them. You love them. I know sometimes when I go see someone, I go out of the room and I cry. I cry with them because you feel so bad, but you love them and you want to help them.

From 'Heading Toward Omega' by Kenneth Ring.

Mysticism and the NDE

The NDE seems to have a profound similarity to some varieties of mystical experience.

The feeling of being at peace and blissfully unafraid can be compared to the joy of the mystic who manages to transcend himself or herself and be in union with God:

The necessity of ego death

An important way of experiencing symbolic death during transformation is the ego death. During the process of spiritual emergence, a person moves from a relatively limited way of being to a new, expanded condition. Often, in order to complete this shift, it is necessary for an old mode of existence to 'die' in order to make way for a new self; the ego must be destroyed before a larger self-definition becomes available. This is known as ego death. This is not the death of the ego that is necessary to handle daily reality; it is the death of old personality structures and unsuccessful ways of being in the world, which is necessary for the advent of a happier and freer existence. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy writes, 'No creature can attain a higher level of nature without ceasing to exist.'

Ego death can happen gradually, over a long period of time, or it may occur suddenly and with great force. Although it is one of the most beneficial, most healing events in spiritual evolution, it can seem disastrous. During this stage, the dying process can sometimes feel very real, as though it were no longer a symbolic experience but instead a true biological disaster. Usually, one cannot yet see that waiting on the other side of what feels like total destruction of the ego is a broader, more encompassing sense of self.

From 'The Stormy Search for the Self' by Christina and Stanislav Grof.

Because many of us are more accustomed to the outward trappings of formalised Christian religion, we often forget that the transcendent state is at its heart. Witness this description by a Christian, the Blessed Jan Van Ruysbroeck (1293-1381) who wrote:

Die to live in God

To comprehend and to understand God above all similitudes, as he is in himself, is to be God with God, without intermediary (but) whoever wishes to understand this must have died to himself, and must live in God, and must run his gaze to the eternal Light in the ground of his spirit, where the hidden truth reveals itself without means. This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself, and feels himself, to be that same Light by which he sees, and nothing else.

Quoted in 'The Little Book of Life and Death' by Douglas Harding.

In this selfless state, a number of discoveries can be experienced. Martin Nathanael, who nearly drowned at the age of seven after falling out of a boat, believes that as a result he came to understand in later life:

All creatures one in essence

- that I am not this body; I inhabit a body which exists for my use;

- that my sense of personal identity is not dependent on the body;

- that I have subtle senses which bypass the brain and the physical sense-organs and whose modes of perception are more penetrating and versatile;

- that there is one consciousness, one life, which becomes differentiated through the various forms of life, which makes all creatures one in essence;

- that my essential nature is indestructible, invulnerable, immortal;

- that everything I do and how I respond to events is inwardly recorded;

- that there is a mighty, pure and loving Presence, for whom no words can do justice, who is available to me, especially in moments of crisis and danger.

From the New Humanity journal (subs. £14 from 51a York Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive, London SW11 4BP).

Walter Pahnke has made a comparative study of the transcendental experiences of mystics and religious teachers through the ages:

Characteristics of a mystical experience

Pahnke's mystical categories reflect the most important common denominators of transcendental states. The sense of oneness or unity with other people, nature, and the entire universe is a necessary condition of cosmic consciousness. Ineffability is another important characteristic; the ineffable quality of the experience can be due to its uniqueness, the intensity of the accompanying emotion, or the inadequacy of our language to describe it. The next typical aspect of mystical experiences is transcendence of time and space. This entails a feeling that the experience is outside of the usual space-time boundaries, beyond the past and future, in eternity and infinity, or in a completely different dimension. Noetic quality is another important feature; individuals are usually convinced that they are in touch with a deeper truth about reality and the nature of existence. Experiences of transcendence are always accompanied by a strong positive affect. This can range from peace, serenity, and tranquillity to an ecstatic rapture not dissimilar to a sexual orgasm of cosmic proportions. Accounts of mystical experiences are also characterized by striking paradoxicality. Many of the statements about such states appear to contradict each other and violate the basic rules of Aristotelian logic. One more aspect of these experiences deserves special notice, namely the sense of objectivity and reality. An individual tuned into cosmic consciousness usually has no doubt that he or she is confronted with the ultimate reality, which is in a way more real than the phenomenal world as it is experienced in a more usual state of consciousness.

From 'The Human Encounter with Death' by Stanislav Grof and Joan Halifax.

Many of these mystical features can be seen in the testimony of Claire Myers Owens, who began Zen training at the age of 74, and after six years had the following experience when meditating:

Zen meditation banishing fear of death

I slipped out of bed and placed the bed pillows on the floor to begin a meditation unlike any other I had know. My body immediately settled itself into a comfortable and proper posture, I sat with a 'sense of dignity and grandeur - like a mountain'.

I sat on and on - an hour? two hours? in full lotus position - motionless. Gradually my hands melted into each other. My knees were pierced by pain. My back was aching. All this was occurring at some far distance. Trivial matters like pain did not concern me.

As time passed my body grew heavier than heavy, like some great rock embedded in the earth, like some great tree strongly rooted in the deep, immovable - indestructible.

I wanted never again to move my body, never again to change anything. Any state into which I might move, a state of power - wealth - fame - love - passion - could not compare with the serene state of being I was in at this moment. It was peace - deep unutterable peace.

I seemed to have arrived at the end of a long journey, the end of a rough road that had offered many inspiring views along the way. It was a beautiful plateau on which I might rest indefinitely, at which I had arrived after years of striving on the path.

I felt no desire, no ambition, no regrets. No words can describe such perfection, such completeness, fulfilment and finality.

I was intensely aware of my body yet I felt suspended bodiless in a new height. Everything within me seemed to vibrate gently in a golden light. Then everything within me was in utter stillness - like an eternal stillness. Nothing anywhere except ineffable quietness and inexpressible stillness.

I did not feel the self fuse with the absolute. I felt that the whole universe - everything that is - the uncreated - changeless, beginningless - everlasting - was in me - was me - for a fleeting forever.

Everything was intangible, invisible, formless, and colourless - beyond the reach of the senses, above the grasp of conceptual thinking, beyond words - yet real as only reality can be. Everything was nothingness. Nothingness was everythingness.

Was it the end of everything or the beginning for me? Was it a glimpse of the bliss of life after death? All fear of death vanished right away - forever.

From 'Zen and the Lady' by Claire Myers Owens, Baratra Books,

quoted in 'A Practical Guide to Death and Dying' by John White.

Children's NDEs

Near-Death Experiences could perhaps be dismissed as people's conscious imaginations. This is less readily so in the case of children's NDEs. Melvin Morse has researched this subject - having himself once resuscitated a nine year old girl:

Morse first met Katie as a lifeless body in an intensive care unit. She had been found floating face down in a swimming pool a few hours earlier. Morse wondered whether she had been knocked into the water, or whether she had suffered an epileptic seizure.

Morse examined her carefully and reckoned that at best, Katie had a ten per cent chance of survival. She was one of the sickest children he ever cared for, and all the time he was looking after her he was convinced that she was going to die. However, she did not. After three days she made a full recovery, and when she was well enough, Morse summoned her for a follow-up examination:

A nine-year-old tours heaven

I marvelled at Katie when she came into the office. She was a pretty girl with long blond hair and a shy, frightened manner. Her eyes revealed an intelligence that hadn't been dimmed by the deprivation of oxygen to the brain that always accompanies drowning. There was nothing abnormal in her walk or mannerisms. She was just another nine-year-old kid.

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.

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.

I didn't understand it. I began to investigate. I probed her family's religious beliefs. I wanted to see if she had been heavily indoctrinated with belief in guardian angels and tunnels to heaven.

The answer from her mother was an emphatic No.

My deepest instinct told me that nothing in Katie's experience was'taught' to her before the near drowning. Her experience was fresh, not recalled memory.

From 'Closer to the Light' by Melvin Morse.

Morse unearthed a number of other cases where he was convinced that the children's NDEs could not be explained by what they had previously read or heard - including this account by an 11-year-old:

Out of the body experience of an 11-year-old

I remember going to that hospital that day. My parents had gone into a room (the admitting office) when suddenly I heard a whooshing sound in my ears. I felt like you feel when you go over a bump in a car going real fast, and you feel your stomach drop out. I heard a buzzing sound in my ears.

The next thing I knew, I was in a room, crouched in a corner of the ceiling. I could see my body below me. It was real dark, you know. I could see my body because it was lit up with a light, like there was a light bulb inside me.

I could see the doctors and nurses working on me. My doctor was there and so was Sandy, one of the nurses. I heard Sandy say, 'I wish we didn't have to do this.'

I heard a doctor say 'Stand back' and then he pushed a button on one of the paddles. Suddenly, I was back inside my body. One minute I was looking down at my face. I could see the tops of the doctors' heads. After he pushed that button, I was suddenly looking into a doctor's face.

No, I have never heard of a Near-Death Experience. I don't watch TV much. If I read, I read mostly comic books. No, I didn't tell my parents about it. I don't know why not; I guess I didn't feel like talking about it. I have never heard of anybody having this happen to them. I would not tell my friends about it. They would probably think I was crazy.

From 'Closer to the Light' by Melvin Morse.

THe sceptic's view of the NDE

While many people who have had NDEs are totally convinced about what has happened to them and the transformations that have occurred in their lives, many sceptics are convinced that the whole experience has nothing to do with life after death, or God, or infinity, but is explicable in simple mechanistic, that is, neurological terms.

Thus Dr Robert Buckman views the sense of peace and tranquility in an NDE as being caused by substances produced in the brain called endorphins, which are somewhat like painkillers. The nineteenth century explorer, David Livingstone, felt calm, peaceful and painless whilst being crushed across the chest in a lion's jaws. It led him to believe that 'death agonies' may appear so to the onlooker, but may be experienced differently by the patient, protected by a bodily defence mechanism switched on at the approach of death.

Dr Susan Blackmore, a Bristol University psychologist, explains the common NDE vision of a long tunnel with a bright light at the end, as the retina at the back of the eye becoming starved of oxygen, with nerve cells beginning to fire at random. There are more nerve cells in the most sensitive part, the fovea, so a bright spot that looks like the end of a tunnel is seen.

Her explanation is linked to the most common physiological explanation for NDEs, which is that the brain is in receipt of insufficient oxygen (cerebral anoxia). Or that NDEs are the result of temporal lobe seizure. This can produce similar effects to those of some NDEs, without necessarily accounting for the complete range of near-death phenomena. Whereas temporal lobe seizure causes distorted perceptions of the immediate environment, this is not always the case with NDEs.

Whatever the truth of the matter, to know that nature has evolved a way of allowing dying humans to feel blissful can only be reasssuring, even for the sceptic who dismisses the visions and feelings as delusionary. It is also reassuring to know that the term 'Near-Death Experience' is in some cases a misnomer - as we have seen, the same, or a seemingly almost identical, experience is accessed by people during 'peak' experiences, by mystics and by others who have not as yet suffered physical harm - such as those falling from a mountain or bridge, who have their NDE before even hitting the ground, when they have been no more damaged than a free-fall parachutist. The difference between the person falling from the mountain and the parachutist is one of expectation of harm and thus degree of shock; and this seems the essence of many experiences of heightened consciousness. The trigger is any severe jolt to our normal consciousness, whether or not physically damaging, which brings about a complete change of perspective and releases us into a world of rich and strange magic.

In the end it comes down to a choice. Do you see consciousness as being contained and confined to the brain? For William James, Ferdinand Schiller and Henri Bergson, for instance, the brain was merely the transmitter of consciousness, necessary for our personal experiencing of consciousness but not its source, just as a radio set is necessary for the reception of programmes but is not their origin:

The brain a transmitter of consciousness not its source

James asked his audience what type of function the brain performed. Does it produce thought, or transmit it? Most, if not all, the major organs of the body are transmitters. The lung takes in air and transmits its nutrients to the rest of the body. There is, therefore, nothing unusual about organs that absorb and transmit; the difficulty would rather be to find an organ which, in any perfect sense, produces. The body neither manufactures the air it breathes nor the food it eats. If we do not manufacture what we eat or what we breathe, why assume that we manufacture, rather than regulate, what we think?

This transmission theory of the brain has the advantage that it solves problems, rather than creating them. The problem of the inrushes experienced in some mental illness, the problem of psychic phenomena and the problem of pure randomness in neo-Darwinism are real difficulties for the scientific world view.

This theory proposes a natural force of intelligence, which is perhaps received and transmitted by the brain, and also influences evolution in the direction of survival. That would restore purpose to nature, but it would also make possible, as James argued, the concept of human survival after death.

From an article by William Rees-Mogg in The Independent (July 29th 1991).

Of all the NDEs in this chapter, the one that most convincingly goes beyond a simply and solely neurological explanation is Professor Wren-Lewis's story of eating a poisoned sweet in Thailand. Among the more unusual elements in his NDE are that it is still continuing - he can switch back into it by mentally re-focusing on it at any time; that he used a dream-remembering technique - one that seems to help in recapturing the fullness of the NDE on first regaining consciousness; and lastly, that he experienced not the usual white light but rather a black darkness, albeit a radiant one. Here is his eloquent testimony:

The reluctant mystic - an NDE that didn't go away

I had spiritual consciousness thrust upon me in my sixtieth year without working for it, desiring it or even believing in it. The crucial event was a shattering, out-of-the-blue mystical experience in 1983 which, to the astonishment of everyone who knew me, and most of all myself, left me with a permanently changed consciousness, describable only in the kind of spiritual terms I had hitherto vehemently discounted as neurotic fantasy-language.

What happened in 1983 would nowadays be called a 'Near Death Experience', or NDE, though it differed in several notable ways from most of those I'd read about in the rapidly-growing literature on this topic (which I had, incidentally, dismissed as yet another manifestation of the mind's capacity for fantasy). In the first place, I had none of the dramatic visions which have hit the headlines in popular journalism and occupy a prominent place even in serious scholarly studies. As I lay in the hospital bed in Thailand after eating a poisoned sweet given me by a would-be-thief, I had no 'out-of-body' awareness of the doctors wondering if I was beyond saving, no review of my life, no passage down a dark tunnel to emerge into a heavenly light or landscape, and no encounter with angelic beings or deceased relatives telling me to go back because my work on earth wasn't yet finished.

I simply entered - or, rather, was - a timeless, spaceless void which in some indescribable way was total aliveness - an almost palpable blackness that was yet somehow radiant. Trying to find words for it afterwards, I recalled the mysterious line of Henry Vaughan's poem 'The Night':

'There is in God (some say) a deep but dazzling darkness.'

An even more marked difference from the general run of NDEs, however, was that I had absolutely no sense of regret or loss at the return into physical life. I lay on the bed, relaxed, and began to take myself back in imagination, in a series of steps, right to the point of coming round. 'Here I am, lying on this bed, with someone asking if I want supper; here I am, just before that, becoming aware of someone shaking my arm; here I am, before that again, with my eyes closed, and ...' Often this process brings back the dream one has forgotten, but what came back this time was nothing like a remembered dream. What came flooding back was an experience that in some extraordinary way had been with me ever since I came around without my realising it. It was if I'd come out of the deepest darkness I had ever known, which was somehow still right there behind my eyes.

What manifested was simply not the same 'me-experiencing-the-world' that I'd known before: it was 'Everything-that-is, experiencing itself through the bodymind called John lying in a hospital bed'. And the experience was indescribably wonderful. I now know exactly why the Book of Genesis says that God looked upon all that He had made - not just beautiful sunsets, but dreary hospital rooms and traumatised sixty-year-old bodies - and saw that it was very good.

What I am trying to describe is no vague feeling of 'good to be alive'. On the contrary, I no longer cared if John lived or ceased to be altogether, and the change of consciousness was so palpable that to begin with I repeatedly put my hand up to the back of my head, feeling exactly as if the doctors had removed the skull and exposed my brain somehow to the infinite blackness of space. Occasionally I still do so, for the new consciousness has remained with me ever since which is the third and most significant difference from what happens in the general run of NDEs, and also from the 'altered states' experienced with psychedelics.

There is in no sense a high from which I can come down. The sense of awe-ful wonder has at the same time a feeling of utter obviousness and ordinariness, as if the marvel of 'everything-coming-into-being-continuously-from-the-Great-Dark' were no more and no less than 'just the way things are'. From this perspective, the term altered state of consciousness would be a complete misnomer, for the state is one of simple normality. It seems, rather, as if my earlier state, so-called 'ordinary' human consciousness, represents the real alteration - a deviation from the plain norm, a kind of artificially blinkered or clouded condition wherein the bodymind has the absurd illusion that it is somehow a separate individual entity over against everything else.

In fact I now understand why mystics of all religions have likened the enlightenment-process to waking up from a dream.

As I was walking in the hot sun to the police station to report the poisoned sweet crime I was struck by the sense of loss that the Dark was missing, and my first thought then was: 'Ah, well, you've had the Vision - I suppose now you'll have to join the ranks of all those Seekers who spend their lives trying to attain Higher Consciousness.' And then, to my amazement, I suddenly saw it was all still there, just waiting, as it were, to be noticed the Dark behind my eyes and behind everything else, bringing again the perception that of course everything exists by emerging fresh-minted from the Dark now! and now! and now!, with a shout of joy yet also in absolute calm.

The NDE had evidently jerked me out of the so-called normal human state of chronic illusion-of-separateness, into a basic 'wakefulness', interrupted by spells of 'dozing off' - simply forgetting the Dark until the sense of something missing from life brings about instant re-awakening with no effort at all.

The key feature of God-consciousness as I know it from my own firsthand experience, is its quintessential ordinariness and obviousness - a feature actually emphasized by many mystics. I know from my own firsthand experience that God-consciousness doesn't abolish human appetites. When I'm in it I don't lose my taste for meat or wine or good company or humour or detective fiction - I actually enjoy them more than ever before. I don't cease to enjoy sexual feelings, nor do I see anything inherently dirty about money.

What the consciousness does bring is the cheerful equanimity of knowing that satisfaction doesn't depend on any of these special preferences of John's bodymind being met; it is inherent simply in being, in the Great Dark which is (in G.K. Chesterton's marvellous phrase) 'joy without a cause'.

Prof. John Wren-Lewis, 1/22 Cliffbrook Parade, Clovelly, NSW 2031, Australia. From a four page text in Social Inventions No. 23 - £3 from ISI6 Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Road, London N4 2BT.

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