Raymond Moody Life After Life

Study of the phenomenon of continuation of life after the death of the body.

PREFACE

I had the privilege of reading Dr. Moody's book, Life After Life, before it was published. I admire that this young scientist had the courage to take this direction for his work and at the same time make this area of ​​research accessible to the general public.

Since I began my work with hopelessly ill patients, which has been going on for 20 years, I have become more and more interested in the problem of the phenomenon of death. We know quite a lot about the processes associated with dying, but there is still much that is unclear about the moment of death and the experiences of our patients at the time when they are considered clinically dead.

Studies such as those described in Dr. Moody's book provide us with much new knowledge and confirm what we have been taught for two thousand years - that there is life after death. Despite the fact that the author himself does not claim to study death itself, it is clear from his materials that dying patients continue to be clearly aware of what is happening around them even after they are considered clinically dead. This is all very much in keeping with my own research into reports from patients who have died and then been brought back to life. These messages were completely unexpected and often amazed experienced, famous and certainly competent doctors.

All of these patients experienced an exit from their physical body, accompanied by a feeling of extraordinary peace and completeness. Many of them testify to communication with other persons who helped them in the transition to another plane of existence. Most were met by people who had once loved them and had died previously, or by religious figures to whom they attached serious importance during their lifetime and who naturally corresponded to their religious beliefs. It was very gratifying to read Dr. Moody's book at a time when I was ready to publish my own research.

Dr. Moody must be prepared for a lot of criticism, mostly from two sides. Firstly, on the part of the clergy, who will of course be concerned that someone would dare to conduct research in an area that is considered taboo. Some representatives of a number of religious groups have already expressed their critical attitude towards this type of research. One priest, for example, described them as “the pursuit of cheap fame.” Many believe that the question of life after death should remain a matter of blind faith and should not be tested by anyone. Another group of people from whom Dr. Moody might expect to react to his book are scientists and physicians who would consider this type of research unscientific.

I think we've reached something of a transitional era. We must have the courage to open new doors and not exclude the possibility that modern scientific methods are no longer adequate to new directions of research. I think this book will open such new doors for people with open minds and give them the confidence and courage to develop new problems. They will see that this publication by Dr. Moody is completely reliable, as it was written by a sincere and honest researcher. The findings are supported by my own research and the research of other well-respected scientists, researchers and clergy who have the courage to explore this new field in the hope of helping those who want to know and not just believe.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, doctor of medicine. Flossmoor, Illinois.

This book, essentially written about human existence, naturally reflects the basic views and beliefs of its author. Although I have tried to be as objective and honest as possible, certain facts about myself may be helpful in evaluating some of the unusual claims that appear in this book.

First of all, I myself have never been near death, so I cannot testify to the relevant experiences from my own experience, first-hand, so to speak. At the same time, I cannot defend my complete objectivity on this basis, since my own emotions were undoubtedly included in general structure books. Listening to so many people be captivated by the experiences described in this book, I felt like I was living their lives. I can only hope that such a position does not compromise the rationality and balance of my approach.

annotation
Is there life after death?
Even inveterate skeptics and atheists will not be able to say about this book that everything said here is fiction, because this is a book written by a scientist, doctor, researcher. Twenty-seven years ago, Life After Life fundamentally changed our understanding of what death is. Dr. Moody's research has spread all over the world and has greatly helped shape modern ideas about what a person experiences after death.
Raymond Moody
Life after life
Study of the phenomenon of continuation of life after the death of the body.
PREFACE
I had the privilege of reading Dr. Moody's book, Life After Life, before it was published. I admire that this young scientist had the courage to take this direction for his work and at the same time make this area of ​​research accessible to the general public.
Since I began my work with hopelessly ill patients, which has been going on for 20 years, I have been increasingly concerned with the problem of the phenomenon of death. We know quite a lot about the processes associated with dying, but there is still much that is unclear about the moment of death and the experiences of our patients at the time when they are considered clinically dead.
Studies like those described in Dr. Moody's book provide us with much new knowledge and confirm what we have been taught for two thousand years - that there is life after death. Despite the fact that the author himself does not claim to study death itself, it is clear from his materials that dying patients continue to be clearly aware of what is happening around them even after they are considered clinically dead. This is all very much in keeping with my own research into reports from patients who have died and then been brought back to life. These messages were completely unexpected and often amazed experienced, famous and certainly competent doctors.
All of these patients experienced an exit from their physical body, accompanied by a feeling of extraordinary peace and completeness. Many of them testify to communication with other persons who helped them in the transition to another plane of existence. Most were met by people who had once loved them and had died previously, or by religious figures to whom they attached serious importance during their lifetime and who naturally corresponded to their religious beliefs. It was very gratifying to read Dr. Moody's book at a time when I was ready to publish my own research.
Dr. Moody must be prepared for a lot of criticism, mostly from two sides. Firstly, on the part of the clergy, who will of course be concerned that someone would dare to conduct research in an area that is considered taboo. Some representatives of a number of religious groups have already expressed their critical attitude towards this type of research. One priest, for example, described them as “the pursuit of cheap fame.” Many believe that the question of life after death should remain a matter of blind faith and should not be tested by anyone. Another group of people from whom Dr. Moody might expect to react to his book are scientists and physicians who would consider this type of research unscientific.
I think we've reached something of a transitional era. We must have the courage to open new doors and not exclude the possibility that modern scientific methods are no longer adequate to new directions of research. I think this book will open such new doors for people with open minds and give them the confidence and courage to develop new problems. They will see that this publication by Dr. Moody is completely reliable, as it was written by a sincere and honest researcher. The findings are supported by my own research and the research of other well-respected scientists, researchers and clergy who have the courage to explore this new field in the hope of helping those who want to know and not just believe.
I recommend this book to all open-minded people and congratulate Dr. Moody on his courageous decision to publish the results of his research.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD. Flossmoor, Illinois.
This book, essentially written about human existence, naturally reflects the basic views and beliefs of its author. Although I have tried to be as objective and honest as possible, certain facts about myself may be helpful in evaluating some of the unusual claims that appear in this book.
First of all, I myself have never been near death, so I cannot testify to the relevant experiences from my own experience, first-hand, so to speak. At the same time, I cannot defend my complete objectivity on this basis, since my own emotions were undoubtedly included in the overall structure of the book. Listening to so many people be captivated by the experiences described in this book, I felt like I was living their lives. I can only hope that such a position does not compromise the rationality and balance of my approach.
Secondly, I write as a person who has not thoroughly studied the vast literature on parapsychology and all kinds of occult phenomena. I say this not with the aim of discrediting this literature; on the contrary, I am even sure that a more thorough acquaintance with it could deepen the understanding of the phenomena that I observed.
Thirdly, my religious affiliation deserves mention. My family belonged to the Presbyterian Church, however, my parents never tried to impose their religious beliefs and views on their children. Basically, as I developed, they tried to encourage my own interests and create conditions for the favorable development of my inclinations. Thus, I grew up with religion not as a set of fixed doctrines, but rather as a field of spiritual and religious teachings, views, issues.
I believe that all the great religions of mankind have much truth to tell us, and I am sure that none of us is able to understand the depth of truth contained in each of them. Formally I belong to the Methodist Church.
Fourthly, my academic and professional education quite diverse, so that others might even call it scattered. I studied philosophy at the University of Virginia and received my doctorate in the subject in 1969. My areas of interest in philosophy are ethics, logic and philosophy of language. After teaching philosophy for three years at the University of California, I decided to enroll in medical school, after which I expected to become a psychiatrist and teach philosophy of medicine at the medical school. All these interests and acquired knowledge in one form or another helped me in carrying out this research.
I hope that this book will draw attention to a phenomenon that is both widespread and yet very little known, and help overcome public prejudice in this regard. For I am firmly convinced that this phenomenon is of great importance not only for theoretical and practical fields of study, especially for psychology, psychiatry, medicine, philosophy, theology and pastoral care, but also for our everyday way of life.
I will allow myself to say at the beginning, something for which detailed reasons will be given much later, namely, I do not seek to “show” that there is life after death. And I don’t think such “proof” is really possible at all. This is partly why I avoided identifying details in the stories given, while at the same time leaving their content unchanged. This was necessary both to avoid publicity about what concerned individuals, and to obtain permission to publish an account of the experience.
I think that many readers will find the claims made in this book incredible, and their first reaction will be to put it all out of their heads. I have no intention of blaming anyone for this. A few years ago I would have had exactly the same reaction. I do not ask that anyone believe everything that is written in this book and accept my point of view out of simple trust in me as the author. Indeed, as an impossibility or inability to object to an authoritative opinion, I especially ask you not to do so. The only thing I ask of those who don't believe what they read here is to just look around a little. I have made this appeal to my opponents more than once. And among those who accepted it, there were many people who, being initially skeptics, over time began to seriously think about such events with me.
On the other hand, I have no doubt that there will be many among my readers who, after reading this book, will be greatly relieved to find that they are not alone in what they have gone through. For those people - especially those who, as is the case in most cases, have not spoken about their experiences to anyone except a few trusted people - I can say one thing: I hope that my book will give you the courage to talk about it a little more freely , because this will shed more light on the most mysterious side of the life of the human soul.
THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH
What is death like? Humanity has been asking this question since its inception. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to pose this question to a significant number of listeners. Among them were students of psychological, philosophical and sociological faculties, believers, television viewers, members of civic clubs and medical professionals. As a result, with some caution, I can say that this topic is perhaps the most serious for all people, regardless of their emotional type or membership in a particular social group.
However, despite this interest, there is no doubt that for most of us it is very difficult to talk about death. This is due to at least two reasons. One of them is mainly psychological or cultural in nature. The very topic of death is taboo. We feel, at least subconsciously, that when faced with death in some form, even indirectly, we inevitably face the prospect of our own death, the picture of our death seems to come closer to us and becomes more real and conceivable. For example, many medical students, including myself, remember that even such an encounter with death, which is experienced by everyone who crosses the threshold of the anatomical laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine for the first time, causes a very unsettling feeling. The reason for my own unpleasant experiences now seems completely obvious to me. As I remember now, my experiences had almost nothing to do with those people whose remains I saw there, although, of course, to some extent I thought about them too. But what I saw on the table was for me mainly a symbol of my own death. Somehow, perhaps half-consciously, I must have thought, “This will happen to me.”
Thus, talking about death from a psychological point of view can be considered as an indirect approach to death, only on a different level. There is no doubt that many people perceive any talk about death as something that evokes such a real image of death in their minds that they begin to feel the proximity of their own death. To protect themselves from such psychological trauma, they decide to simply avoid such conversations as much as possible.
Another reason why it is difficult to talk about death is a little more complex, because it is rooted in the very nature of our language. Basically, the words that make up human language refer to things about which we gain knowledge through our physical senses, while death is something that lies beyond our conscious experience because most of us have never experienced it.
Thus, if we talk about death in general we must avoid both the social taboo and the linguistic dilemma that has its basis in our subconscious experience. We end up with euphemistic analogies. We compare death or dying with things that we are familiar with from our everyday experience and which seem very acceptable to us.
Probably one of this type of analogies is the comparison of death with sleep. Dying, we tell ourselves, is like falling asleep. Expressions of this kind occur in our everyday language and thinking, as well as in the literature of many centuries and cultures. Obviously, such expressions were common in Ancient Greece. For example, in the Iliad, Homer calls sleep “the brother of death,” and Plato, in his dialogue “Apology,” puts the following words into the mouth of his teacher Socrates, who was sentenced to death by the Athenian court: “And if death is the absence of all sensation, it is something like sleep , when the sleeper does not see any further dreams, then it would be surprisingly beneficial. In fact, I think that if someone had to choose a night on which he slept so much that he did not even dream and, comparing with this night all the other nights and days of his life, he would realize how many days and nights he lived It’s easy to count better and more pleasant in comparison with all other nights and days.
So, if death is like this, then I, at least, consider it beneficial, because all subsequent time (from the moment of death) turns out to be nothing more than one night.” (Translation taken from the “Collected Works of Plato.” St. Petersburg, Academy” 1823, vol. 1, p. 81).
The same analogy is used in our modern language. I mean the expression "put to sleep." If you bring your dog to the vet and ask him to put him to sleep, you usually have something very different in mind than when you ask the anesthesiologist to put your wife or husband to sleep. Other people prefer a different but similar analogy. Dying, they say, is like forgetting. When a person dies, he forgets all his sorrows, all painful and unpleasant memories disappear.
No matter how old and widespread these analogies are, both with “falling asleep” and with “forgetting,” they still cannot be considered completely satisfactory. Each of them makes the same statement in its own way. Although they say this in a slightly more pleasant way, they nevertheless both argue that death is actually simply the disappearance of our consciousness forever. If this is so, then death does not really have any of the attractive features of falling asleep or forgetting. Sleep is pleasant and desirable for us because it is followed by awakening. A night's sleep that gives us rest makes the waking hours that follow more pleasant and productive. If there was no awakening, all the benefits of sleep would simply not exist. Likewise, the annihilation of our conscious experience implies the disappearance not only of painful memories, but also of all pleasant ones. Thus, upon closer examination, neither analogy is sufficiently adequate to give us any real comfort or hope in the face of death.
There is, however, another point of view that does not accept the statement that death is the disappearance of consciousness. According to this second, perhaps even more ancient concept, certain part the human being continues to live even after the physical body ceases to function and is completely destroyed. This constantly existing part has received many names - psyche, soul, mind, “I”, essence, consciousness. But no matter what it is called, the idea that a person passes into some other world after physical death is one of the most ancient human beliefs. In Turkey, for example, Neanderthal burials dating back about 100,000 years have been discovered. Fossilized prints found there allowed archaeologists to establish that these ancient people buried their dead on a bed of flowers. This suggests that they viewed death as a celebration of the deceased’s transition from this world to another. Indeed, from the most ancient times, burials in all countries of the world testify to the belief in the continued existence of a person after the death of his body.
Thus we are faced with opposing answers to our original question about the nature of death. Both of them have very ancient origins and yet both are widespread to this day. Some say that death is the disappearance of consciousness, while others argue, with the same confidence, that death is the transition of the soul or mind to another dimension of reality. In the narrative that follows, I do not in any way seek to dismiss any of these answers. I just want to report on a study that I personally conducted.
Over the past few years, I have met a large number of people who have had what I will call “near-death experiences.” I found them in different ways. At first it happened by accident. In 1965, when I was a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Virginia, I met a man who was a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School. I was struck by his friendliness, warmth and humor from the very beginning. I was very surprised when I later learned interesting details about him, namely that he was dead, not once, but twice, within 10 minutes of each other, and that he told absolutely fantastic things about what happened to him in this time. I later heard him tell his story to a small group of students. At that time it made a very great impression on me, but since I did not yet have sufficient experience to evaluate such cases, I “put it aside” both in my memory and in the form of a retyped summary of his story.
A few years later, after I received my PhD, I taught at North Carolina State University. In one of my courses, my students were required to read Plato's Phaedo, a work in which, among other issues, the problem of immortality is discussed. In my lecture, I focused on other provisions of Plato presented in this work and did not dwell on the discussion of the issue of life after death. One day after class, a student came up to me and asked if he could discuss the issue of immortality with me. He was interested in this problem because his grandmother “died” during the operation and later talked about very interesting impressions. I asked him to talk about it and, to my great amazement, he described the same events that I had heard about from our psychiatry professor several years before.
From that time on, my search for such cases became more active and I began to lecture in my philosophy courses on the problem of human life after death. However, I have been careful and careful not to mention these two death experiences in my lectures. I decided to wait and see. If such stories were not just a coincidence, I suggested, then perhaps I would learn more if I simply raised the question of immortality in a general form in philosophical seminars, showing a sympathetic attitude to the topic. To my amazement, I discovered that in almost every group of about thirty people, at least one student usually came up to me after class and told me about his own near-death experience, which he had heard about from loved ones or had himself.
From the moment I began to take an interest in this question, I was struck by this great similarity of sensations, despite the fact that they were received from people very different in their religious views, social status and education. By the time I entered medical school, I had already collected a significant number of such cases. I began mentioning the informal research I was doing to some of my medical friends. One day one of my friends persuaded me to give a presentation to a medical audience. Other offers of public speaking followed. Once again, I found that after each talk someone came up to me to tell me about an experience of this kind that he himself knew of.
As my interests became more widely known, doctors began to tell me about patients they had resuscitated who told me about their unusual sensations. After newspaper articles about my research appeared, many people began to send me letters with detailed stories of similar cases.
Currently, I know of approximately 150 cases in which these phenomena occurred. The cases I studied can be divided into three clear categories:
1. The experiences of people who were considered or declared clinically dead by doctors and who were resuscitated, 2. The experiences of people who, as a result of an accident or a dangerous injury or illness, were very close to the state of physical death, 3. The feelings of people who were near death and reported about them to other people nearby. From the large amount of factual material presented by these 150 cases, a selection was naturally made. On the one hand, it was deliberate. So, for example, although stories belonging to the third category complement and fit well with the stories of the first two categories, I generally did not consider them for two reasons. Firstly, it would reduce the number of cases to a level more suitable for comprehensive analysis and, secondly, it would allow me to stick to first-hand accounts as much as possible. So I interviewed 50 people in great detail whose experiences I can draw on. Of these, cases of the first type (those in which there was clinical death) are significantly more eventful than cases of the second type (in which there was only an approach to death).
Indeed, during my public lectures on this topic, cases of "death" always aroused much greater interest. Some of the reports that appeared in the press were written in such a way that one might think that I dealt only with cases of this kind.
However, in selecting the cases to be presented in this book, I have avoided the temptation to dwell only on those cases in which "death" took place, because, as will be seen later, cases of the second type are no different; but rather form a single whole with cases of the first type. In addition, although the near-death experience itself is similar, at the same time, both the circumstances surrounding it and the people describing it are very different. In this regard, I have tried to provide a sample of cases that adequately reflects this variability. With these premises in mind, let us now turn to consider those events which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, may occur when a person dies.
EXPERIENCE OF DYING
Despite the wide variety of circumstances associated with a close encounter with death, as well as the types of people who experienced it, it is still certain that there are striking similarities between the accounts of the events themselves at this moment. In fact, the similarity between the various messages is so great that it is possible to identify about fifteen separate elements that appear again and again among large number messages collected by me. From these general points, let me construct a brief, theoretically “ideal” or “complete” description of the experience that includes all the general elements in the order in which they usually occur.
A man dies, and at the moment when his physical suffering reaches its limit, he hears the doctor pronounce him dead. He hears an unpleasant noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time he feels that he is moving at high speed through a long black tunnel. After this, he suddenly finds himself outside his physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, he sees his own body from a distance, like an outside spectator. He watches the attempts to bring him back to life with this unusual advantage, and is in a state of some emotional shock.
After some time, he collects his thoughts and gradually gets used to his new position. He notices that he has a body, but of a completely different nature and with completely different properties than the physical body that he left. Soon other events happen to him. The souls of other people come to him to meet him and help him. He sees the souls of already deceased relatives and friends, and a luminous being appears before him, from whom emanates such love and warmth as he has never met. This creature silently asks him a question that allows him to evaluate his life and guides him through instant pictures major events his life passing before his mind's eye in reverse order. At some point, he discovers that he has approached a certain barrier or border, which apparently constitutes the division between earthly and subsequent life. However, he discovers that he must return back to earth, that the hour of his death has not yet come. At this moment he resists, because now he has learned the experience of another life and does not want to return. He is filled with a feeling of joy, love and peace. Despite his reluctance, he nevertheless somehow reunites with his physical body and returns to life. Later he tries to tell others about all this, but finds it difficult to do so. First of all, it is difficult for him to find adequate words in human language to describe these unearthly events. He also faces ridicule and stops telling other people. However, the events he experiences have a profound impact on his life and especially on his view of death and its relationship to life.
It is important to note that the above description is not a representation of any particular person's experience. It is more of a "model", an amalgamation of common elements found in many stories. I present it here only to give a preliminary general idea of ​​what a dying person may experience. Since this is a model and not a specific description, I will try to discuss each of the elements in detail in this chapter using numerous examples.
Before doing this, however, it is necessary to dwell on some points in order to introduce the presented generalized material about near-death experiences into the appropriate framework.
1. Despite the striking similarities between the individual stories, no two were exactly identical (although some came very close).
2. I have not met a single person whose story contained every single element of generalized experience. Many people have reported most of them, about eight or more, with some mentioning up to twelve.
3. There was not a single element of generalized experience that would be found in the stories of absolutely all people. However, some of these elements were almost universal.
4. In my generalized model there is not a single element that would be found in just one story. Each was found in many independent reports.
5. The order in which a dying person goes through the various stages briefly listed above may differ from that listed in my “theoretical model.” For example, many people report that they saw a “luminous being” before or at the same time as they left their physical body, and not as given in the model, i.e., some time later. However, the order in which the stages are given in the model is very typical and strong deviations from it are rare.
6. How far the dying person goes through the stages of the hypothetical complete sequence of events depends on whether he was actually in a state of clinical death. It seems that people who were "dead" had a more vivid and complete experience than those who were just approaching death, and those who were "dead" for a longer period went further than those who were "dead" at for a short period of time.
7. Several people I interviewed were declared dead, resuscitated, and did not mention any of these common elements in their subsequent stories. In fact, they said that they could not remember anything at all about their “death.” Very interesting cases were when I had to talk with people who were declared dead more than once with a gap of several years. They said that they experienced nothing in one case, but had a fairly complete experience in another.
8. It must be emphasized that I write mainly about messages, reports and stories that people gave me during conversations. Thus, when I say that a given element of the generalized "total" experience is absent from a given message, that does not mean that I necessarily mean that it did not occur in that person's experience. I simply mean that this man did not tell me about this element or that from his story it cannot be definitely concluded that he experienced it. With all these caveats in mind, let's look at some of the major steps and events that take place during dying.
INPRESSIBILITY
The basis of mutual understanding in the use of language is based on the existence of a wide sphere of common human experience, to which most of us are involved. This circumstance is a source of significant difficulties that complicate self-discussion of the phenomena discussed below. The events experienced by those who come close to death lie so outside the general human experience that there is every reason to expect certain linguistic difficulties in trying to express what happened to them. This is exactly what actually happens. People who have experienced this unanimously describe their experience as indescribable, that is, “inexpressible.” Many people emphasize this. “There are simply no words to express what I want to say” or “There are simply no adjectives and superlatives to describe it." One woman described it to me very succinctly:
“It’s a real problem for me to try to explain this to you now, because all the words that I know are three-dimensional. At the same time, when I was experiencing this, I kept thinking: “Well, when I took geometry, I was taught that there are only three dimensions, and I always believed it. But this is not true. There are more of them. Yes, of course, our world, the one in which we live now, is three-dimensional, but the other world is most definitely not three-dimensional. And that's why it's so hard to tell you about it. I have to describe it to you in words that are three dimensional. This is the best way to explain what I mean, but this explanation is not entirely adequate. In practice, I cannot give you the full picture.”
ABILITY TO HEAR WHAT IS HAPPENING
Many said they heard doctors or others present pronouncing them dead. One woman told me the following:
“I was in the hospital, but the doctors could not find out what was wrong with me, so Dr James, my doctor, sent me down to a radiologist to take a picture of my liver to find out what was wrong. First, the drug that was supposed to be administered to me was tested on my arm, since I am allergic to medications. But there was no reaction. After which they began to administer this drug to me. However, after the drug was administered, my heart stopped. I heard the radiologist working with me go to the phone and dial a number. I heard him say, "Dr. James, I killed your patient, Mrs. Martin," but I knew I wasn't dead. I tried to move or let them know, but I couldn't. When they tried to resuscitate me, I heard them discussing how many cubes of something I should inject, but I did not feel the pricks from the needles. I didn’t feel anything at all when they touched me.”
In another case, a woman who had suffered several heart attacks had an attack so severe that she almost died. She says:
“Suddenly, I felt a piercing pain in my chest, as if my chest was suddenly bound by an iron hoop that was compressing. My husband and our friend heard me fall and came running to my aid. I found myself in deep darkness and through it I heard my husband say, as if from a great distance: “This time is all.” And I thought: “yes, that’s it.”
A young man believed dead after a car accident says: “I heard a woman there say, 'He's dead,' and someone said, 'Yes, he's dead.'
Messages of this type are very consistent with what the doctors and others present recall. For example, one doctor told me:
“My patient’s heart stopped just before I and another surgeon were to operate on her. I was nearby at that moment, and I saw her pupils dilate. We tried for some time to bring her back to life, but without success, and I said to another doctor working with me: “Let's try again and then stop.” This time her heart started beating and she came to her senses. Later I asked her what she remembered about her “death.” She replied that she didn’t remember almost anything except my words, “Let’s try again and then stop.”
FEELING OF PEACE AND CALM
Many people describe extremely pleasant sensations and sensations during the first stages of their experience. After severe injury, one person showed no signs of life. He says the following:
“At the moment of injury, I felt a sudden pain, but then the pain disappeared. I felt as if I was floating in the air in a dark space. The day was very cold, but when I was in this darkness, I felt warm and pleasant as never before. I remember thinking, “I must be dead.”
A woman who was brought back to life after a heart attack responds:
“I began to experience completely unusual sensations. I felt nothing but peace, relief, peace. I found that all my worries had disappeared and I thought to myself: “How peaceful and good and there is no pain.”
Another person recalls:
“I just had this great feeling of solitude and peace... It was beautiful, I had such a feeling of peace in my soul.”
A man who "died" from a wound in Vietnam says he felt a "huge sense of relief" when he was wounded. “There was no pain at all and I had never felt so free, I felt at ease and everything was fine.”
NOISE
Many reports mention various types of auditory sensations at or before the moment of death. Sometimes they are extremely unpleasant. Here is a description given by a man who was “dead” for 20 minutes during abdominal surgery. “A very unpleasant buzzing sound coming from inside my head. It irritated me very much... I will never forget this noise.” Another woman says that when she passed out, she heard “a loud ringing; it can be described as a buzzing sound. And I was kind of in a spinning state.” I have also heard this unpleasant sensation characterized as “loud clicking, roaring, knocking, and a “whistling” sound similar to wind.”
In other cases, the auditory effects seem to have a more musically pleasing expression. For example, a man who was declared dead but then resuscitated reported upon arrival at the hospital that during his near-death experience he experienced the following sensations: “I heard something like a bell ringing somewhere in the distance, as if carried by the wind. It sounded like Japanese wind chimes... It was the only sound I heard at that moment.”
A young woman who nearly died from an internal hemorrhage associated with a bleeding disorder says that at the moment of collapse she "started to hear some music, majestic, really beautiful music."
DARK TUNNEL
Often, simultaneously with the noise effect, people have the feeling of moving at very high speed through some dark space. Many different expressions are used to describe this space. I have heard that it was considered as a cave, a well, something through, some kind of closed space, a tunnel, a chimney, a vacuum, a void, a sewer, a valley, a cylinder. Although people use different terminology in this case, it is clear that they are all trying to express the same idea. Let's look at two stories in which the idea of ​​a tunnel is clearly expressed.
“It happened to me when I was a boy of nine, twenty-seven years ago, but it was so amazing that I will never forget it. One day I became very ill and was rushed to the nearest hospital. When they brought me in, the doctors had to give me anesthesia, I don’t know why, since I was very small. In those days they used ether. They put a tampon on my nose and after that, as I was later told, my heart stopped beating. At that moment I did not know what had happened to me, but in any case, when it happened, I had certain sensations. The first thing I heard - I want to describe it exactly as it happened - was a ringing, very rhythmic noise, something like: brrrrr-nnnnng-brrrring-brrrrnnnng. Then I moved, you can think of it as something supernatural, through a long dark space. It looked like a sewer pipe or something like that. I just can't describe it to you. I was moving and kept hearing this ringing noise.”
Another person says:
“I had a severe allergic reaction to the local anesthetic and stopped breathing. The first thing that happened - it was really immediate - I felt that I was rushing through a dark, black vacuum at top speed. I think it can be compared to a tunnel. It felt like I was racing down a roller coaster at Luna Park..."
A man during a serious illness was so close to death that his pupils dilated and his body began to cool down. He tells:
“I was in an extremely dark black void. It's very difficult to explain, but I felt as if I was moving in a vacuum, right through the darkness. However, I was aware of everything. It was as if I was in a cylinder containing no air. It was a strange feeling, like being half here and half somewhere else.”
A man who has “died” several times from burns and fall injuries says: “I was in shock for about a week and at that time, out of the blue, I went into this dark void. It seemed like I was there for a long time, just floating and tumbling through space. I was so caught up in this emptiness that I simply couldn’t think about anything else.”
One man, before he had his experience when he was a child, was afraid of the dark. However, after cardiac arrest caused by internal injuries sustained in a bicycle accident, he felt the following:
“I felt like I was moving through a deep, very dark valley. The darkness was so deep and impenetrable that I could see absolutely nothing, but it was the most wonderful, anxiety-free state imaginable.”
In another case, a woman suffering from peritonitis reported: “My doctor has already called my brother and sister to see me one last time. My sister gave me an injection to ease my death. Objects in the hospital room began to move further and further away from me. When they disappeared, I walked headfirst into a narrow and very dark corridor. He seemed to be just right for me. I started sliding down, down, down."
A woman who was close to death took a comparison from a television drama: “There was a feeling of peace and calm, there was no fear at all, and I discovered that I was in a tunnel consisting of concentric angles. Shortly after this, I watched a television show called The Time Tunnel, in which people went back in time through a spiral tunnel. So this is the closest comparison I can find.”

Raymond Moody
Life after life

annotation

Is there life after death?
Even inveterate skeptics and atheists will not be able to say about this book that everything said here is fiction, because this is a book written by a scientist, doctor, researcher. Twenty-seven years ago, Life After Life fundamentally changed our understanding of what death is. Dr. Moody's research has spread all over the world and has greatly helped shape modern understanding of what a person experiences after death.

Raymond Moody
Life after life

Study of the phenomenon of continuation of life after the death of the body.

PREFACE

I had the privilege of reading Dr. Moody's book, Life After Life, before it was published. I admire that this young scientist had the courage to take this direction for his work and at the same time make this area of ​​research accessible to the general public.
Since I began my work with hopelessly ill patients, which has been going on for 20 years, I have been increasingly concerned with the problem of the phenomenon of death. We know quite a lot about the processes associated with dying, but there is still much that is unclear about the moment of death and the experiences of our patients at the time when they are considered clinically dead.
Studies like those described in Dr. Moody's book provide us with much new knowledge and confirm what we have been taught for two thousand years - that there is life after death. Despite the fact that the author himself does not claim to study death itself, it is clear from his materials that dying patients continue to be clearly aware of what is happening around them even after they are considered clinically dead. This is all very much in keeping with my own research into reports from patients who have died and then been brought back to life. These messages were completely unexpected and often amazed experienced, famous and certainly competent doctors.
All of these patients experienced an exit from their physical body, accompanied by a feeling of extraordinary peace and completeness. Many of them testify to communication with other persons who helped them in the transition to another plane of existence. Most were met by people who had once loved them and had died previously, or by religious figures to whom they attached serious importance during their lifetime and who naturally corresponded to their religious beliefs. It was very gratifying to read Dr. Moody's book at a time when I was ready to publish my own research.
Dr. Moody must be prepared for a lot of criticism, mostly from two sides. Firstly, on the part of the clergy, who will of course be concerned that someone would dare to conduct research in an area that is considered taboo. Some representatives of a number of religious groups have already expressed their critical attitude towards this type of research. One priest, for example, described them as “the pursuit of cheap fame.” Many believe that the question of life after death should remain a matter of blind faith and should not be tested by anyone. Another group of people from whom Dr. Moody might expect to react to his book are scientists and physicians who would consider this type of research unscientific.
I think we've reached something of a transitional era. We must have the courage to open new doors and not exclude the possibility that modern scientific methods are no longer adequate to new directions of research. I think this book will open such new doors for people with open minds and give them the confidence and courage to develop new problems. They will see that this publication by Dr. Moody is completely reliable, as it was written by a sincere and honest researcher. The findings are supported by my own research and the research of other well-respected scientists, researchers and clergy who have the courage to explore this new field in the hope of helping those who want to know and not just believe.
I recommend this book to all open-minded people and congratulate Dr. Moody on his courageous decision to publish the results of his research.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD. Flossmoor, Illinois.

This book, essentially written about human existence, naturally reflects the basic views and beliefs of its author. Although I have tried to be as objective and honest as possible, certain facts about myself may be helpful in evaluating some of the unusual claims that appear in this book.
First of all, I myself have never been near death, so I cannot testify to the relevant experiences from my own experience, first-hand, so to speak. At the same time, I cannot defend my complete objectivity on this basis, since my own emotions were undoubtedly included in the overall structure of the book. Listening to so many people be captivated by the experiences described in this book, I felt like I was living their lives. I can only hope that such a position does not compromise the rationality and balance of my approach.
Secondly, I write as a person who has not thoroughly studied the vast literature on parapsychology and all kinds of occult phenomena. I say this not with the aim of discrediting this literature; on the contrary, I am even sure that a more thorough acquaintance with it could deepen the understanding of the phenomena that I observed.
Thirdly, my religious affiliation deserves mention. My family belonged to the Presbyterian Church, however, my parents never tried to impose their religious beliefs and views on their children. Basically, as I developed, they tried to encourage my own interests and create conditions for the favorable development of my inclinations. Thus, I grew up with religion not as a set of fixed doctrines, but rather as a field of spiritual and religious teachings, views, issues.
I believe that all the great religions of mankind have much truth to tell us, and I am sure that none of us is able to understand the depth of truth contained in each of them. Formally I belong to the Methodist Church.
Fourth, my academic and professional background is quite diverse, so that others might even call it disjointed. I studied philosophy at the University of Virginia and received my doctorate in the subject in 1969. My areas of interest in philosophy are ethics, logic and philosophy of language. After teaching philosophy for three years at the University of California, I decided to enroll in medical school, after which I expected to become a psychiatrist and teach philosophy of medicine at the medical school. All these interests and acquired knowledge in one form or another helped me in carrying out this research.
I hope that this book will draw attention to a phenomenon that is both widespread and yet very little known, and help overcome public prejudice in this regard. For I am firmly convinced that this phenomenon is of great importance not only for theoretical and practical fields of study, especially for psychology, psychiatry, medicine, philosophy, theology and pastoral care, but also for our everyday way of life.
I will allow myself to say at the beginning, something for which detailed reasons will be given much later, namely, I do not seek to “show” that there is life after death. And I don’t think such “proof” is really possible at all. This is partly why I avoided identifying details in the stories given, while at the same time leaving their content unchanged. This was necessary both to avoid publicity about what concerned individuals, and to obtain permission to publish an account of the experience.
I think that many readers will find the claims made in this book incredible, and their first reaction will be to put it all out of their heads. I have no intention of blaming anyone for this. A few years ago I would have had exactly the same reaction. I do not ask that anyone believe everything that is written in this book and accept my point of view out of simple trust in me as the author. Indeed, as an impossibility or inability to object to an authoritative opinion, I especially ask you not to do so. The only thing I ask of those who don't believe what they read here is to just look around a little. I have made this appeal to my opponents more than once. And among those who accepted it, there were many people who, being initially skeptics, over time began to seriously think about such events with me.
On the other hand, I have no doubt that there will be many among my readers who, after reading this book, will be greatly relieved to find that they are not alone in what they have gone through. For those people - especially those who, as is the case in most cases, have not spoken about their experiences to anyone except a few trusted people - I can say one thing: I hope that my book will give you the courage to talk about it a little more freely , because this will shed more light on the most mysterious side of the life of the human soul.

THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH

What is death like? Humanity has been asking this question since its inception. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to pose this question to a significant number of listeners. Among them were students of psychological, philosophical and sociological faculties, believers, television viewers, members of civic clubs and medical professionals. As a result, with some caution, I can say that this topic is perhaps the most serious for all people, regardless of their emotional type or membership in a particular social group.
However, despite this interest, there is no doubt that for most of us it is very difficult to talk about death. This is due to at least two reasons. One of them is mainly psychological or cultural in nature. The very topic of death is taboo. We feel, at least subconsciously, that when faced with death in some form, even indirectly, we inevitably face the prospect of our own death, the picture of our death seems to come closer to us and becomes more real and conceivable. For example, many medical students, including myself, remember that even such an encounter with death, which is experienced by everyone who crosses the threshold of the anatomical laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine for the first time, causes a very unsettling feeling. The reason for my own unpleasant experiences now seems completely obvious to me. As I remember now, my experiences had almost nothing to do with those people whose remains I saw there, although, of course, to some extent I thought about them too. But what I saw on the table was for me mainly a symbol of my own death. Somehow, perhaps half-consciously, I must have thought, “This will happen to me.”
Thus, talking about death from a psychological point of view can be considered as an indirect approach to death, only on a different level. There is no doubt that many people perceive any talk about death as something that evokes such a real image of death in their minds that they begin to feel the proximity of their own death. To protect themselves from such psychological trauma, they decide to simply avoid such conversations as much as possible.
Another reason why it is difficult to talk about death is a little more complex, because it is rooted in the very nature of our language. Basically, the words that make up human language refer to things about which we gain knowledge through our physical senses, while death is something that lies beyond our conscious experience because most of us have never experienced it.
Thus, if we talk about death in general we must avoid both the social taboo and the linguistic dilemma that has its basis in our subconscious experience. We end up with euphemistic analogies. We compare death or dying with things that we are familiar with from our everyday experience and which seem very acceptable to us.
Probably one of this type of analogies is the comparison of death with sleep. Dying, we tell ourselves, is like falling asleep. Expressions of this kind occur in our everyday language and thinking, as well as in the literature of many centuries and cultures. Obviously, such expressions were common in Ancient Greece. For example, in the Iliad, Homer calls sleep “the brother of death,” and Plato, in his dialogue “Apology,” puts the following words into the mouth of his teacher Socrates, who was sentenced to death by the Athenian court: “And if death is the absence of all sensation, it is something like sleep , when the sleeper does not see any further dreams, then it would be surprisingly beneficial. In fact, I think that if someone had to choose a night on which he slept so much that he did not even dream and, comparing with this night all the other nights and days of his life, he would realize how many days and nights he lived It’s easy to count better and more pleasant in comparison with all other nights and days.
So, if death is like this, then I, at least, consider it beneficial, because all subsequent time (from the moment of death) turns out to be nothing more than one night.” (Translation taken from the “Collected Works of Plato.” St. Petersburg, Academy” 1823, vol. 1, p. 81).
The same analogy is used in our modern language. I mean the expression "put to sleep." If you bring your dog to the vet and ask him to put him to sleep, you usually have something very different in mind than when you ask the anesthesiologist to put your wife or husband to sleep. Other people prefer a different but similar analogy. Dying, they say, is like forgetting. When a person dies, he forgets all his sorrows, all painful and unpleasant memories disappear.
No matter how old and widespread these analogies are, both with “falling asleep” and with “forgetting,” they still cannot be considered completely satisfactory. Each of them makes the same statement in its own way. Although they say this in a slightly more pleasant way, they nevertheless both argue that death is actually simply the disappearance of our consciousness forever. If this is so, then death does not really have any of the attractive features of falling asleep or forgetting. Sleep is pleasant and desirable for us because it is followed by awakening. A night's sleep that gives us rest makes the waking hours that follow more pleasant and productive. If there was no awakening, all the benefits of sleep would simply not exist.

Life after life

Study of the phenomenon of continuation of life after the death of the body.

PREFACE

I had the privilege of reading Dr. Moody's book, Life After Life, before it was published. I admire that this young scientist had the courage to take this direction for his work and at the same time make this area of ​​research accessible to the general public.
Since I began my work with hopelessly ill patients, which has been going on for 20 years, I have been increasingly concerned with the problem of the phenomenon of death. We know quite a lot about the processes associated with dying, but there is still much that is unclear about the moment of death and the experiences of our patients at the time when they are considered clinically dead.
Studies like those described in Dr. Moody's book provide us with much new knowledge and confirm what we have been taught for two thousand years - that there is life after death. Despite the fact that the author himself does not claim to study death itself, it is clear from his materials that dying patients continue to be clearly aware of what is happening around them even after they are considered clinically dead. This is all very much in keeping with my own research into reports from patients who have died and then been brought back to life. These messages were completely unexpected and often amazed experienced, famous and certainly competent doctors.
All of these patients experienced an exit from their physical body, accompanied by a feeling of extraordinary peace and completeness. Many of them testify to communication with other persons who helped them in the transition to another plane of existence. Most were met by people who had once loved them and had died previously, or by religious figures to whom they attached serious importance during their lifetime and who naturally corresponded to their religious beliefs. It was very gratifying to read Dr. Moody's book at a time when I was ready to publish my own research.
Dr. Moody must be prepared for a lot of criticism, mostly from two sides. Firstly, on the part of the clergy, who will of course be concerned that someone would dare to conduct research in an area that is considered taboo. Some representatives of a number of religious groups have already expressed their critical attitude towards this type of research. One priest, for example, described them as “the pursuit of cheap fame.” Many believe that the question of life after death should remain a matter of blind faith and should not be tested by anyone. Another group of people from whom Dr. Moody might expect to react to his book are scientists and physicians who would consider this type of research unscientific.
I think we've reached something of a transitional era. We must have the courage to open new doors and not exclude the possibility that modern scientific methods are no longer adequate to new directions of research. I think this book will open such new doors for people with open minds and give them the confidence and courage to develop new problems. They will see that this publication by Dr. Moody is completely reliable, as it was written by a sincere and honest researcher. The findings are supported by my own research and the research of other well-respected scientists, researchers and clergy who have the courage to explore this new field in the hope of helping those who want to know and not just believe.
I recommend this book to all open-minded people and congratulate Dr. Moody on his courageous decision to publish the results of his research.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD. Flossmoor, Illinois.

This book, essentially written about human existence, naturally reflects the basic views and beliefs of its author. Although I have tried to be as objective and honest as possible, certain facts about myself may be helpful in evaluating some of the unusual claims that appear in this book.
First of all, I myself have never been near death, so I cannot testify to the relevant experiences from my own experience, first-hand, so to speak. At the same time, I cannot defend my complete objectivity on this basis, since my own emotions were undoubtedly included in the overall structure of the book. Listening to so many people be captivated by the experiences described in this book, I felt like I was living their lives. I can only hope that such a position does not compromise the rationality and balance of my approach.
Secondly, I write as a person who has not thoroughly studied the vast literature on parapsychology and all kinds of occult phenomena. I say this not with the aim of discrediting this literature; on the contrary, I am even sure that a more thorough acquaintance with it could deepen the understanding of the phenomena that I observed.
Thirdly, my religious affiliation deserves mention. My family belonged to the Presbyterian Church, however, my parents never tried to impose their religious beliefs and views on their children. Basically, as I developed, they tried to encourage my own interests and create conditions for the favorable development of my inclinations. Thus, I grew up with religion not as a set of fixed doctrines, but rather as a field of spiritual and religious teachings, views, issues.
I believe that all the great religions of mankind have much truth to tell us, and I am sure that none of us is able to understand the depth of truth contained in each of them. Formally I belong to the Methodist Church.
Fourth, my academic and professional background is quite diverse, so that others might even call it disjointed. I studied philosophy at the University of Virginia and received my doctorate in the subject in 1969. My areas of interest in philosophy are ethics, logic and philosophy of language. After teaching philosophy for three years at the University of California, I decided to enroll in medical school, after which I expected to become a psychiatrist and teach philosophy of medicine at the medical school. All these interests and acquired knowledge in one form or another helped me in carrying out this research.
I hope that this book will draw attention to a phenomenon that is both widespread and yet very little known, and help overcome public prejudice in this regard. For I am firmly convinced that this phenomenon is of great importance not only for theoretical and practical fields of study, especially for psychology, psychiatry, medicine, philosophy, theology and pastoral care, but also for our everyday way of life.
I will allow myself to say at the beginning, something for which detailed reasons will be given much later, namely, I do not seek to “show” that there is life after death. And I don’t think such “proof” is really possible at all. This is partly why I avoided identifying details in the stories given, while at the same time leaving their content unchanged. This was necessary both to avoid publicity about what concerned individuals, and to obtain permission to publish an account of the experience.
I think that many readers will find the claims made in this book incredible, and their first reaction will be to put it all out of their heads. I have no intention of blaming anyone for this. A few years ago I would have had exactly the same reaction. I do not ask that anyone believe everything that is written in this book and accept my point of view out of simple trust in me as the author. Indeed, as an impossibility or inability to object to an authoritative opinion, I especially ask you not to do so. The only thing I ask of those who don't believe what they read here is to just look around a little. I have made this appeal to my opponents more than once. And among those who accepted it, there were many people who, being initially skeptics, over time began to seriously think about such events with me.
On the other hand, I have no doubt that there will be many among my readers who, after reading this book, will be greatly relieved to find that they are not alone in what they have gone through. For those people - especially those who, as is the case in most cases, have not spoken about their experiences to anyone except a few trusted people - I can say one thing: I hope that my book will give you the courage to talk about it a little more freely , because this will shed more light on the most mysterious side of the life of the human soul.

THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH

What is death like? Humanity has been asking this question since its inception. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to pose this question to a significant number of listeners. Among them were students of psychological, philosophical and sociological faculties, believers, television viewers, members of civic clubs and medical professionals. As a result, with some caution, I can say that this topic is perhaps the most serious for all people, regardless of their emotional type or membership in a particular social group.
However, despite this interest, there is no doubt that for most of us it is very difficult to talk about death. This is due to at least two reasons. One of them is mainly psychological or cultural in nature. The very topic of death is taboo. We feel, at least subconsciously, that when faced with death in some form, even indirectly, we inevitably face the prospect of our own death, the picture of our death seems to come closer to us and becomes more real and conceivable. For example, many medical students, including myself, remember that even such an encounter with death, which is experienced by everyone who crosses the threshold of the anatomical laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine for the first time, causes a very unsettling feeling. The reason for my own unpleasant experiences now seems completely obvious to me. As I remember now, my experiences had almost nothing to do with those people whose remains I saw there, although, of course, to some extent I thought about them too. But what I saw on the table was for me mainly a symbol of my own death. Somehow, perhaps half-consciously, I must have thought, “This will happen to me.”
Thus, talking about death from a psychological point of view can be considered as an indirect approach to death, only on a different level. There is no doubt that many people perceive any talk about death as something that evokes such a real image of death in their minds that they begin to feel the proximity of their own death. To protect themselves from such psychological trauma, they decide to simply avoid such conversations as much as possible.
Another reason why it is difficult to talk about death is a little more complex, because it is rooted in the very nature of our language. Basically, the words that make up human language refer to things about which we gain knowledge through our physical senses, while death is something that lies beyond our conscious experience because most of us have never experienced it.
Thus, if we talk about death in general we must avoid both the social taboo and the linguistic dilemma that has its basis in our subconscious experience. We end up with euphemistic analogies. We compare death or dying with things that we are familiar with from our everyday experience and which seem very acceptable to us.
Probably one of this type of analogies is the comparison of death with sleep. Dying, we tell ourselves, is like falling asleep. Expressions of this kind occur in our everyday language and thinking, as well as in the literature of many centuries and cultures. Obviously, such expressions were common in Ancient Greece. For example, in the Iliad, Homer calls sleep “the brother of death,” and Plato, in his dialogue “Apology,” puts the following words into the mouth of his teacher Socrates, who was sentenced to death by the Athenian court: “And if death is the absence of all sensation, it is something like sleep , when the sleeper does not see any further dreams, then it would be surprisingly beneficial. In fact, I think that if someone had to choose a night on which he slept so much that he did not even dream and, comparing with this night all the other nights and days of his life, he would realize how many days and nights he lived It’s easy to count better and more pleasant in comparison with all other nights and days.
So, if death is like this, then I, at least, consider it beneficial, because all subsequent time (from the moment of death) turns out to be nothing more than one night.” (Translation taken from the “Collected Works of Plato.” St. Petersburg, Academy” 1823, vol. 1, p. 81).
The same analogy is used in our modern language. I mean the expression "put to sleep." If you bring your dog to the vet and ask him to put him to sleep, you usually have something very different in mind than when you ask the anesthesiologist to put your wife or husband to sleep. Other people prefer a different but similar analogy. Dying, they say, is like forgetting. When a person dies, he forgets all his sorrows, all painful and unpleasant memories disappear.
No matter how old and widespread these analogies are, both with “falling asleep” and with “forgetting,” they still cannot be considered completely satisfactory. Each of them makes the same statement in its own way. Although they say this in a slightly more pleasant way, they nevertheless both argue that death is actually simply the disappearance of our consciousness forever. If this is so, then death does not really have any of the attractive features of falling asleep or forgetting. Sleep is pleasant and desirable for us because it is followed by awakening. A night's sleep that gives us rest makes the waking hours that follow more pleasant and productive. If there was no awakening, all the benefits of sleep would simply not exist. Likewise, the annihilation of our conscious experience implies the disappearance not only of painful memories, but also of all pleasant ones. Thus, upon closer examination, neither analogy is sufficiently adequate to give us any real comfort or hope in the face of death.
There is, however, another point of view that does not accept the statement that death is the disappearance of consciousness. According to this second, perhaps even more ancient concept, a certain part of the human being continues to live even after the physical body ceases to function and is completely destroyed. This constantly existing part has received many names - psyche, soul, mind, “I”, essence, consciousness. But no matter what it is called, the idea that a person passes into some other world after physical death is one of the most ancient human beliefs. In Turkey, for example, Neanderthal burials dating back about 100,000 years have been discovered. Fossilized prints found there allowed archaeologists to establish that these ancient people buried their dead on a bed of flowers. This suggests that they viewed death as a celebration of the deceased’s transition from this world to another. Indeed, from the most ancient times, burials in all countries of the world testify to the belief in the continued existence of a person after the death of his body.
Thus we are faced with opposing answers to our original question about the nature of death. Both of them have very ancient origins and yet both are widespread to this day. Some say that death is the disappearance of consciousness, while others argue, with the same confidence, that death is the transition of the soul or mind to another dimension of reality. In the narrative that follows, I do not in any way seek to dismiss any of these answers. I just want to report on a study that I personally conducted.
Over the past few years, I have met a large number of people who have had what I will call “near-death experiences.” I found them in different ways. At first it happened by accident. In 1965, when I was a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Virginia, I met a man who was a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School. I was struck by his friendliness, warmth and humor from the very beginning. I was very surprised when I later learned interesting details about him, namely that he was dead, not once, but twice, within 10 minutes of each other, and that he told absolutely fantastic things about what happened to him in this time. I later heard him tell his story to a small group of students. At that time it made a very great impression on me, but since I did not yet have sufficient experience to evaluate such cases, I “put it aside” both in my memory and in the form of a retyped summary of his story.
A few years later, after I received my PhD, I taught at North Carolina State University. In one of my courses, my students were required to read Plato's Phaedo, a work in which, among other issues, the problem of immortality is discussed. In my lecture, I focused on other provisions of Plato presented in this work and did not dwell on the discussion of the issue of life after death. One day after class, a student came up to me and asked if he could discuss the issue of immortality with me. He was interested in this problem because his grandmother “died” during the operation and later talked about very interesting impressions. I asked him to talk about it and, to my great amazement, he described the same events that I had heard about from our psychiatry professor several years before.
From that time on, my search for such cases became more active and I began to lecture in my philosophy courses on the problem of human life after death. However, I have been careful and careful not to mention these two death experiences in my lectures. I decided to wait and see. If such stories were not just a coincidence, I suggested, then perhaps I would learn more if I simply raised the question of immortality in a general form in philosophical seminars, showing a sympathetic attitude to the topic. To my amazement, I discovered that in almost every group of about thirty people, at least one student usually came up to me after class and told me about his own near-death experience, which he had heard about from loved ones or had himself.
From the moment I began to take an interest in this question, I was struck by this great similarity of sensations, despite the fact that they were received from people very different in their religious views, social status and education. By the time I entered medical school, I had already collected a significant number of such cases. I began mentioning the informal research I was doing to some of my medical friends. One day one of my friends persuaded me to give a presentation to a medical audience. Other offers of public speaking followed. Once again, I found that after each talk someone came up to me to tell me about an experience of this kind that he himself knew of.
As my interests became more widely known, doctors began to tell me about patients they had resuscitated who told me about their unusual sensations. After newspaper articles about my research appeared, many people began to send me letters with detailed stories of similar cases.
Currently, I know of approximately 150 cases in which these phenomena occurred. The cases I studied can be divided into three clear categories:
1. The experiences of people who were considered or declared clinically dead by doctors and who were resuscitated, 2. The experiences of people who, as a result of an accident or a dangerous injury or illness, were very close to the state of physical death, 3. The feelings of people who were near death and reported about them to other people nearby. From the large amount of factual material presented by these 150 cases, a selection was naturally made. On the one hand, it was deliberate. So, for example, although stories belonging to the third category complement and fit well with the stories of the first two categories, I generally did not consider them for two reasons. Firstly, it would reduce the number of cases to a level more suitable for comprehensive analysis and, secondly, it would allow me to stick to first-hand accounts as much as possible. So I interviewed 50 people in great detail whose experiences I can draw on. Of these, cases of the first type (those in which clinical death occurred) are significantly more eventful than cases of the second type (in which there was only an approach to death).
Indeed, during my public lectures on this topic, cases of "death" always aroused much greater interest. Some of the reports that appeared in the press were written in such a way that one might think that I dealt only with cases of this kind.
However, in selecting the cases to be presented in this book, I have avoided the temptation to dwell only on those cases in which "death" took place, because, as will be seen later, cases of the second type are no different; but rather form a single whole with cases of the first type. In addition, although the near-death experience itself is similar, at the same time, both the circumstances surrounding it and the people describing it are very different. In this regard, I have tried to provide a sample of cases that adequately reflects this variability. With these premises in mind, let us now turn to consider those events which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, may occur when a person dies.

EXPERIENCE OF DYING

Despite the wide variety of circumstances associated with a close encounter with death, as well as the types of people who experienced it, it is still certain that there are striking similarities between the accounts of the events themselves at this moment. In fact, the similarity between the various messages is so great that it is possible to identify about fifteen separate elements that appear again and again among the large number of messages I have collected. From these general points, let me construct a brief, theoretically “ideal” or “complete” description of the experience that includes all the general elements in the order in which they usually occur.
A man dies, and at the moment when his physical suffering reaches its limit, he hears the doctor pronounce him dead. He hears an unpleasant noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time he feels that he is moving at high speed through a long black tunnel. After this, he suddenly finds himself outside his physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, he sees his own body from a distance, like an outside spectator. He watches the attempts to bring him back to life with this unusual advantage, and is in a state of some emotional shock.
After some time, he collects his thoughts and gradually gets used to his new position. He notices that he has a body, but of a completely different nature and with completely different properties than the physical body that he left. Soon other events happen to him. The souls of other people come to him to meet him and help him. He sees the souls of already deceased relatives and friends, and a luminous being appears before him, from whom emanates such love and warmth as he has never met. This being silently asks him a question that allows him to evaluate his life and walks him through instantaneous images of the most important events of his life, passing before his mind's eye in reverse order. At some point, he discovers that he has approached a certain barrier or border, which apparently constitutes the division between earthly and subsequent life. However, he discovers that he must return back to earth, that the hour of his death has not yet come. At this moment he resists, because now he has learned the experience of another life and does not want to return. He is filled with a feeling of joy, love and peace. Despite his reluctance, he nevertheless somehow reunites with his physical body and returns to life. Later he tries to tell others about all this, but finds it difficult to do so. First of all, it is difficult for him to find adequate words in human language to describe these unearthly events. He also faces ridicule and stops telling other people. However, the events he experiences have a profound impact on his life and especially on his view of death and its relationship to life.