Journey Into the Light: Exploring Near-Death Experiences

The author, who espouses traditional American Christian beliefs reviews what we know of NDE's from a Christian perspective. Not surprisingly, he refutes the New Age style message brought back by most NDE experiencers. However, his tone is not negative or positive, but very objective (given his stated reference point - The Bible). At the beginning of the book he identifies two basic camps of NDE researchers, - those who think it is purely a physiological process and those who believe it is a spiritual one - and he declares his position which is in the middle. He believes it is a physiological process that occurs when the brain is shutting down, and states that he also believes that it can be a gateway into a spiritual realm, but that he thinks the experiences gained in that realm (if any) are most likely deceptions by evil forces disguising themselves as "messengers of truth". In the first half of the book he provides a very balanced and non opinionated review of the various NDR researchers and opinions out there. He reviews in detail medical, sociological, historical and psychological studies on the subject. In the latter part of the book he describes how the various "truths" espoused by most NDE experiencers are at odds with his interpretation of Christian doctrine. Even though I don't share his fundamentalist Christian views, I admit he makes a pretty strong case for NDEs being primarily a physiological process. And he points out several pieces of information that you won't read about in books by those authors who want you to believe in the spiritual "truth" of NDEs: The first is widespread reports of "fear-death experiences" (FDE) in which someone who perceived themselves to be in imminent thread of death, but who in fact did not suffer any physical harm, - had near-death experiences including going out-of-body, seeing a light, meeting relatives, etc. The 2nd is that we have all heard of NDE experiencers who claim to have been met by dead relatives, but what we don't hear is that many of them meet relatives who are still alive - and children often are met by imaginary figures such as Santa Claus or a teacher of theirs. The one place where he argument is weak is that while acknowledging hundreds of doctors' testamonies about patients who were able to provide detailed recounting of things that occurred while they were "dead", he could not provide adaquate explanation for how these patients came upon this knowledge. He points out that medical findings suggest those in comas or near death might still be able to hear - but that's about all he offers, aside from the other assertion that evil forces might feed them information. Despite the traditional Christian viewpoint this book is a thorough and careful overview of NDEs, - and is worth reading.