About book Evidence Of The Afterlife: The Science Of Near-Death Experiences (2010)
Before my son's surgery, I had to face my scientific, atheistic, "maybe there is something and maybe there isn't but hell if I know" secularism head on as I spent the vast majority of my life seeking in different spiritual paths, but finding that I always came back to the logical. If there are no atheists in foxholes, there probably aren't in children's hospital waiting rooms, either.I had prepared myself to handle any eventuality (as best one can in a situation that may tear one's world asunder), but the thing I couldn't get past was the concept that we are just gone. The death of those close to me was an unfathomable, horrible concept - being snuffed out of existence became repugnant. The further concept was that if we were not snuffed out, if we were ensouled beings and we evolved onto a different plane, then where did we go? Going further into that concept also gripped me with fear - if my son passed, how would I be there for him? How could I know he was alright?I'm not sure this book answered those questions for me. Not sure they didn't.While this purports to be a scientific study of near death experiences, it is anecdotal only - there are no machines that measured electro-physical anomalies as evidence of angels in the room, no slight weight change to demonstrate the weight of a soul hovering in a corner - nothing but stories of those who have claimed to almost cross but who came back by choice or by force. The stories are stories with commonalities that in some cases seem striking, but still at the end are just stories.It is a much more persuasive argument for life after death than I have ever heard before. One could take comfort in many of the findings - most people felt safe, loved, unconcerned about their death. Some felt happier than they ever had felt before. The arguments against these experiences being simply the product of a brain in panic mode on the verge of death firing off any electrical and hormonal soothing and numbing help it can think of can be compelling. There were a few facts that definitely gave me pause.What no one seems to be able to articulate, however, is why the barrier between the seen and the unseen, and why it cam only be breached at near death. It seems few can breach it unless they have faith and what, then, is the purpose of faith? Each religion has an explanation. They all conflict in large and small ways.Many of the NDEers came back with a newly found purpose. With psychic abilities. With a new compassion and connection. Can we who have not been near death not all have that? Is there some explanation as to why there are just a chosen few, and they must go through trauma and near death to deserve that gift of peace?I think the book presents pieces of information that are interesting but still, at the end, requires a leap of faith even if it is just the faith in the doctor's zeal and the NDEers stories. It did purport to be evidence, and not answers - and there is quite a bit of compelling evidence. Not clear cut, but compelling - it still, for me, requires a leap of faith to believe.Perhaps it's a much smaller leap of faith than the one that would have been required before the study and the evidence presented, but for a skeptic its still a leap nonetheless.
The subject matter of this book is undoubtedly fascinating. A radiation oncologist with a scientific background comes across some textbook cases of near death experiences in medical journals early in his career and makes it his life-long mission to collect as many near-death experiences as possible from around the world and study their similarities and statistical consistencies, as well as their apparent occurrence in the face of medical improbability, to conclude that his body of work proves the existence of an afterlife. There are only two problems with the book that I can find: 1) Dr. Long is passionate about his mission and arduous about his methods, but cannot write an interesting sentence to save his life, and 2) Dr. Long points out nine lines of evidence to prove the existence of an afterlife, none of which actually proves the existence of an afterlife. So, why read this book? Because mortality sucks and despite himself Dr. Long has compiled the most extensive data in the field, some of it so amazingly similar in style and content that it defies being coincidental in nature or even culturally ingrained. When people make things up, they tend to embellish in ways that are inconsistent, adding details that do not maintain certain repetitive elements and constant stylistic devices. Reading a selection of the hundreds of thousands of entries Dr. Long has gathered makes it challenging to remain completely skeptical about the process. Dr. Long also brings up some interesting medical facts that make even science geeks and nonbelievers like myself think long and hard about our views on the nature of death and dying. Could it all be neurological, physiological, remnants of electrical currents in the brain? I've always assumed so. Dr. Long, however, offers some clear medical reasoning as to why that type of dismissive thinking is medically unsound. I have some major issues with many of Dr. Long's research methods, statistical values, and conclusions (the man is not afraid of big leaps), but the near death experiences themselves are the draw of this book, and wedged between Long's dry, clinical sentences and clipped conclusions, the voices of those who have briefly died, and yet lived to tell about it, make the pages briefly come alive. The amazing similarities in these hundreds of stories truly affected my perceptions of the event itself. Even if you don't come away from this book with a belief in any type of afterlife (guilty as charged), it is still difficult to walk away from this book without the strangely comforting feeling that the moment of death may not be a cause for terror but rather the experience of a pleasant journey to a place where love and peacefulness reign supreme. Beyond that, one must come to his or her own conclusions about eternity.
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This is an excellent book because it talks about this question from a scientific/statistical position and provides a different perspective for those of us who are searching for answers in this area. I HIGHLY recommend this book especially if you find yourself skeptical about Near Death Experiences. I recommended this to a friend of mine who's a doctor and a scientist and who isn't the type of person to dive into a belief based on his gut feel. If you're interesting in this subject matter, read it. If you have read a lot of books in this genre but would like to try something different - this is your book. If you want the atheist/skeptic in your life to consider a new perspective to life (and death)...This really is the book for you! BTW I am a Christian and nothing in here conflicts with my beliefs in that area.
—Emily
While at university, I befriended a student who’d recently had a Near Death Experience. A car hit him while he was walking down a country road. We remained friends and I’ve been able to see the long-term effect an NDE can have on someone’s life. Knowing someone who had an NDE does not of course prove the phenomenon true. Sceptics will always reply on it as being either anecdotal, hallucinatory or both. However, I do believe in it and I follow the growing body physics that supports it. In his book, Dr Long takes the reader through many incidents of NDE. He does this in a very readable way and adds authority by speaking on the subject from the point of view of a senior member of the medical profession. Although not advancing the subject, the book is an excellent beginning for someone new to the subject. In fact, this book must be among the best places to start.Near Death Experience left the realms of parapsychology and entered mainstream medicine some years ago now. I have no doubt that Dr Long played a significant role in that move given the duration of his involvement in the subject.My first reaction was to give the book four stars, but then changed my mind. It’s worth five.
—John Corder
A very updated book on hundreds of documented cases of NDEs.How can any one continue to doubt the existence of life after death when so many cases, across culture, age, religion...say the same thing?Doubters should try to read other books on the same topics. All these experiencers of NDEs are not expressing their opinions on the subject, they are recounting what they experienced. These experiences are not derived from polls, they are vivid recollections.To explain this by brain circuitry being alive and neutrons firing up does not explain why millions of NDERs experience the same "dream" with more or less the 9 characteristics described in the book.Besides, the evidence of life after death is overwhelming when one takes into account other studies, reports, experiences of past life regression under hypnosis. People regressed in their past lives is already a proof of the phenomenon, specially when facts or things they count are sometimes proven, but when they are regressed after their death in their previous lives (and before being reincarnated), they say the same things as all these NDERs.Other (empirical) evidences of past life are derived from the numerous case studies of children remembering their past lives all over the world. Read Dr Ian Stevenson and so many other books. Any one with an open mind can find enough studies and books in different fields to reach the conclusion that life after death is empirically proven. One day our level of science will be developed enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt every one. In the mean time, as Galileo once said "yet it moves".
—Laurent Videau
