Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, once scoffed at the idea of an NDE.  His stance changed after November 10, 2008, when he fell ill to E. coli meningitis that has less than a one in 10 million incidence in the U.S. annually.  Dr. Alexander slipped into a coma and remained there for six days before miraculously awakening the seventh day.  The chance of living at that point was less than three percent and a full recovery even less, yet Dr. Alexander did.

His diagnosis and corresponding spiritual travels while in a coma led him to search out the medical possibilities of such an out-of-body experience (OBE).  The rich interactive character of the recollections was medically unexplainable.  Drug interactions tended to induce chaotic and unpleasant dreams, which his were not.  The elaborate, rich descriptions of the spiritual world, given the doctors medical situation simply had no medical foundations.  What he and his associates once dismissed was in fact very real.

Dr. Alexander, writing in his book, Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, stated “My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness that human experience continues beyond the grave.”  An NDE is sometimes explained as the state of suspension between the earthly world and the spiritual world.

The study of NDE is now a burgeoning area of research.  Ever since the medical professions started to bring people back from death, near death, and comas, the numbers of NDE claims have been rapidly increasing.

The NDERF organization (nderf.org) has studied hundreds of these cases in depth and has made some remarkable findings.  When you read these personal accounts of NDErs and study the statistics, you will be convinced that life does not end here.  We live out God's plan and then, God accepting, reside in His presence forever more - in paradise.

One of the emerging reports is that people in the spiritual realm project an image of themselves, as they were when they were at their best.

The length of the visions, being disproportionate to the actual time in a coma or not breathing, suggests that the next dimension has a different measure of time.

There are numerous accounts of NDErs interactions with the "Light."  The Light is described as the source of all existence, holding all knowledge, and emanating infinite love, knowledge, and compassion.  The light is not a being with form, but more like an expansive collective consciousness and source of all energy.  The Light is the source from which all souls are erected and the universe itself was created.

As one testimonial stated, "It seemed like I became part of the Light and then the Light became part of me.  We were one.  I suddenly understood, without question, how interconnected we all are with each other, God and all life forms in the Universe."  (Mary's)

Imagine walking with a flashlight at full darkness directly into the headlights of a car.  At some point, the light from the flashlight becomes absorbed in the greater light and both become interconnected.

In figurative language, light represents goodness, whereas darkness epitomizes evil.

Despite the efforts of Scientists to show the brain as the origination of these spiritual recollections, the matters of the conscious have been proven to lie outside of the brain.  They once thought they lay in the cortex, but with Dr. Alexander’s case, his cortex was shut down.  Statistical probabilities, and now medical evidence, prove that not only is an NDE not within the brain region, the NDE itself is very real.

Sir John C. Eccles (1903-1997) said it well when he stated, “…we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.”

We have been indoctrinated into a scientific world view that there is a plausible explanation or theory for everything.  Such a worldly view leaves little or no room for our soul, spirit, Heaven, or God.  Albert Einstein summarizes it best, “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as if everything is.”