For
the multitude of near-death experiencers who
know they have left their bodies and received
a glimpse of an afterlife, there is no amount
of clinical explanation that will ever convince
them otherwise. The following are testimonials
from experiencers themselves about their conviction
that their near-death experience was an out-of-body
journey of life after death.
"As the two beings approached us, I could also
feel the love flowing from them toward us. The
complete joy they showed at seeing the Christ
was unmistakable. Seeing these beings and feeling
the joy, peace and happiness which swelled up
from them made me feel that here was the place
of all places, the top realm of all realms.
The beings who inhabited it were full of love.
This, I was and am convinced, is heaven." (Dr.
George Ritchie)
"At 4:13 p.m., I was transported from the physical
realm, the realm of the body, to a spiritual
realm. I knew I was in another world - a world
that is as real as this world is to anyone reading
this." (Dr.
Gerard Landry)
"Well, I felt myself leave my body. I just floated
out of my physical form and I saw them cart
my body away to the hospital. I went with it
... I wasn't frightened or anything like that
because I was fine; and it was my body that
was in trouble." (Peter
Sellers)
"I had my first near-death experience when I
was a child, perhaps at the age of two or three.
This would be about 1953. It involved me drowning.
My memories of it were of seeing my body below
me." (Brian
Krebs)
"I felt as if I were coming loose from my body!
While I believed that my body was me, I knew
instinctively that if I separated from it, I'd
be dead! My soul and body started separating
again and continued to separate until I felt
a short, sharp pain in my heart, which felt
as if something had been torn loose. Then slowly
and softly I rose out through the top of my
head." (Arthur
Yensen)
"I was aware that I, me, was on a journey and
had left my body." (Harry
Hone)
"I watched my spirit leave my body and release
itself from this world of flesh. I could see
myself traveling through a tunnel of light that
was a freedom it is hard to describe in physical
terms." (Sherry
Gideon)
"At the birth of my first child after 30 hours
labor, complications occurred and the baby could
not be born normally and at the height of the
pain I left my body. I saw my body on the bed
and tried to communicate to those tending to
it but finally gave up and left out the roof
of the hospital." (Alise)
"My next memory was quite a scene in the hospital
emergency room. It was the most unique experience
of my earthly life. Unique, because I was observing
my own body in the emergency room and all the
activity going on, except that I was not in
my body. I was above it all - looking down.
I was feeling no pain." (David
Goines)
"A massive load of compressed cardboard Carter
was loading slipped out of control, slamming
him against a steel pole. He remembers a sharp
pain, collapsing, being in a black void, then
finding himself floating in a prone position
twelve feet above his crumpled body. He saw
and heard people running around, yelling for
an ambulance and saying, "Don't touch him, give
him air." His body went from white to blue;
there was no breath. The sight filled him with
awe. "I'm here, my body is there. How did this
happen?" Not understanding how he could suddenly
be airborne, Carter Mills attempted to reenter
his body." (Carter
Mills)
"The decision to leave this world hung suspended
in an extended moment of absolute quiet. Passionless,
I watched my spirit leave my body as a feeling
of "otherness" engulfed me. I felt a strange
detachment from my physical body and the life
I had created. I was no longer connected to
a pitiful, suffering mass of flesh." (Linda
Stewart)
"Immediately after the impact from falling forward
onto the metal grating, I felt myself floating
up, out of my body, and hovering above my body
and all the people who were watching it, and
who seemed paralyzed by shock and horror at
what had happened. I think they pretty much
assumed that I was dead." (Dr.
Liz Dale's research)
"I remember looking down and seeing my body
three-dimensionally for the first time. And
it was such a shock, because we never see ourselves
except in a one-dimensional mirror reflection,
or a photograph." (Dr.
Liz Dale's research)
"I was in a barn along with about 8 or 9 other
people. It was starting to storm so we had a
little tobacco we wanted to finish unloading.
Before we got into the cars we had there, [the
lightening bolt] came through a board in the
side of the barn and got me. I felt myself falling
but it didn't hurt. Then I noticed I was above
myself looking down at me. My body was actually
smoking." (Mr.
Thermal)
"On the eighth day of this misery, I seemed
to just float right up out of my body. So, I'm
looking down at my body lying in the bed still
as a corpse, and I said, "Oh, ****** I've died!!"
I was basically unnerved by this. But in the
next second, I thought to myself, "Hey, if I'm
dead, who is thinking these thoughts??" (Skip
Church)
"Suddenly I was out of my body, hovering by
the ceiling." (Karen
Brannon)
"Am I outside myself observing? I see my body
and its pain. I look at my feet; they are pale
and lifeless. My legs cannot move. My face is
white and drawn." (Josiane
Antonette)
"I found myself floating on the ceiling over
the bed looking down at my unconscious body.
I barely had time to realize the glorious strangeness
of the situation - that I was me but not in
my body - when I was joined by a radiant being
bathed in a shimmering white glow." (Beverly
Brodsky)
"I see myself as a tiny dot out of my physical
body, which lies inert before me. I find myself
oppressed by darkness and there is a feeling
of terrific loneliness. Suddenly, I am conscious
of a white beam of light, knowing that I must
follow it or be lost." (Edgar
Cayce)
It is
not just experiencers who believe that NDEs
are veridical events that occur outside of the
body, doctors who observe them do as well.
Dr. Michael Sabom,
an Atlanta cardiologist, was one who eventually
became convinced that experiencers are actual
separating from their bodies. After talking
to patients, who claimed they had a NDE, Sabom
said:
|