Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven: A Brief Introduction in Plain Language (25 page)

23) If
the dissolution of self is the most important part of the experience, why don’t
I find NDErs reporting this loss of self and its importance? According to
Blackmore, upon returning to consciousness their brains immediately
reconstructed another model of self. (259) Although this would successfully
explain the contrary evidence provided by NDE reports, it would also render our
primary data for exploring NDEs – the personal reports – practically useless as
data with which to build our theories.    

            Thus,
Blackmore’s defense of the dissolution of self as the reason for life change
seems extraordinarily weak.(247ff.) Rather than survey people and ask them what
aspect of their experience changed them, she assumes most of them have
misinterpreted what changed them and suggests that it’s the “loss of self”
experience, which she’s yet to prove is a part of the experience. To bolster
her claim, she quotes a man who came out of his experience with the “dissolution
of self” explanation. Yet, Blackmore admits that his experience was drug
induced (probably morphine) and not a classic NDE. (254,255) She seems to have
totally left her research at this point. For a good general discussion of
Blackmore’s psychological arguments, see
The Near Death Experiences of
Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients
, 95-98.

24)
Dying
to Live
, 113. See also her summary on pp. 262,263.

25)
http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Ring/Ring-Journal%20of%20Near-Death%20Studies_1997-16-101-147.pdf
,
K. Ring and Sharon Cooper, Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the
Blind: A Study of Apparent Eyeless Vision,
Journal of Near-Death Studies.

Appendix
#6

1) Kevin
Nelson,
The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain
(New York: Dutton, 2011), 5.

2)
Ibid., 260.

3) Ibid.,
67.  

4)
Ibid., 214,218.

5)
Ibid., 3,4.

6)
Ibid., 4.

7)
Ibid., 9.

8)
Ibid., 200,270.

9)
"We found that NDErs do indeed have more psychic abilities than the normal
population. And we are not talking about a slight increase in abilities here.
People who have had near-death experiences are four times more likely to have
psychic experiences than those who have not had them." Melvin Morse with
Paul Perry,
Transformed by the Light: The Powerful Effect of Near-Death
Experiences on People's Lives
 (Raleigh, NC: Ivy Books, 1993), 91.

10)
See the questions he asked. (Nelson, p. 201) Another potential problem is that
he studied a specific subset of NDErs: “each believed at the time” of the NDE
“that his or her life was in immediate danger.” (p. 200) So why didn’t he
simply choose people who shared NDEs? Well, his hypothesis is that fear is “the
fundamental link” to many of our spiritual experiences. (p. 160) So, apparently
he wanted to choose only NDErs who were experiencing fear at the onset of their
NDEs. Yet, other NDErs have suddenly passed out, apparently without any fear or
expectation of possible death. For example, concerning the patients that van
Lommel studied, 

“Most
patients experienced no fear of death preceding their cardiac arrest; its onset
was so sudden that they failed to notice it.”(36.5)

It’s quite possible that Nelson ended up with a large number of cases where
people
thought
they were going to die, but weren’t actually near death.
This could bias the sample toward people who are more prone to dissociate from
their bodies during extreme danger.

11)
The
Spiritual Doorway in the Brain
, 128-131.

12) See,
for example, B. Greyson, E.W. Kelly, E.F. Kelly, Explanatory Models for
Near-Death Experiences, in
The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences
, 217.
See also Chris Carter,
Science and the Near-Death Experience
(Rochester,
Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2010), 164-168.

13)
Here’s another example. Foundational to Nelson’s hypothesis is his belief that
mind functions are produced by the brain. But again, he never considers
contrary evidence. While he relies upon the research of neurosurgeon Wilder
Penfield, is Nelson aware that after a lifetime of brain research, Penfield
concluded that the mind is separate from the brain? According to Penfield, “For
my own part, after years of striving to explain the mind on the basis of brain
action alone, I have come to the conclusion that it is simpler (and far easier
to be logical) if one adopts the hypothesis that our being does consist of two
fundamental elements.” W. Penfield,
The Mystery of the Mind
(Princeton
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), 80. See also pp. 39,47,48,85. 

14)
The
Spiritual Doorway in the Brain
, 124.

15)
Syncope and near-death experience. (1994).
The Lancet
, 344(8925), 829-829.
Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/199043829?accountid=11824
;
Lempert, T., Bauer, M. and Schmidt, D. (1994), Syncope: A videometric analysis
of 56 episodes of transient cerebral hypoxia.
Annals of Neurology
,
36: 233–237.

16)
For example, in an examination of reports of tunnel vision and “dreamlets” in
studies of fighter pilots experiencing g-force, the actual descriptions are
often very different from the brief summaries that people try to use to show
similarities. See Chris Carter,
Science and the Near-Death Experience
(Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2010), 172-176.

17)
The
Spiritual Doorway in the Brain
, 132. In fact, Nelson argues that the
characteristics of NDEs “combine to tell us that wide expanses of the brain are
engaged during these experiences.” (117) But wouldn’t such vivid consciousness,
if it’s indeed produced solely by the brain, show up on an EEG?

18) Ibid.,
146.

19) Ibid.,
144-146.

20) Ibid.,
148.

21) Ibid.,
148.

22) Ibid.,
211,212.

23)
In an endnote, Nelson comments on his skepticism toward paranormal claims:
“Extraordinary claims, however, require extraordinary evidence.” (p. 116) “When
it comes to believing in the paranormal, I start with the yardstick provided by
David Hume on miracles that violate the laws of nature: I believe in the
paranormal only if not believing would mean having faith in something even more
miraculous.” (p. 267)

            On
one hand, this seems like a sound approach, in the sense that when someone
exclaims, “It was a miracle!” we should look first to possible natural
explanations. So a person claims that prayer miraculously put her cancer in
remission. But what percentage of people with that type of cancer go into
remission? If 5%, then couldn’t her remission be adequately explained by her
being in that 5%?
            Yet some seem to take this principle too far, not accepting
anything as “extraordinary evidence.” David Hume, for example, holds that
proving the resurrection of Jesus would actually provide no evidence whatsoever
for his divinity. After all, perhaps science will one day provide a reasonable
naturalistic explanation, as it has for so many other supposedly miraculous
occurrences. And besides, is there some law of logic that tells us that if
someone pulls off a resurrection, he’s therefore divine? Perhaps the
resurrection merely shows that Jesus was a great magician?

            Using
Hume’s approach, it’s evident that nothing could ever provide sufficient
evidence for a paranormal event. For him, the evidence for the normal
functioning of natural laws is so overwhelming that you could never have
sufficient evidence that the laws had been violated.

            But
it seems to me that evidence from NDEs is indeed extraordinary, to the extent
that naturalistic explanations indeed become more “miraculous” than
supernatural explanations. Sure, it’s possible that science may in the future
show how, in a near-death experience, people born blind report seeing and
people wake at the moment of a distant relative’s death and sense their
presence or share their trip to another dimension. But to me, in the light of
all currently available scientific evidence, believing in a naturalistic
explanation requires more blind faith than believing that there’s more to this
life than our natural laws can explain. I’d suggest that committed naturalists
might never see the extraordinary nature of the evidence for the paranormal.
Why? Because of the power of their paradigm – viewing evidence through their
naturalistic-colored glasses.
24) Eben Alexander,
Proof of Heaven
(New York: Simon & Schuster,
2012). For more on Nelson, note a review of Nelson’s book: Rudolf H. Smit &
Titus Rivas,
Book Review,
The
Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience
,
by Kevin Nelson,
The
Journal of Near-Death Studies
, vol. 30, #2, (Winter,
2011). The following article critiques two of Nelson’s journal articles on the
subject he expanded upon in his book: Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death
and Out-of-Body Experiences? A Summary and Response, by Jeffrey Long and Janice
Miner Holden.
Journal of Near-Death Studies
, 25(3) (Spring 2007).

Appendix #7

1) Raymond
Moody,
Paranormal
(New York: HarperCollins, 2012)
,
60,61.

2)
Ibid., 94,95.

3)
Blackmore notes that “visions of the world’s future” are relatively rare.
Dying
to Live
, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993), 30.

4)
http://www.skeptiko.com/112-gary-habermas-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-spirituality

5) One
of Sartori’s patients reported an interesting event in this regard. A being on
the other side told him to warn a relative to not believe all that a medium was
telling her because some of it was lies. Interestingly, he didn’t even know
that she had been consulting a medium. Penny Sartori,
The Near-Death
Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients
(Lewiston, Queenston,
Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press: 2008), 178-180.

6) Pim
van Lommel,
Consciousness Beyond Life
, (New York: HarperCollins, 2010),
56-58.

7) Michael
B. Sabom,
Recollections of Death
(New York: Harper & Row, 1982),
139-141.

8) Ibid.,
140.
9)
The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients,
244.

10)
Ibid., 252,253; J.M. Holden, B. Greyson, D. James, editors,
The Handbook of
Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation
(Santa Barbara,
California: ABC-CLIO, LLC., 2009), 319,320.  

11)
The
Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients
, 304.    

Appendix
#8

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Atwater,
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Journal of Near-Death Studies,
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The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives
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provide evidence for survival of human personality after death? Relevant
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7) R. Crookall,
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Books, 1972).
8) G.F. Ellwood, The Uttermost Deep: The Challenge of Near-Death Experiences (New
York: Lantern Books, 2001).
9) P. Fenwick and E. Fenwick,
The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of
over 300 Near-Death Experiences
(London: Headline, 1995).
10) C. Green,
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(Oxford, England: Institute of
Psychophysical Research,1968).
11) M. Grey,
Return from Death
(New York: Arkana, 1985).
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To Die is Gain: The Experience of One’s Own Death,
Trans.
M. Kohl (Atlanta: John Knox Press,1979).
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The Collected
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Experiences of Children
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the phantasms of the dead,
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26) Near-Death Experiences: The Proof. February 2, 2006, Feb. 2. Article
scanned from
Daily Express
, London. Retrieved February 2006 from
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Ogston, A.
Reminiscences of three campaigns
(London: Hodder &
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27) M. Rawlings,
Beyond Death’s Door
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28) K. Ring, 1980.
29) K. Ring, 1984.
30) K. Ring, and S. Cooper,
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in the Blind
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1999).
31) K. Ring, and M. Lawrence, Further evidence for veridical perception during
near-death experiences.
Journal of Near-Death Studies
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32) K. Ring, and E.E. Valarino,
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(New York: Plenum,
1998).
33) B. Rommer,
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34) M. Sabom,
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35) M.A. Tutka, Near-Death Experiences: Seeing the Light.
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36) G.N.M. Tyrrell, 1946.
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38) Wilson,
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(New
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