I decided to read the book because I have always been skeptical of NDEs. At the same time, however, I really haven’t done much reading about them. My skepticism, then, is based largely on ignorance, and I am happy to admit that. It seemed to me if anyone could provide a good, scientific analysis of a NDE, it would be a neurosurgeon who actually experienced one. I read the book, hoping to be persuaded by the evidence. However, I have to say that I finished the book a bit more skeptical about NDEs than when I started.
In brief, Dr. Alexander came down with a very rare case of Escherichia coli meningitis, which he maintains completely shut down his cortex, the portion of the brain that is associated with “higher” functions such as thoughts and actions. He maintains that for all intents and purposes, he had no consciousness, since the part of the brain associated with consciousness was simply shut down by the bacteria that were attacking it. Despite this complete lack of higher brain function, he had a vivid experience of completely different places: An underworld he calls “The Realm of the Earthworm’s Eye View” (p. 30), a glorious land of beauty he calls “The Gateway” (p. 38), and the realm of God Himself, which he calls “The Core” (p. 45).
The “The Realm of the Earthworm’s Eye View” was a particularly unpleasant place, but that was just his starting point once his cortex shut down. He was soon pulled to the “The Gateway,” which was amazing. There, he met a young lady he did not recognize, who wordlessly gave him a message:
The message had three parts, and if I had to translate them into earthly language, I’d say they ran something like this:
“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”
“You have nothing to fear.”
“There is nothing you can do wrong.” (p. 41)
Now I have a problem with this “message.” Christians (and many other theists) would have no problem with the first part. God loves and cherishes us all. However, I would think most Christians would have a problem with the second part. The Bible says that for some, the Afterlife will produce fear, as some will go to eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46). Of course, the message might have been just for him. Perhaps he had nothing to fear. However, I can’t imagine any theist agreeing with the third part of the message. Most theists (myself included) would say that God is the source of true morality, and as a result, there is a lot that we can do wrong. Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not skeptical of the good doctor’s NDE because I don’t like the message. I am just saying that if the message is real, it seems rather different from the message most theists would expect to hear from God!
There are three things that make me skeptical about his account. First, he tells us early on that he has always loved flying. In fact, in the prologue, he tells us that as a kid, he would dream about flying. He also tells us about his skydiving adventures later in life. Well, once he was pulled from “The Realm of the Earthworm’s Eye View” to “The Gateway,” what was he doing?
I was flying, passing over trees and fields, streams and waterfalls, and here and there, people. (p. 39)
It seems to me that this is awfully close to his dreams of childhood and his adult experiences of skydiving. This indicates to me that there is something in the NDE that is coming from his own memories.
Second, he was flying with someone – the young lady who gives him the wordless message. He initially doesn’t recognize her, and (as he points out in the book) this is rather different from the NDEs he researched after experiencing his own. In almost all the other NDEs, the people meet someone they knew who had died prior to their NDE. The author never met anyone he knew…at least that’s what he thought.
Dr. Alexander was adopted. However, he was able to find his birth family as an adult, and they told him he had a sister named Betsy. Unfortunately, she had died 10 years before he had found them. This was a source of great pain for Dr. Alexander. Well, four months after Dr. Alexander’s NDE, he was sent a picture of Betsy. He put it on his bureau. When he started researching other NDEs, he was reading about the case of a young girl who had an NDE and met her brother. However, she didn’t have a brother. When she told her parents, they told her that she did have a brother, but he had died three months before she was born. After reading that story, Dr. Alexander said:
Then my eyes traveled over to the bureau, and the photo that Kathy had sent me. The photo of the sister I had never known…she wasn’t easy to recognize at first. But that was only natural. I had seen her heavenly self – the one that lived above and beyond this earthly realm, with all its tragedies and cares. But now there was no mistaking her, no mistaking the loving smile, the confident and infinitely comforting look, the sparkling blue eyes. It was she [sic]. (pp. 168-169)
If this really had been his sister, why didn’t she make that clear? That’s what happens in other NDEs – the person experiencing the NDE is made aware of who is present in the Afterlife. This really seems to be a case of him shaping the events after they happened.
Now don’t get me wrong. Dr. Alexander’s son wisely counseled him to write the details of his NDE before he started researching other NDEs, and that’s what he did. Thus, I have no doubt that the woman was a part of Dr. Alexander’s experience. I also don’t think he is consciously shaping the events of his NDE. However, he makes it clear in his book how much he wanted to be connected to his biological family. I think he shaped his flying companion into his dead sister unconsciously, after the NDE. This, of course, adds to my doubts.
Third, he makes a very big deal out of the fact that his NDE was different from every other one he researched. His cortex was really and truly shut down by his bacterial infection, which means he couldn’t experience dreams or hallucinations that were so vivid and so real. He says:
But when I added up the sheer unlikelihood of all the details – and especially when I considered how precisely perfect a disease E. coli meningitis was for taking my cortex down, and my rapid recovery from almost certain destruction – I simply had to take seriously the possibility that it really and truly had happened for a reason (p. 144)
While I was reading, however, I was rather skeptical that a patient could know whether or not his cortex was really shut down. True, he reviewed his case file the same way he would review a file from any other patient, and the scans that he saw showed total shutdown. However, scans aren’t done all that often, and they typically focus on specific things. I was skeptical that he could really evaluate his own condition. As a result, I did a bit of searching, and I came across this article, which is based on an interview with Dr. Laura Potter, one of Dr. Alexander’s physicians during his NDE. She claims that she put him in a drug-induced coma, which leaves room for higher functions in the brain. Part of the article says:
I ask Potter whether the manic, agitated state that Alexander exhibited whenever they weaned him off his anesthetics during his first days of coma would meet her definition of conscious.
“Yes,” she says. “Conscious but delirious.”
Now once again, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying (as the article I linked contends) that this debunks Dr. Alexander’s story. As any physician who deals with such cases will tell you, opinion plays a big role in such situations. Dr. Potter’s opinion is that Dr. Alexander could have been experiencing delusions. Dr. Alexander’s opinion is that he couldn’t have been. I am more inclined to believe the physician rather than the patient, but nevertheless, it is possible that Dr. Potter is wrong.
What’s the takeaway from this book? In my opinion, it didn’t give any serious evidence for an Afterlife, even though I would welcome such evidence, since I obviously believe in one. At the same time, I don’t think it invalidates other NDEs. In order to do that, you would have to analyze each NDE on a case-by-case basis. There is, however, one thing this book does: It shows how God can use any situation to draw people to Him. Dr. Alexander’s brush with death was a trial for him and his family, but it ended up turning him from a materialist into a theist. I am sure he is thankful for the trial, as it was used by God to call him Home!
Check this, is interesting:
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/roundtable/an-atheist-meets-the-masters-of-the-universe.php
Interesting story, Eduardo. Thanks for sharing it.
I have thought about the separation of body from soul, or spirit, a little. It seems self-evident that there is more to a person than their physical self.
What perturbs me, however, is what relationship the physical has with the spirit. What does it actually mean when the Bible says that Christ is “in” us. That we have “His righteousness counted to us.” How is this manifested in us? We’re so used to understanding things structurally, and physically, it’s so hard to relate to this idea! It’s hard to have faith in something like that when you can’t understand it.
I wish I understood the interface between the spiritual and the physical:-)
Kendall, I think most people wish they could understand the interface between the spiritual and the physical. However, that’s really difficult to do when we don’t understand the physical very well, and the spiritual is not testable. Here’s my incomplete take on the matter: Without a living body, a spirit is not attached to the material world. So the body is like an “anchor,” holding the spirit in the natural realm. This adds the supernatural (God’s nature, which He gave us at creation) to the natural, making the world a truly wonderful place, even though it is still marred by the Fall. When we are told Christ is “in” us (I John 3:24 and I John 4:13), it means that our spirit has communion with the Holy Spirit. Since our spirit is in us, its communion with the Holy Spirit means the Holy Spirit is in us as well.
Of course, that’s just my take on the issue. I am more than willing to believe I am completely wrong!
I read the book a few months ago. I usually write a notes as a review on my personal blog, but for some reason, this book didn’t make it there.
I have long been fascinated with NDE stories. I believe Dr. Alexander believes what happened to him as he reported.
His experience made me very uncomfortable. I know where I am going when I die, and based on the many shared experiences of others’ NDEs, I have an idea what will happen initially.
As Dr. Alexander relates his experience, every fiber in my being was screaming that this is not MY God. But as you stated, Dr. Wile, God certainly used this to His glory!
Kristine, I agree that Dr. Alexander believes what happened to him was real. I am just not sure that the evidence backs him up on that.
I have often wondered how time itself is reflected in our sleeping or “NDE” state compared to our awaken state. If I dreamed that I took a walk with my fiancé and we were attacked by a bear (we all have weird dreams!), was this really 15 minutes of real time as it felt, or merely seconds with my brain making me perceive the time.
This thought makes me wonder if NDE are actually experiences that happen in the brain within seconds, yet to the experiencer it feels like they have just experienced a long period of time.
This of course would be irrelevant if NDE actually happen, just a thought.
That’s an excellent point, Gabriel. It’s possible that many (if not all) NDEs are dreams that happen in an instant of real time, but they could seem to take days or even weeks. Dr. Alexander in his book actually says that he experienced time differently in his NDE than he does in real life.
Hello Dr Wile
I am in the UK. Our children (age 10 and 8) are home educated, and I have used living nature readers, along with experiments ( which I love to do when I can) and Abeka books (free from the homeschool library in London).
May I ask you these questions: At what age can one use your books? I am attracted to them because of the experiments.
Thanks for your question, Anthea. Just in case my explanation didn’t quite answer your question, it is really appropriate for all ages. My field-testing group included many children who were 5 years old, and a couple of children who were 4. They enjoyed the course. You can purchase the course in the U.K. from Ichthus Resources.
This seems biased to me. One can’t just pick and choose the NDE that confirms their religious belief and reject what doesn’t. If NDE are real then something is wrong with christianity because I have read accounts where atheists and non-christians have pleasant NDE. They don’t just go to hell. If NDE are just dreams and chemicals in the brain then we have no evidence for an after-life. Either way, they don’t support the bible very well at all. My take is that perhaps our “soul” is quantum in nature as per Stuart Hammeroff and when we die we are just seeing a glipmse of the mulitverse which quantum mechanics posits as a possibility. Of course this is mostly speculative originating from a desire to live beyond death but more than likely we just cease to exist. The best explanation is that these NDE were created by our brains after centuries of believing in God(s). Our homonid ancestors created religions and dieties as a way to explain things and cope with death. Through evolution, this was selected for it’s advantages and passed on to the cultures. Since then, it has become so entrenched that our brains just create the images at the time of death that have we have believed or been told since our time of birth. Basically our brains just lie to us our whole lives. I would like there to be an after-life of some kind but I don’t know if the science fully supports it.
JLAfan, as I say in the article, I am not skeptical of this NDE because of the message. I am skeptical because of the evidence. I also disagree with you when you say, “If NDE are just dreams and chemicals in the brain then we have no evidence for an after-life.” There is a lot of evidence for the afterlife, without NDEs. For example, there is an enormous amount of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since He died and came back, it seems to me we can believe His statements about an afterlife.
I just found this article, heh, what timing!
http://io9.com/a-new-scientific-explanation-for-near-death-experiences-1110395345
Also, I appreciate your upper comment in reply to my post. It was encouraging!
It’s an interesting study, Kendall. Now please note that it was done on rats, so it’s not clear how relevant it is to people. However, it would explain why the NDE as reported by the author is so different from most NDEs. His didn’t involve cardiac arrest, and this study would at least explain why he didn’t see a bright light at the end of a tunnel, as so many NDEs have.
I personally do believe in NDE’s. My grandmother had one many years ago when she almost died. According to her, she saw her two miscarried children and wanted so desperately to be with them but God told her that He wasn’t finished with her on earth.
This makes more sense to me than the neurosurgeon’s NDE’S because the theology aligns with what I know to be true in the Bible.
I think it would be interesting to note, and perhaps add to the discussion, that sighted NDEs and OOBEs have been reported in those that have been either blind from birth or from an early age. Not only has this been reported two or three times, but thirty by Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper over a study that lasted two years. Their book is called Mindsight, and reports the experiences of these people. This is a significant amount, considering that, most probably, a significant amount of NDEs go unreported, and not much of the population is born blind, or goes blind when they are very young. Obviously, excellent sight and awareness of visual surroundings would be a bit of a conundrum if these were false memories. How can you have false memories about a type of input you never had in your life? This type of evidence would add new support that some types of NDEs and OOBE’s differ in degree from others. I am not saying that some NDEs are not false memories or necessary inputs from a dying body to stay calm so healing can commence, but as in most situations, what counts as a NDE may be a true spiritual experience in some cases, and in other cases, may be a false memory, etc, etc, and would have to be judged on a case by case basis. In the end, one thing we can know is that the mind is incredibly powerful, as illustrated to anyone who has ever watched “A Beautiful Mind”. This mans mind made entirely new people and convincing scenarios that did not actually exist, so much careful judging is needed when it comes to these experiences.
I will have to look at that book. Thanks, Eric!