Near-Death Experiences: What if anything might they tell us about - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Near-Death Experiences: What if anything might they tell us about life after death?

Walter L. Bradley, Ph.D., P.E. ASA Annual Meeting—Gordon College July 29, 2018

If you were to die tonight…….

• Would you cease to exist?
• Would you no longer have a

consciousness?

• What did Billy Graham say about this just

before he died this past spring?

• What did Barbara Bush say shortly before

her death in April 2018?

• Is there any empirical evidence that can

give us a compelling answer to this critical question?

What does Bible say about Heaven?

• Eternal HEAVEN–

The new Heaven and the new Earth which Christ will create at the end of human history when Christ returns. Revelations 19-22 Terms suggested by Randy Alcorn in Heaven

• Intermediate Heaven—place peoples’ souls live

from time of their physical death until end of human history and Christ’s return

• - Phil. 1:19-24 –Paul-”To be absent from the

body

• - Luke 23:43 – Thief on the cross
• - II Corinthians 12:1-6 Paul’s out of body

experience

• -Acts 14:19 Paul’s stoning and NDE/OBE
• -Matt 16:28, Mark 9:1-13, Luke 9:27-36 mount
• f transfiguration
• -Jesus after his resurrection

Three key empirical questions for today?

• Do human beings have

–A body and a spirit/soul (dualist) or –Just a body?

• Will I still be conscious (immediately)

after the death of my body?

• What is “intermediate Heaven like”?

How could we possibly find out?

Two Kinds of Data from NDE/OBE*

• Emergency room data—evidence for NDE/OBE

–Heart monitoring records –Brain wave monitoring –Patient can describe in detail activities of doctors and nurses treating their clinically dead body.

• Journeys to “front porch” of Heaven or Hell

–Follow tunnel or paths with light at end –Meet many deceased relatives and friends (but never met people still living) –Get a preview of what Intermediate Heaven will be like. –Have an encounter with Christ and a life review that is life changing

11 Examples out of >3500 documented NDEs with OBEs

• Mary O’Neal, Director of Spinal Surgery, USC Medical School
• Vicki, 22 yrs. Old, blind from birth
• Migrant worker Maria, tennis shoe on ledge
• Pam Reynolds, singer, 60F, eyes tapes, ears with high frequency

clicking…..Hotel California

• Resuscitation 10/2015, controlled experiment with odd objects

places on shelves near ceiling

• Eben Alexander, M.D., taught and practiced at Harvard Medical

School, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, 2012

• Dr. Michael Sabom’s asking his own patients (S. Weinberg)
• Brit Penny Saritoriexperiment with 60 NDEs,30 with & 30

without OBE

• Man who had massive heart attack, with NDE/OBE followed by

being in a coma for 7 days had dentures removed and placed in crash cart.

• Heaven is for Real

What kinds of documentation are available for NDEs/OBE?

• Amazon lists many books that either describe

individual NDE/OBE experiences or else analyzed larger numbers of NDEs.

• Data bases contain >3500 carefully documented

NDEs/OBEs from people of many cultures, races, religious, not-religious, or atheistic beliefs, ages ranging from 4-80+, and from many different educational backgrounds.

• It is estimated that 3-4% (1/33 or 1/25) of Americans

have had a NDE (but not always an OBE). Gallup Poll

• Check out YouTube or Google for NDEs with OBE.

Examples of Main-stream Media on NDEs/OBEs

• Atlantic Magazine; featured article April 2015,

“The Science of Near-Death Experiences: Empirically investigating brushes with the afterlife”

• BBC Documentary on 12/26/2015 on NDEs/OBEs
• New York Times article “A New Vision for Dreams
• f the Dying”, 02/02/2016 experiences of dying
• people. Confirmed by hospice
• National Geographic , April 2016
• Newsweek (online) March 18, 2018

Books and JAMA etc. on NDEs/ODE: Synthesis of many people’s experiences

Books on NDEs/OBEs Synthesis of experience of many people

Books and Reports 55 Researchers, 65 Studies, >3500 NDEs

Books on NDE/OBE Synthesis

More Synthesis of NDEs/OBEs

More Books on NDE/OBE

Books on Individual NDE/ODE

Movies about NDE/OBE Experiences

• Heaven is for Real!
• 90 Minutes in Heaven
• Miracles from Heaven

Science\Technical Literature

• 600 refereed Journal articles in Journal of Near-

Death Studies

• 240 refereed Journal Articles in Pub-Med ,

National Library of Medicine, including Psychiatry, The Lancet, Critical Care Quarterly , American Journal of Psychiatry, British Journal of Psychology, Resuscitation, Neurology, Journal of American Medical Association, etc.

• There is a huge amount of carefully documented

and peer reviewed data about NDEs, mostly from medical doctors.

Two Key Questions raised by NDEs/OBEs Can the mind/spirit/soul/consciousness exist apart from the brain? Is there conscious life after death? –Materialist (atheist) say this is impossible! –Many scientists who were previously skeptical now believe that the evidence validating NDEs is compelling and provides a substantial basis to support the hypothesis that the mind (or soul) can exist apart from the brain.

Monism vs Dualism Models

• Two possible hypotheses

– Monism -- A body without a separable spirit/soul. – Dualism – A body with a separable spirit/soul

Analogies for dualism:

• 1. Like a radio (body) that plays sounds informed by radio

waves it receives (from my soul/spirit).

• 2. My soul/spirit occupies my body and expresses itself

through the instrument of my body but can exist without my body.

• 3. My body is like a piano. My soul/spirit is the pianist.

My spirit expresses itself in physical world via my body.

Hypotheses of Scientists Skeptical of NDEs

• NDEs are the result of physical changes in a

stressed or dying brain caused by:

• 1. To little oxygen or too much carbon dioxide
• 2. Imperfect anesthesia
• 3. Body’s neuro-chemical responses to trauma
• 4. George Mashour (U. of Michigan, self proclaimed

materialist) speculates that spikes in neural activity like those in dying rats might create hallucinations that could be experienced as NDEs, but this is speculation with NO data to confirm it. (Also, do we think that rats have a soul or spirit? If not, what could studies on dying rats tell us?)

Who Gets the Burden of Proof?

• Materialist often assume that it is up to those who believe

in NDEs/OBE to provide perfect experimental evidence before they can be believed.

• Absence of perfect experimental evidence of OBEs does

not equal to evidence for or proof that OBEs don’t occur.

• Can materialist experimentally prove that the OBEs did

not occur while the person was brain dead?

• We should look at the preponderance of experimental

evidence to see which hypothesis seems most likely to be true, based on what we know today.

Questions for Skeptics of NDEs

• Why are NDEs experiences of “the other side”

strikingly similar, forming a consistent picture of life in another dimension for people from around the world.

• Why do NDErs only meet people from their past that

have died and never people still living if their NDE experience is really just a dream or hallucination?

• Why do NDEs produce similar events with similar

details in a surprisingly consistent linear order?

• Why are NDEs often subsequently life-changing?
• Could these remarkable characteristics of NDEs be

accounted for by a “cascade of neuro-transmitters”. Could low oxygen and/or high carbon dioxide produce such remarkable patterns? If so, HOW?

Questions about Skeptics Hypotheses

• Unexpected details in NDEs—If NDEs were merely vivid

dreams from people’s expectations concerning death,

• ne would expect a close correspondence between

people’s expectations and prior experiences. THIS IS NOT WHAT PEOPLE REPORT!

• Who would have expected an NDE to include (1) mind

to mind communication, (2) a dimension where both space and time seem to vanish, (3) seeing up close and far away equally, (4) reviewing an entire lifetime in an instant, (5) encountering a Being of bright light (God) that doesn’t cause squinting, (6) out of body experience, (7) meeting spirit people that I know who have died, or (8) coming back, (9) children’s NDEs and (10) dramatic changes in personal views about life- after-death, (10) atheist claiming to have met God/Jesus.

Questions about hypotheses of skeptics

Who could possibly have expected such odd and amazing things? How could these experiences be just a dream or hallucination in people who have never thought about much less dreamed about such things, many who did not believe in God or life after death. For example, in one study in Holland, only 27%

• f people believed in life-after-death before

their NDE and with 90% continuing to believe in life-after-death 20 years after their NDE.

Summary of Data

• In my opinion, the huge amount of date from scientific

studies of NDEs and personal accounts of NDE provides more than sufficient warrant to believe that the mind/consciousness can indeed exist separate from the body/brain.

• Proposed hypotheses that use only natural laws to try

to explain away NDEs do not provide any plausible way to account for the many observations that are common to most NDEs. In fact, explaining how consciousness emerges in a living brain is still a mystery at this time.

What do NDE/OBEs tell us about Intermediate Heaven?

• Overwhelming indescribable Beauty
• Meeting and recognize deceased family and

friends.

• Felt more alive then ever in actual life.
• Met figure of light which most identified as Jesus

and felt most indescribable love; unlike anything ever experience before in their lives on earth.

• Had life review…..in a moment every thought and

deed is experienced and evaluated for it ripple

• effects. Big things not so important, how our live

affect people around us is very, very important.

Possible Personal Applications from Near-Death Experiences of Others

• Makes me want to make my life count every

day.

• My relationship with God is paramount!
• Little things that I DO TO OR FOR OTHER

PEOPLE may ripple down through history in the impact that they have in the lives of others (for better or worse).

What about hell?

• 27% of NDE/OBEs include going to the front porch of

“hell”.

• Actual numbers are surely much higher but it is such a

traumatic experience that it is often suppressed by our mind.

• Professor Howard Storm (My Descent into Death) and
• Dr. Eben Alexander (Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's

Journey into the afterlife), both formerly atheist, have written books about their “hellish” NDE/OBE experiences which were life changing.

Topics in John Burke’s Six Weeks Series based on NYT best seller “Imagine Heaven”

• 1. What are near-death experiences (NDEs)?
• 2. What is Intermediate Heaven Like?
• 3. What is it like to met Jesus in person?
• 4. What about Hell?
• 5. Visiting Heaven and Life Reviews
• 6. The challenge to live today in light of eternity

Links to these videos are in the resources handout.

Resources for You

• John Burke’s 6 part video series on his book

“Imagine Heaven”, 45 minutes each with 15 minutes devoted to interviews of people who have had NDEs with OBEs. (YouTube)

• Links to mainstream popular print media such as

the Atlantic magazine with articles on near death experiences. E-mail me at walter_bradley@baylor.edu and put into the subject line NDE resources. Note there is an underscore between walter and bradley.