February 1, 2006

Vol. 05 No. 01, Ed. 01


The Near-Death Newsletter is a free monthly newsletter from www.near-death.com which is emailed to subscribers every 1st of the month and on every 15th of the month. The mission of this newsletter is to provide the latest news on the subject of near-death experiences and related phenomena and to promote IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies), near-death researchers, experiencers, events, and multimedia resources. Disclaimer: This newsletter is not affiliated with IANDS; but the author of this newsletter, Kevin Williams, is a member of IANDS and is dedicated to the IANDS mission. IANDS is the premier organization for near-death research. Membership gives you access to their prestigious Journal of Near-Death Studies and Vital Signs newsletter. You can join IANDS at their website. Get connected with IANDS because they will probably be the organization who will someday provide the scientific evidence proving that human consciousness survives death.

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 Table of Contents


  (1) Near-Death News
  (2) Q & A with P.M.H. Atwater
  (3) Books on the NDE
  (4) IANDS in the Spotlight
  (5) Odds and Ends

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Near-Death News


Archive of NDEs in the News - Read all the major news articles concerning the NDE and related phenomena from 1995 to current. This is a permanent archive to ensure that these news articles will always be available on the internet. The Near-Death News section of this Near-Death Newsletter will soon be available in syndication so stay tuned!


News From P.M.H. Atwater


(February 2006)

Dr. Atwater is back on tour promoting her latest book, Beyond the Indigo Children: The New Children and the Coming of the Fifth World. There will be a delay while she looks over her accumulated e-mail. But she will try to keep up with her correspondence . And is available for consultations, readings, talks, workshops, or her Prayer Chaplaincy service.

LATEST HEADLINES FROM P.M.H:

EBOOK FREEBIES FROM P.M.H:

WHAT'S NEW ON P.M.H.'S WEBSITE:


IANDS Spiritual Retreat for Near-Death Experiencers to be Held on April 17-20, 2006, at Mercy Center, St. Louis, Missouri


(February 1, 2006)

This retreat is open to near-death experiencers who wish to come together in a peaceful setting to talk about issues related to coming back and other topics of concern to NDErs. Sign-up at this IANDS web page. Registration deadline is March 15th, 2006. Price includes room, breakfast, lunch, dinner and workshops. [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


2006 IANDS Annual North American Conference to be Held on October 24-29, in Houston, Texas


(February 1, 2006)

The first day of the conference will focus on the needs and interests of the medical community. Greater effort will be made to appeal to physicians and nurses, and other health-care providers. The remaining three days will cover the gamut of near-death experiences, their aftereffects and implications. The public is invited. Details given when available. Advance information can be obtained through the IANDS office in Connecticut: phone (860) 882-1211 or email office@iands.org. [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


New IANDS Multimedia Downloads Now Available

  (CD-ROMs, Audiocassettes, PDFs, and MP3s)

(February 1, 2006)

You can now purchase IANDS Conference presentations from the following years: 2005 (download or CD-ROM), 2004 (download or audiocassettes), 2003 (download or audiocassettes), 2001 (download or audiocassettes), 2000 (download or audiocassettes), 1999 (audiocassettes), 1998 (download or audiocassettes), 1997 (audiocassettes), 1996 (audiocassettes), 1995 (audiocassettes), 1994 (audiocassettes), and 1993 (audiocassettes). Also available from IANDS include: NDE Research CD-ROMs, free downloadable NDE Brochures, Selected Bibliography of Near-Death Experiences, Near-Death Experiences: Index to the Periodical Literature through 2001, and the Journal of Near-Death Studies. [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Brief Encounters of a Different Kind

  (The NDE of Diane Willis)

(January 30, 2006)

In 1994, Diane Willis was sitting at home reading the Chicago Tribune when it happened. The article she was reading, "Beyond the crystal ball" by Marya Smith about local psychic and spiritual author Sonia Choquette, began to do something Willis hadn't expected ... Willis had a near-death experience without having been injured or hospitalized. This event, as well as others, would later influence her to found the Chicago chapter of the International Association of Near-Death Studies ... Through a series of events, Willis discovered Transitions, a spiritual bookstore, and decided to visit it one day when she had time. Upon arriving at the store, she found out that Sonia Choquette was going to be speaking and signing copies of her book "The Psychic Pathway" that following Sunday. [Read more]

   Related items of interest:


Life Goes On

  (Pim van Lommel's NDE Research)

(January 2006)

When the The Lancet published his study of near-death experiences, Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel couldn't have known it would make him into one of the world's most-talked-about scientists. It seems everyone wants to know about the man who managed to get his study of this controversial topic published in one of the leading journals of medical research. Yet it's not really surprising that its publication in 2001 created a stir. Never before had such a systematic study been conducted into the experiences of people who were declared dead and then came back to life ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Is There Life After Death?

  (Pim van Lommel's Press Release)

(January 19, 2006)

Top cardiologist to talk at London conference about near-death experiences (NDEs). He claims to have proven the existence of life after death in scientific trial. A leading cardiologist — who has become convinced of the existence of life after death after hearing his patients' experiences — is talking about his research and beliefs at a major conference in London in March. Dr. Pim van Lommel was so inspired by the stories related by his patients of their NDEs that he became the first medical practitioner to risk his reputation with a full, systematic trial into the phenomenon ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Former Atheist to Tell How Near-Death Changed Life

  (Rev. Howard Storm's discusses his NDE)
  (Note: You may need to register to read this article. It's free)

(January 28, 2006)

In 1985, Storm lay dying of a perforated intestine in a Paris hospital when he underwent "the most amazing experience." "Doctors said I was on death's door. Then Satan took me down to hell and tormented me," he recalled. "In that place I called out to Jesus; not out of faith, out of desperation. I didn't know what else to do. Jesus grabbed me and took me up toward Heaven. I saw myself lying in the bed. I couldn't believe it was me. I kept telling myself 'I'm not crazy.' Jesus and I conversed, and he gave me a life review. It was so vivid and profound, it totally changed my life." [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


World Renown NDEr and Singer Produces a New CD Called "The Side Effects of Dying"

  (The NDE Music of Pam Reynolds & Rob Robinson)

(January 1, 2006)

REVIEW:  Many people know of Pam Reynolds because her NDE is one of the most medically documented and verifiable. Her NDE testimony has become a benchmark case for the survival of consciousness after death. Pam's life signs were absent and by all medical criteria she was dead for almost an hour. While there are many NDE books available, Pam has now presented the NDE message in a entirely original and exciting way. She and her writing and singing partner, Rob Robinson, have produced a CD called "The Side Effects of Dying" ...  [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Breathe and Experience God

  (The NDE of Julie Lapham)

(January 15, 2006)

An accident in a chemistry lab when Julie Lapham was 26 changed her life in a way she never imagined. One minute she was an up-and-coming scientist, and the next she lay dying from a severed artery and nerve in her wrist. What she described as a near-death experience ultimately led her down a new career path. "I remember floating above them as they worked on me in the hospital, and then I saw a light, and then something made me turn and the experience was over," said Lapham, 61 ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Spielberg's "Nine Lives"

  (A Steven Spielberg NDE mini-series coming soon)

(January 17, 2006)

DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg have been given the green light to do another miniseries for the NBC-owned Sci Fi Channel, by the same team that did Steven Spielberg's "Taken". The 12-hour mini will be called "Nine Lives", about characters in grief over the loss of loved ones, and how they manage to reunite with them in near-death experiences ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Laugh? I Nearly Died

  (The "NDE" of Hollywood Actor Alan Alda)

(January 28, 2006)

When Alan Alda survived a life-threatening operation he felt like a man reborn. His only illness now, he tells Tom Shone, is his compulsion to amuse. In autumn 2003, Alan Alda was in Chile recording a segment for Scientific American Frontiers, a popular science program he has fronted for almost 20 years. He was staring up at the Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope when he came down with fierce abdominal cramps ... The book started as an account of his near-death experience in Chile, which he passed to his friend, the actor Charles Grodin, who passed it to his editor at Random House. [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Dante's Inferno: Is It Real? Author Describes Nightmare of Unimaginable Proportions -- His Near-Death Experience in Hell

  (The NDE of B. W. Melvin)

(December 11, 2005)

Containing scenes of the afterlife once repudiated as untrue and mythical, "A Land Unknown: Hell's Dominion" by B.W. Melvin paints a vivid portrayal of what actually does lie beyond the grave. The descriptions of hell are incredibly detailed. Melvin encountered demonic creatures only imagined by horror movie screenwriters ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Doctor Ossie Launches Near-Death Experience

  (A Holographic Explanation of the NDE)

(December 18, 2005)

The issue of consciousness in the materialistic and non-materialistic world has long been a topic of debate among members of the philosophical and scientific community. In his new book, "Near-Death Experience ­ A Holographic Explanation," Hon. Dr. Oswald Harding tackles this question head-on, zoning in on a particular phenomenon, the near-death experience (NDE) ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Pre-Birth Existence: New Research and Case Studies Reveal Truths About Where We Come From and the Meaning of Human Existence

  (Sarah Hinze's Research on PBEs)

(January 12, 2006)

When does human existence begin? And, where do we come from? Insights into these and other significant questions are revealed in the recently released book, "Songs of the Morning Stars", by Arizona researcher and author, Sarah Hinze. This powerful and insightful volume comes as the result of nearly two decades of extensive research, including in-depth interviews with hundreds of parents who have had personal encounters with their children before birth or even before conception. According to Hinze, “These unborn children can warn, protect and enlighten us from another plane of existence. Most often they appear to announce it is their time to be born.” [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Can Quantum Physics Explain the Paranormal?

  (Has the brain explained the mind fully?)

(December 1, 2005)

Physicist Amit Goswami explains how quantum physics can explain what classic physics can't -- the paranormal. Two main problems with explaining the paranormal with current science are: (1) In some paranormal phenomena, telepathy, for example, there is a transfer of information from one person to another at a distance but without any obvious physical means. How does information get from one point of space to another without the exchange of something physical, a signal for example? ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Is Science Ready For The Conscious Universe?

  (Does a science of consciousness exist?)

(November 7, 2005)

Dean Radin is Senior Scientist and Laboratory Director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. In science, the acceptance of new ideas follows a predictable, four-stage sequence. In Stage 1, skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is impossible because it violates the Laws of Science. This stage can last from years to centuries, depending on how much the idea challenges conventional wisdom. In Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the idea is possible, but it is not very interesting and the claimed effects are extremely weak. Stage 3 begins when the mainstream realizes that the idea is not only important, but its effects are much stronger and more pervasive than previously imagined. Stage 4 is achieved when the same critics who used to disavow any interest in the idea begin to proclaim that they thought of it first. Eventually, no one remembers that the idea was once considered a dangerous heresy ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Searching for the Memory of the Universe

  (How quantum physics reveals life's biggest mystery)

(December 10, 2005)

Quantum physics has long sought after a “Theory of Everything” (TOE), or a single mathematical equation that could account for all the laws in the universe. In "Science and the Akashic Field", Ervin Laszlo proposes that a genuine TOE is achievable. Western scientists are beginning to discover what has been documented by Eastern sages and mystics for thousands of years; that within nature exists an interconnecting field that interweaves every atom, cell, organism, and mind, throughout time – “The Akashic Record.” This field acts as “the memory of the universe” and “continuously interacts with matter at every level from subatomic to cosmic to influence the way every living thing grows, adapts, and evolves.”  [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Magic, Deeds, and Universalism

  (NDE researcher Ken R. Vincent's article on Universalism)

(December 1, 2005)

In ancient Greece, the Afterlife in very early times was seen as a very gloomy place where everyone went. But by the time of Plato, the idea of judgment according to deeds had developed. In Plato's Republic, the story is told about Er, the world's oldest recorded near-death experiencer, who revives on his funeral pyre and tells of a judgment at death by three judges. The good ascend to Paradise, and the evil descend to Hell. But after a period of time, Plato also mentions the possibility of reincarnation. Pythagoras also was an advocate of reincarnation. In the mysteries that were popular in the later Greek and Roman periods, we are given a chance for an “up-grade” in the Afterlife via the magical rites of the mysteries of Orpheus, Dionysus, Demeter and Persephone, Mithra, Isis and Osiris, etc ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Top Court Protects Assisted Suicides

  (Supreme Court strengthens your right to life and death)

(January 18, 2006)

The Supreme Court Tuesday blocked the Bush administration's attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die, protecting Oregon's one-of-a-kind assisted-suicide law ... The administration improperly tried to use a federal drug law to pursue Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court said in a rebuke to former Attorney General John Ashcroft. The 6-3 ruling could encourage other states to consider copying Oregon's law, used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people in that state. The decision, one of the biggest expected from the court this year, also could set the stage for Congress to attempt to outlaw assisted suicide ... [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Preparing for the Coming Influenza Pandemic

  (Download your free PDF about "Bird Flu")

(December 1, 2005)

An extraordinary event is happening right now in Southeast Asia that has the potential to affect humanity in ways thought banished years ago. Scientists are closely monitoring what looks like the birth of a super strain of one of humankind's oldest and most persistent enemies, the influenza virus. This new strain has the potential to kill hundreds of millions given the right conditions. According to the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the required conditions are now in place. We stand on the verge of a once a century influenza pandemic, an event quite different from our routine seasonal flu. Pandemic flu spreads like wildfire through the human race leaving death, chaos, and civil disorder in its wake. [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:


Teen Saves Woman Who Once Saved Him

  (A good example of karmic debt in action)

(February 6, 2006)

A buffalo teen has saved the life of the same woman who saved his life years earlier. Seven years ago, Lancaster's Kevin Stephan was a bat boy for his little brother's little-league baseball team. A player who was warming up accidentally hit him in the chest with a bat. Kevin's heart stopped beating ... "All I remember is that I dropped the bat off, and all of a sudden just got hit in the chest with something, and I turned around and passed out," Kevin said. Fortunately, a nurse whose son played on that team was able to revive Kevin and save his life. [Read more here]

   Related items of interest:

 Articles:

Internet Encyclopedia articles on karma, synchronicity, nondualism, and oneness


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Q & A with P.M.H. Atwater, L.H.D.

An in-depth look at the near-death phenomenon


In this section of the newsletter, P.M.H. Atwater will answer questions submitted to her from subscribers to this newsletter. Atwater's contribution to near-death studies is considered to be one of the most important as her first two books, Beyond the Light and Coming Back to Life, are considered to be the "Bibles" of the NDE by researchers and enthusiasts. If you have a question that you would like her to answer for this column, just email your question to Kevin Williams at webmaster@near-death.com for consideration.

  In this issue, P.M.H. will answer the following 2 questions:

QUESTION 1: "... When I was back in my body after the emergency caesarian in which I stopped breathing for 45 minutes and was stone cold gone. When I came back, for weeks my body felt like someone had draped a heavy skeleton over me ... but I wonder if you've ever heard of this strange misfit approach on reintegration after a near-death experience?" -- Jenny

P.M.H.'s ANSWER: "Having problems getting used to the body after "reentry," sometimes struggling to move body parts, is a fairly common complaint ... [Read more here]

QUESTION 2: "... There is one important issue I have not been able to find information about anywhere: the effect of mental illness on what happens to people when they die ... Could a person die and find out that they suddenly have a very different personality than they did on earth, because their personality traits were conditioned by the health or sickness of the brain, and the brain is now dead?" -- Eric

P.M.H.'s ANSWER: "Having problems getting used to the body after "reentry," sometimes struggling to move body parts, is a fairly common complaint ... [Read more here]

   P.M.H.'s Online Radio Interviews Archives:

  Listen online any time to these interviews with P.M.H:
  Are you new to internet audio? Check out CNET's tutorials.

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Books on the NDE


  At the Near-Death Online Store you can find NDE products such as books, documentaries, movies, music, magazines, and journals. More NDE media products are coming.