People See Verified
Events While Out-Of-Body
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 The
scientific method requires all phenomena to be reproducible,
provide
veridical details (i.e., details which cannot
be explained away, which are found to be true),
and undergo rigorous tests to rule out all the known
alternative explanations, for a theory to be proven
as scientific fact. Using the scientific method,
near-death experiences have been proven to
be a real scientific phenomenon because they are
reproducible. Near-death experiences were first
shown to be reproducible during studies involving
the subjection of fighter pilots to extreme gravitational
forces in a giant centrifuge. But the question
is not, "Are near-death experiences real?"
Even skeptics now concede that it is a real phenomenon.
The question to ask is, "Are near-death experiences
a phenomenon of a person's consciousness being outside
of their body?" And if this can be proven true,
then the next question is, "Can consciousness
survive bodily death?" This last question likely
cannot be proven true to the satisfaction of the
skeptics using near-death research alone. This is
because no matter how you define "death,"
the only kind of definition that satisfies the skeptics
is "irreversible" death. Just the very
nature of the phrase "near-death" suggests
that it is not true death - where nobody comes back.
However, good scientific evidence for survival can
be found in other realms of research such as
psychic studies,
quantum physics,
consciousness studies, and
remote viewing - not to mention
the mountain of circumstantial evidence.
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| 1. Veridical
Perception in Near-Death Experiences |
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At this point in near-death
studies, researchers are particularly interested
in studying those NDEs that may provide an answer
to the question of whether the mind can function
outside the physical body. This is the first step
in determining whether consciousness can survive
bodily death. One way is to discover this is to
examine those NDEs which are "veridical"
(verifiable). Veridical NDEs occur when the experiencer
acquires verifiable information which they could
not have obtained by any normal means. Often, near-death
experiencers report witnessing events that happen
at some distant location away from their body, such
as another room of the hospital. If the events witnessed
by the experiencer at the distant location can be
verified to have occurred, then veridical perception
would be said to have taken place. It would provide
very compelling evidence that NDEs are experiences
outside of the physical body. Visit the
NDE and Out-Of-Body research conclusions to
read a large collection of veridical NDEs.
 Besides
his ground-breaking book,
Life After Life,
Raymond Moody is the author of the excellent
NDE books,
The Light Beyond,
Reunions,
Life After Loss,
Coming Back,
Reflections, and
The Last Laugh. In Life After Life, Moody documents
a number of veridical near-death experiences which
will be described here. This veridical evidence
suggests the possibility that consciousness can
exist away from the body. In light of such veridical
evidence, other NDE theories fall by the wayside
because they cannot account for these veridical
details. And although the available veridical NDE
evidence does not constitute scientific proof of
consciousness surviving bodily death, it does qualify
as very powerful circumstantial and anecdotal evidence,
the kind of evidence that is upheld every day in
courts of law all around the country.
Whether or not there will ever
be scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness
may depend upon science itself and how such phenomenon
as NDEs can be quantified. Using the strict demands
of science, we can only conclude as Dr. Raymond
Moody does when he had this to say:
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"I
don't have any idea whether there's life
after death or not. I've been a follower
of science all of my life, but I also have
a Ph.D. in philosophy, and it really seems
to me that the question of life after death
is not yet ripe for scientific enquiry because
it's not formulatable in a way that fits
into the scientific method. I also think
it's the most important question. If you
think of the big questions of existence,
this is the biggie."
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The following are some examples
of veridical NDEs documented by Moody:
Example 1:
An elderly woman had been blind since childhood.
But, during her NDE, the woman had regained her
sight and she was able to accurately describe the
instruments and techniques used during the resuscitation
her body. After the woman was revived, she reported
the details to her doctor. She was able to tell
her doctor who came in and out, what they said,
what they wore, what they did, all of which was
true. Her doctor then referred the woman to Moody
who he knew was doing research at the time on NDEs.
Example
2: In another instance a woman
with a heart condition was dying at the same time
that her sister was in a diabetic coma in another
part of the same hospital. The subject reported
having a conversation with her sister as both of
them hovered near the ceiling watching the medical
team work on her body below. When the woman awoke,
she told the doctor that her sister had died while
her own resuscitation was taking place. The doctor
denied it, but when she insisted, he had a nurse
check on it. The sister had, in fact, died during
the time in question.
Example 3:
A dying girl left her body and into another room
in the hospital where she found her older sister
crying and saying:
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"Oh, Kathy,
please don't die, please don't die."
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The older sister was quite
baffled when, later, Kathy told her exactly where
she had been and what she had been saying during
this time.
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"After
it was all over, the doctor told me
that I had a really bad time, and I
said, "Yeah, I know."
He said, "Well, how do you know?"And
I said, "I can tell you everything
that happened."
He didn't believe me, so I told him
the whole story, from the time I stopped
breathing until the time I was kind
of coming around. He was really shocked
to know that I knew everything that
had happened. He didn't know quite what
to say, but he came in several times
to ask me different things about it.
When I woke up after the accident, my
father was there, and I didn't even
want to know what sort of shape I was
in, or how I was, or how the doctors
thought I would be. All I wanted to
talk about was the experience I had
been through. I told my father who had
dragged my body out of the building,
and even what color clothes that person
had on, and how they got me out, and
even about all the conversation that
had been going on in the area.
And my father said, "Well, yes,
these things were true."
Yet, my body was physically out this
whole time, and there was no way I could
have seen or heard these things without
being outside of my body.
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| 2.
Dr. Moody's Exceptional NDE Testimony |
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In his book,
Life After Life, Moody documents what he calls "a
rather exceptional account" which embodies
many of the elements of the NDE that he describes
and has an interesting veridical near-death experience.
I think you will agree that it is rather
exceptional:
Jack's
NDE: "At the time this happened I suffered,
as I still do, a very severe case of bronchial asthma
and emphysema. One day, I got into a coughing fit
and apparently ruptured a disk in the lower part
of my spine. For a couple of months, I consulted
a number of doctors for the agonizing pain, and
finally one of them referred me to a neurosurgeon,
Dr. Wyatt. He saw me and told me that I needed to
be admitted to the hospital immediately, so I went
on in and they put me in traction right away.
"Dr. Wyatt knew that I had bad respiratory diseases
so he called in a lung specialist, who said that
the anesthesiologist, Dr. Coleman, should be consulted
if I was going to be put to sleep. So the lung specialist
worked on me for almost three weeks until he finally
got me to a place where Dr. Coleman would put me
under. He finally consented on a Monday, although
he was very much worried about it. They scheduled
the operation for the next Friday. Monday night,
I went to sleep and had a restful sleep until sometime
early Tuesday morning, when I woke up in severe
pain. I turned over and tried to get in a more comfortable
position, but just at that moment a light appeared
in the corner of the room, just below the ceiling.
It was just a ball of light, almost like a globe,
and it was not very large, I would say no more than
twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, and as this
light appeared, a feeling came over me. I can't
say that it was an eerie feeling, because it was
not. It was a feeling of complete peace and utter
relaxation. I could see a hand reach down for me
from the light, and the light said:
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"Come with
me. I want to show you something."
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"So immediately, without
any hesitation whatsoever, I reached up with my
hand and grabbed onto the hand I saw. As I did,
I had the feeling of being drawn up and of leaving
my body, and I looked back and saw it lying there
on the bed while I was going up towards the ceiling
of the room.
"Now, at this time, as
soon as I left my body, I took on the same form
as the light. I got the feeling, and I'll have to
use my own words for it, because I've never heard
anyone talk about anything like this, that this
form was definitely a spirit. It wasn't a body,
just a wisp of smoke or a vapor. It looked almost
like the clouds of cigarette smoke you can see when
they are illuminated as they drift around a lamp.
The form I took had colors, though. There was orange,
yellow, and a color that was very indistinct to
me - I took it to be an indigo, a bluish color.
"This spiritual form didn't
have a shape like a body. It was more or less circular,
but it had what I would call a hand. I know this
because when the light reached down for me, I reached
up for it with my hand. Yet, the arm and hand of
my body just stayed put, because I could see them
lying on the bed, down by the side of my body, as
I rose up to the light. But when I wasn't using
this spiritual hand, the spirit went back to the
circular pattern.
"So, I was drawn up to
the same position the light was in, and we started
moving through the ceiling and the wall of the hospital
room, into the corridor, and through the corridor,
down through the floors it seemed, on down to a
lower floor in the hospital. We had no difficulty
in passing through doors or walls. They would just
fade away from us as we would approach them.
"During this period it
seemed that we were traveling. I knew we were moving,
yet there was no sensation of speed. And in a moment,
almost instantaneously, really, I realized that
we had reached the recovery room of the hospital.
Now, I hadn't even known where the recovery room
was at this hospital, but we got there, and again,
we were in the corner of the room near the ceiling,
up above everything else. I saw the doctors and
nurses walking around in their green suits and saw
the beds that were placed around in there. This
being then told me - he showed me:
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"That's
where you're going to be. When they
bring you off the operating table they're
going to put you in that bed, but you
will never awaken from that position.
You'll know nothing after you go to
the operating room until I come back
to get you sometime after this."
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"Now, I won't say this was
in words. It wasn't like an audible voice, because
if it had been I would have expected the others
in the room to have heard the voice, and they didn't.
It was more of an impression that came to me. But
it was in such a vivid form that there was no way
for me to say I didn't hear it or I didn't feel
it. It was definite to me.
"And what I was seeing
- well, it was so much easier to recognize things
while I was in this spiritual form. I was now wondering,
like, "Now, what is that that he is trying
to show me?" I knew immediately what it was,
what he had in mind. There was no doubt. It was
that bed - it was the bed on the right just as you
come in from the corridor - is where I'm going to
be and he's brought me here for a purpose. And then
he told me why. It came to me that the reason for
this was that he didn't want any fear when the time
came that my spirit passed from my body, but that
he wanted me to know what the sensation would be
on passing that point. He wanted to assure me so
that I wouldn't be afraid, because he was telling
me that he wouldn't be there immediately, that I
would go through other things first, but that he
would be overshadowing everything that happened
and would be there for me at the end.
"Now, immediately, when
I had joined him to take the trip to the recovery
room and had become a spirit myself, in a way we
had been fused into one. We were two separate ones,
too, of course. Yet, he had full control of everything
that was going on as far as I was concerned. And
even if we were traveling through the walls and
ceilings and so forth, well, it just seemed that
we were in such close communion that nothing whatsoever
could have bothered me. Again, it was just a peacefulness,
calmness, and a serenity that have never been found
anywhere else.
"So, after he told me this,
he took me back to my hospital room, and as I got
back I saw my body again, still lying in the same
position as when we left, and instantaneously I
was back in my body. I would guess that I had been
out of my body for five or ten minutes, but passage
of time had nothing to do with this experience.
In fact, I don't remember if I had ever even thought
of it as being any particular time.
"Now, this whole thing
had just astounded me, took me completely by surprise.
It was so vivid and real - more so than ordinary
experience. And the next morning, I was not in the
least afraid. When I shaved, I noticed that my hand
didn't shake like it had been doing for six or eight
weeks before then. I knew that I would be dying,
and there was no regret, no fear. There was no thought, "What
can I do to keep this from happening?" I was
ready.
"Now, on Thursday afternoon,
the day before the operation the next morning, I
was in my hospital room, and I was worried. My wife
and I have a boy, an adopted nephew, and we were
then having some trouble with him. So I decided
to write a letter to my wife and one to my nephew,
putting some of my worries into words, and to hide
the letters where they wouldn't be found until after
the operation. After I had written about two pages
on the letter to my wife, it was just as if the
floodgates had opened. All at once, I broke out
in tears, sobbing. I felt a presence, and at first
I thought maybe that I had cried so loud that I
had disturbed one of the nurses, and that they had
come in to see what was the matter with me. But
I hadn't heard the door open. And again I felt this
presence, but I didn't see any light this time,
and thoughts or words came to me, just as before,
and he said:
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"Jack, why are
you crying? I thought you would be pleased
to be with me."I thought, "Yes,
I am. I want to go very much."
And the voice said, "Then why
are you crying?"
I said, "We've
had trouble with our nephew, you know,
and I'm afraid my wife won't know how
to raise him. I'm trying to put into
words how I feel, and what I want her
to try to do for him. I'm concerned,
too, because I feel that maybe my presence
could have settled him down some."
Then the thoughts
came to me, from this presence, "Since
you are not asking for someone else,
and thinking of others, not Jack, I
will grant what you want. You will live
until you see your nephew become a man."
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"And just like that, it was
gone. I stopped crying, and I destroyed the letter
so my wife wouldn't accidentally find it.
"That evening, Dr. Coleman
came in and told me that he was expecting a lot
of trouble with putting me to sleep, and for me
not to be surprised to wake up and find a lot of
wires and tubes and machines all around me. I didn't
tell him what I had experienced, so I just nodded
and said I would cooperate.
"The next morning the operation
took a long time but went fine, and as I was regaining
my consciousness, Dr. Coleman was there with me,
and I told him:
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"I know
exactly where I am."
He asked, "What
bed are you in?"
I said, "I'm
in that first bed on the right just
as you come in from the hall." |
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"He just kind of laughed,
and of course, he thought that I was just taking
from the anesthetic.
"I wanted to tell him what
had happened, but just in a moment Dr. Wyatt came
in and said:
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"He's awake
now. What do you want to do?"
And Dr. Coleman
said, "There's not a thing I can
do. I've never been so amazed in my
life. Here I am with all this equipment
set up and he doesn't need a thing."
Dr. Wyatt said, "Miracles
still happen, you know."
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"So, when I could get up
in the bed and see around the room, I saw that I
was in that same bed that the light had shown me
several days before.
"Now, all this was three
years ago, but it is still just as vivid as it was
then. It was the most fantastic thing that has ever
happened to me, and it has made a big difference.
But I don't talk about it. I have only told my wife,
my brother, my minister, and now you. I don't know
how to say it, but this is so hard to explain. I'm
not trying to make a big explosion in your life,
and I'm not trying to brag. It's just that after
this, I don't have any doubts anymore. I know there
is life after death."
Source:
Moody Jr., Raymond A., M.D.,
Life After Life, pages 101-107, New York, Bantam
Books, 1975.
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