Scientific Evidence Supporting
Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife

Dr. Bruce Greyson documented perhaps one of the most compelling examples of a person who had an NDE and observed events while outside of his body which were later verified by others. The only way that these events could have been observed by the experiencer was if in fact he was outside of his body. Al Sullivan was a 55 year old truck driver who was undergoing triple by-pass surgery in 1988 when he had a powerful NDE including an encounter with his deceased mother and brother-in-law, who told Al to go back to tell one of his neighbors their son with lymphoma will live. Furthermore, during the NDE, Sullivan accurately noticed the surgeon, Dr. Hiroyoshi Takata, operating on him was "flapping his arms as if trying to fly" with his hands in his armpits. When he came back to his body after the surgery was over, Sullivan's cariologist was startled that Sullivan could describe Dr. Takata's habit of arm flapping. It was Dr. Takata's idiosyncratic method of keeping his hands sterile and pointing out to surgical instruments and giving instructions to surgical staff.

An anecdotal example of evidence that a person's consciousness leaves and returns to their body during an NDE comes from the research of Dr. Melvin Morse. Olga Gearhardt was a 63 year old woman who underwent a heart transplant because of a severe virus that attacked her heart tissue. Her entire family awaited at the hospital during the surgery, except for her son-in-law, who stayed home. The transplant was a success, but at exactly 2:15 am, her new heart stopped beating. It took the frantic transplant team three more hours to revive her. Her family was only told in the morning that her operation was a success, without other details. When they called her son-in-law with the good news, he had his own news to tell. He had already learned about the successful surgery. At exactly 2:15 am, while he was sleeping, he awoke to see his Olga, his mother-in-law, at the foot of his bed. She told him not to worry, that she was going to be alright. She asked him to tell her daughter (his wife). He wrote down the message, and the time of day and then fell asleep. Later on at the hospital, Olga regained consciousness. Her first words were "did you get the message?" She was able to confirm that she left her body during her near-death experience and was able to travel to her son-in-law to communicate to him the message. This anecdotal evidence demonstrates that the near-death experience is a return to consciousness at the point of death, when the brain is dying. Dr. Melvin Morse thoroughly researched Olga's testimony and every detail had objective verification including the scribbled note by the son-in-law.

In June 2005, scientists of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh announced that they succeeded in reviving dogs after three hours of clinical death. The procedure involved draining all the blood from the dogs' bodies and filled them with an ice-cold salt solution. These dogs were scientifically dead, as their breathing and heartbeat were stopped and they registered no brain activity. But three hours later, their blood was replaced and they were brought back to life with an electric shock with no brain damage. A spokesman said the technique will eventually be tried on humans.

Science demands verifiable evidence which can be reproduced again and again under experimental situations. Dr. Jim Whinnery, of the National Warfare Institute, thought he was simply studying the effects of G forces on fighter pilots. He had no idea he would revolutionize the field of consciousness studies by providing experimental proof that NDEs are real. The pilots were placed in huge centrifuges and spun at tremendous speeds. After they lost consciousness, after they went into seizures, after they lost all muscle tone, when the blood stopped flowing in their brains, only then would they suddenly have a return to conscious awareness. They had "dreamlets" as Dr. Whinnery calls them. These dreamlets are similar to near-death experiences and they often involved a sense of separation from the physical body. A typical dreamlet involved a pilot leaving his physical body and traveling to a sandy beach, where he looked directly up at the sun. The pilots would remark that death is very pleasant.

On October 23, 2000, The BBC reported: "Evidence of Life After Death" about a study in the UK conducted by Dr. Sam Parnia and others at the University of Southampton which provided scientific evidence suggesting the survival of consciousness after clinical and brain death. Then on June 29, 2001, ABC News reported: "Study Suggests Life After Death: Brains of Dead Heart Attack Patients Still Function" concerning the same study. These findings support other NDE evidence suggestive of life after death.

In 1968, a paper by Dr. Charles Tart was published entitled "Psychophysiological Study of Out of the Body Experiences in a Selected Subject" which documents the out-of-body experience of a young woman who was one of his research subjects. What makes this particular out-of-body experience remarkable is that she was able to leave her physical body, read a 5-digit number from at a significant distance, and correctly give the number to Dr. Tart upon return. The odds of guessing a 5-digit number correctly are 1 in 100,000. Her OBE a good example of "veridical out-of-body perception" - where verified events are observed while in an out-of-body state. Read more here...

Pim van Lommel led a 2001 study concerning the NDEs of research subjects who had cardiac arrest and the results were published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet.. The findings of the study suggests that research subjects can experience consciousness, with self-identity, cognitive function and memories, including the possibility of perception outside their body during a flat EEG. Those research subjects who had NDEs report that their NDE was a bonafide preview of the afterlife.

On September 11, 2003, new research by the Institute of Psychiatry caused British scientists to announce that there is convincing evidence that people are capable of paranormal feats, such as premonitions, telepathy, and out-of-body experiences. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was told an increasing number of experiments support the theory of a human "sixth sense" - an ability which may have its roots in our past, when the ability to sense the presence of a predator was a matter of life or death. The view that people are capable of paranormal feats, such as premonitions, telepathy, and out-of-body experiences, is supported by new research by the Institute of Psychiatry, which suggests the human mind may exist outside the body like an invisible magnetic field. The research is being led by Dr. Peter Fenwick, a neuro-psychiatrist at London University, who has just completed a survey of heart patients claiming to have had "near-death experiences" after their hearts had stopped beating.

One particular theory of consciousness which is supported by NDE research involves the expansion after death. Stanislav Grof, a leading consciousness researcher, explained this theory in the documentary entitled "Life After Death" by Tom Harpur: "My first idea was that it [consciousness] has to be hard-wired in the brain. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how something like that is possible. Today, I came to the conclusion that it is not coming from the brain. In that sense, it supports what Aldous Huxley believed after he had some powerful psychedelic experiences and was trying to link them to the brain. He came to the conclusion that maybe the brain acts as a kind of reducing valve that actually protects us from too much cosmic input ... I don't think you can locate the source of consciousness. I am quite sure it is not in the brain – not inside of the skull ... It actually, according to my experience, would lie beyond time and space, so it is not localizable. You actually come to the source of consciousness when you dissolve any categories that imply separation, individuality, time, space and so on. You just experience it as a presence."

In 2002, Neurologist Professor Olaf Blanke and colleagues at Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland were using electrodes to stimulate the brain of a female patient suffering from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. They found that stimulating one spot - the "God spot" - the angular gyrus in the right cortex - repeatedly caused out-of-body experiences. The doctors did not set out to achieve this out-of-body effect - they were simply treating the women for epilepsy. Apparently the increased electrical activity in the brain resulting from seizure activity (abnormal electrical activity in the brain), makes sufferers more susceptible to having near-death experiences. The doctors believe the angular gyrus plays an important role in matching up visual information and the brain's touch and balance representation of the body. When the two become dissociated, an out-body-experience may result. Writing in the journal Nature, Electrodes Trigger Out-of-Body Experiences, the Swiss team said out-of-body experiences tended to be short-lived, and to disappear when a person attempts to inspect parts of their body (autoscopy). Professor Blanke told BBC News Online that "OBEs have been reported in neurological patients with epilepsy, migraine and after cerebral strokes, but they also appear in healthy subjects. Awareness of a biological basis of OBEs might allow some patients who suffer frequently from OBEs to talk about them more openly. In addition, physicians might take the phenomenon more seriously and carry out necessary investigations such as an EEG, MRI, and neurological examinations." However, It must be pointed out that Blanke views OBEs as merely induced mental self-images and not an actual experience of consciousness separating from the physical body. Nevertheless, Blanke's study does show that OBEs satisfy the scientific method as being a real phenomenon worthy of scintific research.

Dr. Raymond Moody, who became famous for his pioneering studies of NDEs, has been working on ways of inducing facilitated apparitions in a controlled setting. He took as his model classic works from ancient Greece which suggested that when people wished to contact a deceased loved one they consulted with an 'oracle' at a psychomanteum. A psychomanteum is a specially built laboratory using mirrors to help facilitate the psychic process. Part of the actual psychic process includes the sending of telepathic messages, sending vibrations - to the selected recipient in the afterlife. Moody has reconstructed the process with astonishing results - 85% of his clients who go through a full day of preparation do make contact with a deceased loved one - but not necessarily the one that they are seeking to meet. In most cases this occurs in his specially build psychomanteum but in 25% of cases it happens later in their own homes - the client wakes up and sees the apparition at the foot of the bed (Moody 1993:97). According to Dianne Arcangel, an associate of Dr. Moody, in some cases when contact is made with intelligences from the afterlife information is transmitted to reveal something that the person seeking contact does not know (1997). Moody gives full instructions on how to create your own psychomanteum in his book Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones and on his Psychomanteum page.

In a hospital in Switzerland in 1944, the world-renowned psychiatrist Carl G. Jung, had a heart attack and then a near-death experience. His vivid encounter with the light, plus the intensely meaningful insights led Jung to conclude that his experience came from something real and eternal. Jung's experience is unique in that he saw the Earth from a vantage point of about a thousand miles above it. His incredibly accurate view of the Earth from outer space was described about two decades before astronauts in space first described it. Subsequently, as he reflected on life after death, Jung recalled the meditating Hindu from his near-death experience and read it as a parable of the archetypal Higher Self, the God-image within. Carl Jung, who founded analytical psychology, centered on the archetypes of the collective unconscious. During his near-death experiences, he met the avatar of the physician who was treating him and was  still living on Earth.

New developments in quantum physics show we cannot know phenomena apart from the observer and how the observer plays a supreme role in creating reality. Arlice Davenport has challenged the hallucination theory of NDEs as outmoded because the field theories of physics now suggest new paradigm options available to explain NDEs. Mark Woodhouse says the traditional materialism/dualism battle over NDEs has already been solved by Einstein. Since matter can now be viewed as a form of energy, an energy body alternative to the material body can now explain NDEs. This is also supported by Melvin Morse who has described NDEs that are able to realign charges in the electromagnetic field of the human body and wiring of the brain. He reports on patients having NDEs who recover from diseases such as pneumonia, cardiac arrest, and cancer (Transformed by the Light, pp. 153-54) suggesting the brain acts more like a receiver of information much like a television, radio, or cell phone. Signals, such as voice or music, in the form of electromagnetic waves, are received by the brain and processed to make them audible to the senses. At death, the brain (receiver) dies; but consciousness (the signal), in the form of electromagnetic waves, continues to exist (in the airwaves).

Dr. Kenneth Ring believes NDEs can be viewed psychologically as archetypal initiatory journeys involving a death of one's old ego and a rebirth of a new Self. In addition, he thinks ann adequate interpretation must incorporate the spiritual realm of Kundalini experiences, the imaginal realm, and the Mind at Large. As Ring envisions in his essay in the book, The Near-Death Experience: A Reader, this shift in thinking will deconstruct our traditional Western worldview. It may bring a dramatic next step of evolution towards a more ecological and more compassionate consciousness.

Rev. George Rodonaia underwent one of the most extended cases of a near-death experience ever recorded. Pronounced dead immediately after he was hit by a car in 1976, he was left for three days in the morgue. He did not return to life until a doctor began to make an incision in his abdomen as part of an autopsy procedure. Prior to his NDE he worked as a neuropathologist. He was also an avowed atheist. Yet after the experience, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of spirituality, taking a second doctorate in the psychology of religion. He then became an ordained priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He served as a pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Baytown, Texas. Rodonaia held an M.D. and a Ph.D. in neuropathology, and a Ph.D. in the psychology of religion. He delivered a keynote address to the United Nations on the "Emerging Global Spirituality." Before emigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1989, he worked as a research psychiatrist at the University of Moscow.

Many people were given visions of the future during their near-death experience. Generally, these visions foretell a future of catastrophic natural disasters and social upheaval followed by a new era of peace and have actually already come to pass. Some of them did not happen as foretold. Many of these apocalyptic visions are to happen within the next few decades. Examples of events which have been foretold by the NDE visions of the future by Edgar Cayce include World War I & II, the 1929 Stock Market Crash, the fall of the Soviet Union and communism, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Desert Storm war against Iraq in 1990, and the 9/11 terrorist attack.

A rare type of NDE called the "group near-death experience" is a phenomenon where a whole group of people have an NDE at the same time and location. They see each other outside of their bodies and have a shared or similar experience. In 1996, NDE researcher Arvin Gibson interviewed a fire-fighter named Jake who had a most unusual NDE while working with other fire-fighters in a forest. What makes it unique is that it happened at the same time as several co-workers were also having an NDE. During their NDEs, they actually met each other and saw each other above their lifeless bodies. All survived and they verified with each other afterwards that the experience actually happened. Jake's near-death experience was so interesting that Gibson's local chapter of IANDS invited him to tell his story at one of their meetings. Another example of a group NDE is described in the IANDS publication Vital Signs (Volume XIX, No. 3, 2000) and is described in a greater way in Dr. Stephen Hoyer and May Eulitt's book entitled "Fireweaver: The Story of a Life, a Near-Death, and Beyond."

The NDE researcher P.M.H. Atwater has pointed out the fascinating anomaly that an amazing number of people important to the evolution of humankind may well have had such an episode during their childhood. She discusses this at length in both of her books, Future Memory and Children of the New Millennium. Some of the notable child NDEs she came across were Abraham Lincoln, Mozart, Albert Einstein, Queen Elizabeth I, Edward de Vere/the 17th Earl of Oxford (who most likely is the real Shakespeare), Winston Churchill, Black Elk, Walter Russell, plus several others.

Reports of near-death experiences are not a new phenomenon. A great number of them have been recorded over a period of thousands of years. The ancient religious texts such as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Christian Bible, and the Koran describe experiences of life after death which remarkably resembles modern NDEs. The oldest surviving explicit report of an NDE in Western literature comes from the famed Greek philosopher, Plato, who describes an event in his tenth book of his legendary book entitled Republic. Plato discusses the story of Er, a soldier who awoke on his funeral pyre and described his journey into the afterlife. But this story is not just a random anecdote for Plato. He integrated at least three elements of the NDE into his philosophy: the departure of the soul from the cave of shadows to see the light of truth, the flight of the soul to a vision of pure celestial being and its subsequent recollection of the vision of light, which is the very purpose of philosophy.

Two competing hypotheses are advanced in a book by skeptic Susan Blackmore entitled Dying to Live and they are (1) The Afterlife Hypothesis and (2) Susan Blackmore's The Dying Brain Hypothesis. The Afterlife Hypothesis states spirit survives body death. The NDE is the result of spirit separating from the body. The Dying Brain Hypothesis states the NDE is an artifact of brain chemistry. According to the dying brain hypothesis, there is no spirit which survives body death. Skeptics who claim the author of Dying to Live is non biased are proven wrong; skeptics who claim she provides scientific proof are shown, by her own words, to be in error.

Because NDEs have many common core elements, this suggests that they are spiritual voyages outside of the body. Also, if the dying brain creates NDE illusions, what is the purpose for doing it? If our brains are only a high-tech computer-like lump of tissue which produces our mind and personality, why does it bother to create illusions at the time of death? If everything, including the mind and personality, are about to disintegrate, why would the brain produce a last wonderful Grand Finale vision? Even if NDE elements can be reduced to only a series of brain reactions, this does not negate the idea that NDEs are more than a brain thing.

Sociologist Dr. Allan Kellehear states that some scientific theories are often presented as the most logical, factual, objective, credible, and progressive possibilities, as opposed to the allegedly subjective, superstitious, abnormal, or dysfunctional views of mystics. The rhetorical opinions of some NDE theories are presented as if they were scientific (Kellehear, 1996, 120). Many skeptical arguments against the survival theory are actually arguments from pseudo-skeptics who often think they have no burden of proof. Such arguments often based on scientism with assumptions that survival is impossible even though survival has not been ruled out. Faulty conclusions are often made such as, "Because NDEs have a brain chemical connection then survival is impossible." Pseudo-skeptical arguments are sometimes made that do not consider the entire body of circumstantial evidence supporting the possibility of survival or do not consider the possibility of new paradigms. Such pseudo-skeptical claims are often made without any scientific evidence.

All neurological theories concluding NDEs to be only a brain anomaly, must show how the core elements of the NDE occur subjectively because of specific neurological events triggered by the approach of death. These core elements include: the out-of-body state, paranormal knowledge, the tunnel, the golden light, the voice or presence, the appearance of deceased relatives, and beautiful vistas. Perhaps the final word should go to Nancy Evans Bush, a NDEr with the International Association for Near-Death Studies, who said: "There is no human experience of any description that can't simply be reduced to a biological process, but that in no way offsets the meaning those experiences have for us - whether it's falling in love, or grieving, or having a baby."

Anomalous phenomena supporting the survival theory includes:  out-of-body experiences such as researched by Jerry Gross, (1) deathbed visions, (2) quantum physics, (3) dream research, (4) after-death communications research, (5) reincarnation research, (6) hypnosis, (7) synchronicity, (8) remote viewing, and (9) consciousness research.

Amber Wells was a student at the University of Connecticut and wrote a research paper based on her study of the near-death experience for her senior honors thesis under the direction of Dr. Ken Ring. Her paper was published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies in the fall of 1993. In her study, 70 percent of  the group of near-death experiencers demonstrated belief in reincarnation. Claims have been documented by other researchers of direct knowledge of reincarnation which became available during the near-death experience itself. An example of this type  out-of-body research of knowledge can be seen in a letter written to Dr. Ken Ring by John Robinson: "It is a matter of personal knowledge from what the being with whom I spoke during my near-death experience told me about my older son, that he had had 14 incarnations in female physical bodies previous to the life he has just had."

On June 11, 1992, at Princeton University, Dr. Ian Stevenson presented a paper entitled: "Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons" providing scientific evidence suggestive of reincarnation which was published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. These findings support reincarnation in NDE research findings as well. Reincarnation has been called by some to be the greatest unknown scientific discovery today. In the last chapter of Dr. Ian Stevenson's book entitled Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (1967), he provides rigorous scientific reasoning to show how reincarnation is the only viable explanation that fits the facts of his study. He considers every possible alternative explanation for his twenty cases of young children who were spontaneously able to describe a previous lifetime as soon as they learned to talk. He was able to rule out each alternative explanation using one or more aspects of these cases. Later research has even bolstered his case in favor of the existence of reincarnation. His study is also completely reproducible which means that anybody who doubts the validity of this study is perfectly welcome to repeat it for themselves. I believe it is only a short matter of time before his discovery of the existence of reincarnation is finally realized by the scientific community and the world to be accepted as one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.

One of the most amazing psychic phenomena, which religionists, skeptics and atheists have continuously and deliberately ignored is xenoglossy - the ability to speak or write a foreign language a person never learned. After all other explanations have been investigated - such as fraud, genetic memory, telepathy and cryptomnesia (the remembering of a foreign language learned earlier), xenoglossy is taken as evidence of either memories of a language learned in a past life or of communication with a discarnate entity— a spirit person. There are many cases on record of adults and children speaking and writing languages which they have never learned. Sometimes this happens spontaneously but more often it occurs while the person is under hypnosis or in an altered state of consciousness. In some cases it is only a few words remembered but in other cases the person becomes totally fluent and able to converse with native speakers sometimes in obscure dialects which have not been in use for centuries. There are literally thousands of xenoglossic cases, many hundreds of which have been documented. They involve modern and ancient languages from all over the world. Psychic investigators, such the highly credible Dr. Ian Stevenson, used scientific method to illustrate xenoglossy and claim that there are only two possible explanations — either spirit contact or past life memory both of which are evidence for the afterlife.

On October 4, 1999, the University of Arizona announced a study conducted by Dr. Gary Schwartz: "UA Researchers Look Beyond the Grave" concerning scientific evidence supporting a theory of the existence of a Universal Living Memory. This was achieved by testing highly qualified psychic mediums to see if they could contact the dead. The success of this study is important in that it supports NDE research in providing a scientific foundation toward investigating the survival of consciousness after death.

An after-death communication (ADC) is a spiritual experience that occurs when a person is contacted directly and spontaneously by a family member or friend who has died. During their seven years of research, Bill and Judy Guggenheim at www.after-death.com collected more than 3,300 firsthand reports from people who believe they have been contacted by a deceased loved one. Their book, Hello From Heaven, documents many such experiences.

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One of the strangest cases in the history of dream research is described in the documentary, The Secret World of Dreams. It describes the amazing story of a woman named Claire Sylvia. She was a professional dancer with several modern dance companies. As the years passed, Claire's health began to deteriorate. Claire Sylvia had to undergo a heart and lung transplant. Soon after the transplant, she began having strange and incredibly vivid dreams about a young man she didn't recognize. Eventually, Claire realized that the young man in her dreams was the eighteen-year-old organ donor whose heart and lungs resided in her chest. Through her continuing dream contacts with her donor, she learned a lot about him including his name. She then decided to do the research to find out if this "heavenly" information was correct.

Yale University Pediatric Cancer specialist Dr. Diane Komp reported that many dying children have NDEs which often occurred during dreams. One boy, for example, told Dr. Komp that Jesus had visited him in a big yellow school bus and told him he would die soon. The boy died as he predicted.

According to the celebrated psychiatrist and dream analyst, Marie Louise Von Franz, and based on her analysis of over 10,000 dreams of the dying, the meaning being communicated is that the light of the individual, one of the common metaphors for life that we've heard so often, goes out at death but is miraculously renewed on the other side. In other words, the spirit seems to live on. This dream then illustrates perfectly a profound insight of the great psychoanalyst and mentor of Dr. Von Franz, Carl Jung, MD, who has said: "The unconscious psyche believes in a life after death." According to Jung, dream symbols which exist in the very depths of the soul behave as if the psychic life of the individual will continue. In Dr. Von Franz' words: "These symbols depict the end of bodily life and the explicit continuation of psychic life after death. In other words, our last dreams prepare us for death."

Dr. Carla Wills-Brandon has researched, in depth, the universal phenomenon of the Deathbed Vision (DBV) and has included her findings in her book, One Last Hug Before I Go. Complete with her own personal encounters, and those of numerous other DBV experiencers, this revolutionary work explores DBVs throughout history, from ancient Egypt to modern-day America. Through the visions and experiences common to all dying people, one can learn more about the spiritual journey that begins with death. According to recent studies, only about 10% of people are conscious shortly before their death. Of this group, 50% to 67% have DBVs.

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On April 23, 1984, the Washington Post reported: "The Race for Inner Space" about the CIA's remote viewing program. On August 12, 1985, the Deseret News reported: "The United States is Still Involved in ESP-ionage." Other media attention followed. One theory about how remote viewing works is that gifted or trained people can tap into a "Universal Mind." NDE research also suggests the reality of a Universal or Collective Consciousness. Some of the most credible remote reviewers, such as Joseph McMoneagle, received their remote viewing powers from a near-death experience.

On October 25, 1999, BBC News reported: "Healing Power of Prayer Revealed" about a study at a university hospital in Kansas City, U.S. about scientific evidence of healing through the power of prayer. Then on June 5, 2000, BBC News reported: "Prayer Works as a Cure" about a different study conducted at the University of Maryland providing more evidence of healing through prayer. These findings support NDE research findings which demonstrates the reality of a transcendent consciousness. Dr. Larry Dossey has done extensive research on the efficacy of prayer and has written several excellent books on the subject.

Victor Zammit is a lawyer who has collected a large body of evidence supporting the reality of an afterlife. Zammit has an excellent article concerning what many regard as the greatest afterlife experiment in the world. The evidence collected over a period of more than four years and with more than 500 sittings by the Scole Experiments and the afterlife team is absolute, definitive and irrefutable. Scole is a village in Norfolk, England. Using it as a base, mediums Robin and Sandra Foy and Alan and Diana Bennett and other experimenters produced brilliant evidence of the afterlife in England, the U.S. Ireland and in Spain. Their results are being repeated by other groups around the world and will convince even the toughest open-minded skeptic. The group began with two mediums delivering messages from a non-physical group. Many of these messages contained personal information that nobody else could know about. Soon the messages came in the form of voices which could be heard by all in the room. Then came the actual materialization of people and objects from the non-physical side.

Atheists have deathbed experiences and near-death experiences just like everyone else does. The philosophy of Positivism, founded by the famous atheist named A. J. Ayer, is the philosophy that anything not verifiable by the senses is nonsense. Because NDEs mark the end of the senses, Positivists believe the survival of the senses after death is nonsense. But this philosophy has been challenged by its founder A. J. Ayer himself. Later in life, Ayer had an NDE where he saw a red light. Ayer's NDE made him a changed man: "My recent experiences, have slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be." (Ayer, 1988 a,b) (Read more about it from an article in the National Post and an article by Gerry Lougrhan: Can there be life after life? Ask the atheist! (by Gerry Lougrhan, Letter From London, March 18, 2001.)

A non-NDE example comes from Antony Flew, a champion of atheist beliefs for more than 50 years. In a news article titled "Atheist Discovers 'The Science of God'": "One of Britain's most prominent atheists has decided that God might exist after all. Professor Antony Flew now believes there is scientific evidence supporting the theory of some sort of intelligence behind the creation the universe. Professor Flew, 81, a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Reading, said that this was the only explanation for the origin of life ... "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots - cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said in his new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"

According to Wikipedia.org, "psychometry" is a psychic ability in which the user is able to relate details about the past condition of an object or area, usually by being in close contact with it. The user could allegedly, for example, give police precise details about a murder or other violent crime if they were at the crime scene or were holding the weapon used. About.com's Paranormal Phenomena website lists information about several of the most convincing psychometrists.

Stefan Ossowiecki, a Russian-born psychic, is one of the most famous psychometrists. Ossowiecki claimed to be able to see people's auras and to move objects through psychokinesis. His psychic gifts enabled this chemical engineer to locate lost objects and missing people, and he assisted in several criminal investigations. In 1935, he participated in a test of his psychometric powers - a test devised by a wealthy Hungarian named Dionizy Jonky that involved a sealed package. Jonky stipulated that this test was to be conducted eight years after his death. (Jonky and Ossowiecki did not know each other.) First, 14 photographs of men were placed in front of Ossowiecki, one of which was of Jonky. Ossowiecki picked out the correct photo. Next, Ossowiecki accurately described many details of Jonky's life and correctly identified the man who held the package for the past eight years. Finally, Ossowiecki was presented with the sealed package Jonky had prepared before his death. Ossowiecki touched the package and concentrated. "Volcanic minerals," he said. "There is something here that pulls me to other worlds, to another planet." Oddly, he also sensed sugar. Inside the package was a meteorite encased in a candy wrapper.

In later experiments, Ossowiecki performed remarkable psychometric feats with archeological objects - a kind of psychic archeology. These tests were conducted by Stanislaw Poniatowski, a professor of enthology at the University of Warsaw who could verify the accuracy of what Ossowiecki "saw." While holding a 10,000-year-old piece of flint, Ossowiecki was able to describe in amazing detail the lives of the prehistoric people who made it. In other tests he provided similar descriptions of people who lived as long ago as 300,000 years. Some of the information he provided was not even known by experts at the time, but confirmed by discoveries years later!

Ossowiecki described his visions as being like a motion picture that he could watch, pause, rewind and fast-forward - like a videotape or DVD.