Moody Raymond: creativity and interesting facts. Raymond Moody

This American doctor and psychologist gained worldwide fame after the publication of a scandalous book that raised many insoluble questions for science. Dedicated to the study of such a phenomenon as death, it instantly became a bestseller, and Moody Raymond continued to collect testimonies of those who had been “beyond the borders.”

A question that interests everyone

Raymond Moody was born in 1944 in Porterdale (USA). His father served in the Navy as a corpsman, worked as a surgeon in hospitals and saw patients die. A convinced atheist, he did not believe in life after death and perceived his departure as a fading of consciousness.

Moody Raymond, who read Plato's Republic, was incredibly struck by the story of a Greek soldier who came to his senses after being seriously wounded on the battlefield. The valiant warrior told about his travels in world of the dead. This myth made a huge impression on the teenager, who repeatedly asked his father about what awaits people after death. As Raymond recalls, such conversations did not lead to anything good: Moody Sr. was a harsh and irreconcilable person who defended his position in a harsh manner.

The phenomenon of miraculous resurrection

After school, the young man enters the University of Virginia, where he receives a doctorate in philosophy and psychology. During Moody's training, Raymond meets a psychiatrist whose doctors recorded clinical death. Returning to life, the man spoke about his strange experiences and sensations, which echoed the story of a warrior resurrected from the dead, described by Plato. The student was amazed by the details of such an unusual journey, accompanied by strange phenomena.

Later, when Raymond teaches philosophy, he often recalls the myth of the Greek soldier and even gives an entire lecture on this topic. As it turned out, among his students there were many who experienced clinical death, and their descriptions of the wandering of the soul in the world of the dead often coincided. Moody notices that there is an amazing light everywhere that defies description.

Gradually, the teacher’s house turns into a gathering place for people who want to discuss all the details of their death and miraculous resurrection. Extremely interested in curious facts, the scientist realizes that he lacks knowledge, and at the age of 28 he enters the medical institution state of Georgia.

"Near Death Experience"

The famous Raymond Moody, whose books shed light on issues that concern all people, is engaged in research in college, where much attention is paid to the study of parapsychological phenomena. He is interested in traveling to past lives.

It was at this time that the future author of sensational bestsellers collected stories about what he himself called NDE - Near Death Experience. This is the condition of a person who is recorded dead, but suddenly returns to life. But not a single person can tell exactly what happens after cardiac arrest. The fact is that clinical death is reversible, but biological death occurs after 20 minutes, and no one returned to our world after it was established.

Stories turned into a book

Moody Raymond conducts research and works as a forensic psychiatrist in the prison hospital. He is the first to describe the experiences of approximately 150 people who were revived after doctors declared them dead. These impressions turned out to be common to everyone who was resurrected, which greatly surprised the doctor. “Why are these stories so similar? Can we say that the soul lives forever? What happens to the brain of a dead person?” Raymond Moody pondered important questions.

“Life After Life” is a book published in 1975 that caused a real scandal abroad. People have always wondered if we start our existence anew every time? Does our spiritual energy disappear after death? Is there any evidence left in the memory that the person lived before? And how to touch the “memories” hidden in the depths of consciousness?

"Memories" of past lives

What is the world bestseller about, which had the effect of a bomb exploding? The book sheds light on some questions that have troubled humanity since time immemorial, and tells whether there is life after death.

Raymond Moody objectively looks at complex phenomena and collects together all the memories of people who describe the same sensations they experienced when dying: unusual sounds, “tunnel syndrome,” floating above the ground, peace, spiritual light, various visions, reluctance to return to the physical body.

Science confirms that our subconscious is filled with “memories” accumulated over thousands of years, and in order to touch them, hypnosis is necessary, which causes the memory to return to a person’s past lives.

Is the soul immortal?

Moody meets a professional hypnologist who helped the doctor resurrect several episodes from past life. It must be said that Raymond Moody was shocked by this experiment.

“Life after life” does not give a definite answer to the burning question of whether our soul is immortal, but the stories collected in it speak about one thing: after death, a new existence does not begin, but the old one continues. It turns out that no interruptions occur in a person’s life, but not all scientists agree with this controversial statement.

They do not consider regression to be real memories and do not equate it with reincarnation. Experts are sure that such pictures supposedly from a past life are just fantasies of our brain, and they have nothing to do with the immortality of the soul.

Personal experience

Interestingly, the doctor attempted suicide in 1991. He claims to have had NDE experience and this further confirmed his opinion about eternal soul person. Now the famous Raymond Moody lives with his wife and adopted children in Alabama.

Life after death: books that have become a consolation for millions of people

After the first book, the second one comes out - “Life after life. Light in the distance,” where the author examines in detail the feelings of children who have experienced clinical death.

In Glimpses of Eternity, which is written especially for skeptics, Moody smashes into dust all doubts about the immortality of the human soul. He publishes completely new evidence that life is the beginning of a long journey.

The unique technique, revived by the doctor, formed the basis of the work “Reunion”, where Raymond describes the technique of meeting with his loved ones who have passed on to another world. The book teaches how to deal with the subconscious and accept grief without turning to the services of a psychotherapist.

Life After Loss, written with D. Arcangel, is intended for those who have lost loved one. The grief that engulfs people helps to restore strength and even move to a different level of perception of life.

One can have different attitudes towards Moody's works, but the fact that he scientific works helping people cope with the pain of loss and treating emotional stress is beyond doubt. If it is accurately proven, this will be a real revolution in the human worldview.

Longing for the deceased is the most painful human suffering. Sometimes the bitterness of loss is so unbearable that the survivor himself dreams of death. Is it possible to change the situation and return the joy of life to a person? Yes, says the famous Dr. Moody. He wrote his new book “All about meetings after death” about this.

WORKSHOP ON WORKING WITH DEATH

American resuscitator Raymond Moody knows everything about the afterlife and the light at the end of the tunnel. He wrote a book about this twenty years ago. "Life after life" which is still sold around the world in huge quantities.

But since then he has not stopped his research. He retired to a mansion in Alabama and began to conduct some experiments in a unique laboratory hidden from prying eyes. The doctor doesn't even have neighbors, but knowledgeable people They say that from time to time unfortunate people who have lost loved ones come to visit him. And he, as part of the experiment he is conducting, organizes meetings for them with the deceased. After sessions of communicating with the dead, the living leave Dr. Moody cheerful and ready to move on with their lives.

This is hard to believe, but it is the pure truth. And what Dr. Moody does is called grief therapy. He conceived this project back in the 1990s. Then he bought an old mill far from people and civilization and converted it into a “workshop for working with death.”

WORLD THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

As an exception, the doctor allowed filmmakers into his mansion who were filming about him documentary. Having barely crossed the threshold of a strange dwelling, the television crew found themselves in the world of Through the Looking Glass: absolute darkness, hundreds of mirrors of the most different forms and sizes... In such conditions, a person loses the sense of time and the reality of what is happening. This is exactly the result, according to the doctor, that he sought.

How does Dr. Moody work? He spends half a day asking an inconsolable client about his lost relative, learning a lot of details and details, and along the way studying his interlocutor and figuring out how to help him. After all, we are all different, and each requires a different approach.

Then the doctor takes the patient into a windowless room (Moody calls it a “psychomanteum”) and sits him in a chair in front of a huge mirror. Incredibly, after some time the inconsolable sufferer begins to feel the presence of the deceased. He hears his voice, smells his perfume, feels his touch.

How does the doctor do this? It's incredible! “Very likely,” he replies. -The ancient Greeks were engaged in similar experiments. I just borrowed their idea."

ENTRANCE TO THE OTHER WORLD

Statistics say that 65% of widows see the ghosts of their deceased husbands, 75% of parents who have lost a child maintain contact with him (visual, auditory, etc.) throughout the year. This brings relief to both those who find themselves in the realm of grief. However, for a long time it was believed that such meetings with the dead occur involuntarily and cannot be organized by order, and that they cannot be observed and studied in laboratory conditions.

In previous books, Moody wrote about the memories of people who experienced clinical death. Very often, while doctors were fighting for the lives of patients, they made unusual astral journeys in which they met their deceased relatives and friends. As a result, they ceased to be afraid of death, having become convinced from their own experience that this was only a transition to another, more happy life.

However, this zone into which the “travelers” found themselves has its own clear boundary, beyond which a person cannot advance, otherwise he will die completely and irrevocably. Moody called it the middle region - the crossroads of the physical and other worlds. Unexpectedly for himself, the scientist discovered that in fact, meetings with deceased relatives can take place not only in the middle region and not necessarily during clinical death.

A special technique of looking into a mirror, according to Moody, allows people to see the spirits of deceased relatives at almost any time they wish...

“The ability to see images of deceased relatives is of great benefit,” the scientist believes. - After all, the grief of some people who have lost loved ones knows no bounds. And my magic mirrors allow them to console themselves and get rid of their suffering.”

ORACLES OF THE DEAD

The ancient Greeks, for example, had “psychomanteums,” or oracles of the dead, to meet with the dead. A similar place, according to the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, was located in Western Greece in the city of Ether. Those who controlled the oracles settled in underground mud houses connected by tunnels. They never came to the surface during the day; they left their caves only at night.

At the end of the 50s of the 20th century, the Greek archaeologist Sotir Dakar discovered this place and began excavations. The oracle turned out to be a complex underground complex of cells and labyrinths, converging on a large cave, where meetings with ghosts took place. In it, Dakar found the remains of a giant bronze cauldron. Once upon a time, its inner surface was polished to a shine and ghosts could be seen on the surface of the water that filled it. The large sizes created huge, life-size visions.

It should be noted that visitors to the oracle were carefully prepared for the sacrament. They stayed underground for a month, then they were led through dark corridors and cells, and only then did they end up in a cave.

LOST IN TIME

“After studying the experience of the Greeks,” Moody writes, “I decided to try to reproduce... meetings with the dead in the Greek manner... I turned the top floor of my old mill in Alabama into a modern psychomanteum... I hung a giant mirror on the wall, placed it next to comfortable armchair. And he draped it all with a black velvet curtain so that it looked like a dark chamber.” Indeed, Dr. Moody's mirror reflects only darkness. Behind the chair there is a single light source - a small colored glass lamp with a 15-watt bulb.

Moody asks experiment participants to bring some mementos that belonged to the deceased. Then he spends half a day with them, taking a leisurely walk in nature and finding out the reasons why the person wanted to meet the deceased.

Some time later, having gained experience, the scientist realized that preparation for the meeting plays a very important role. It facilitates the transition to an altered state of consciousness, in which only such meetings are possible. To help the subjects “get lost” in time, Moody forces them to take off their watches and also removes all the mechanisms hanging in the house. The large library, furnished with antique furniture, creates the atmosphere of bygone times.

DATES IN THE MIRROR

Moody openly admits that he doesn't know how the technique of looking in a mirror works. He simply took an ancient idea and ran with it. The scientific explanation for all this has yet to be developed.

“I have been conducting research... since 1990 and... examined more than 300 people. The discoveries made were truly amazing. Many patients did not see the dead they wanted to meet. And there were quite a few of them - about 25%. Meetings with ghosts did not always take place in the mirror itself. In approximately every tenth case, the ghost came out of it. Subjects often said that ghosts touched them or that they felt their proximity. It also happened the other way around - about 10% of patients reported that they themselves went into the mirror and there they had an encounter with the dead.”

WOW!

And of course, Moody's book is filled with numerous amazing stories, like all his previous works.

One man, for example, came with an obsession: his mother was sick a lot during her life, and he really wanted to know if she was doing well after death. In the evening, Raymond took him to the vision room, explained everything necessary and left him alone. About an hour later, the patient appeared in the doctor's office - smiling and crying at the same time. He saw his mother! She looked healthy and happy. The man told her, “It’s good to see you again.” - “I’m glad too.” - “How are you, mom?” “Everything is fine with me,” she answered and disappeared. The fact that his mother was no longer suffering as she did before her death reassured the man, and he left, feeling like a heavy burden had been lifted from his heart.

Here's another example. “A woman came on a date with her deceased grandfather,” says the scientist. “She had a photo album with her, and she told me about her love for her grandfather, showed me pictures. She went into the room with the mirror in the hope of seeing her grandfather, but no one was prepared for what happened. She not only saw, but also talked to him...

When the woman began to cry, he came out of the mirror and began to calm her down, hugging her and stroking her back. The patient perfectly remembered the touch of his hands and the words that he was happy where he was.”

Raymond Moody, also known as Raymond or Raymond Moody (June 30, 1944, Porterdale, Georgia) is an American psychologist and physician.

He is best known for his books about life after death and near-death experiences, a term he coined in 1975. His most popular book is Life After Life.

He studied philosophy at the University of Virginia, where he subsequently received bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in this specialty. He also received a PhD in psychology from Georgia Western College, where he later became a professor on the topic. In 1976 he received his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from Medical College Georgia. In 1998, Moody conducted research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and then worked as a forensic psychiatrist at the Georgia Maximum Security Prison Hospital.

He was an early researcher of near-death experiences and described the experiences of approximately 150 people who had near-death experiences.

Currently resides in Alabama.

Books (6)

Glimpses of Eternity

Brand new evidence of life after life.

Glimpses of Eternity is a book for skeptics. It will dispel their doubts about the accuracy of the statements made by Moody in Life After Life.

This book is for everyone who wants to finally believe that there is no death! This is a very bright and convincing book. Find out brand new, never before seen evidence of life after life!

Reader comments

Natalia/ 07/23/2018 Who, after death, will sit at the gates to heaven, wait until the doors open, but you won’t see this, because you are not saints, and your thoughts and actions are far from April, so in order to get to heaven you have to work on yourself, help people, love them, have compassion, improve. It’s rare for anyone to succeed in this life, so they will have to be born again.

Natalia/ 07/23/2018 Religions are right in principle, they are the path to perfection and in general we were created by the absolute with the help of several types of alien races and there is reincarnation, and we will be born until we become perfect. Here is Michael Newton's book, which has no analogues, talks about this. The doctor put patients into a hypnotic state, guiding them through past lives in order to cure them of certain diseases that had projections from past lives. And one woman accidentally said where she was between lives, this is the whole secret, why we exist, and then we are not. The book The Journey of the Soul Between Lives gives a comprehensive answer.

Basil/ 03/31/2017 All these books are for beginners... Those who want to deepen their knowledge, read the works of H. P. Blavatsky and E. I. Roerich.

Gurka Lamov/ 01/10/2017 Should I think with my head? What are we reading from Moody? Here, a person is dying, suddenly, bang, the room is filled with light and the soul flies off through the tunnel. And there everyone is waiting for her, the relatives who previously glued the flippers together and I. Christ himself... They are all heavily stocked with popcorn and are looking forward to watching all, even the most intimate, details of the life of the deceased. Watching porn with your own participation, together with your relatives and the founder of the Christian religion... Cool! The author of the books is either crazy himself or considers his readers complete fools.

Julia/ 11/14/2016 People, be kinder and more tolerant to each other. And regarding reincarnation therapy, I can say that I am now studying it with my teachers and have reviewed my 4 lives and excerpts from 3 more! And it's all true. On the other hand, it’s very good and everyone loves you!! That's why they give chances again and again.

Peaceful/ 03/15/2016 Friends, why all this controversy? Everything has long become known thanks to the Primordial Knowledge, which is written in a simple and understandable form in the books of Anastasia Novykh.
and from the perspective of the AllatRa book, which contains the keys for understanding, thanks to them everything falls into place. I highly recommend reading it)

Sofia/ 02/15/2016 I don’t know whether it’s appropriate or not, but maybe it’s true...//

marina/ 12/17/2015 Alex, The Bible is the alphabet for the future life THERE. And as for reincarnation, I think God gives chances to correct what happened in a past life. example: a man killed another while drunk. Having sobered up, he sincerely repented and suffered worldly punishment. where does he go after death to Heaven or Hell?! Someone will say to Hell, after all, he repented, to Heaven, but what about the punishment from Above? God gives reincarnation for redemption and to understand what the truth is. Moreover, if anyone thinks that souls are sitting at the gates of heaven waiting for the day of judgment, and God sends more and more new ones to earth, just remember the parable of the full cup. You can read Pythagoras - he was a smart guy.

Guest/ 10/13/2015 Alexey, the “I” of a dead and a living frog is also significantly different! Don't you think so? And if you are not able to distinguish a living biological being from a dead one, then this indicates an advanced problem in the development of your intellect. P.S. I especially laughed at your words about the “faith” given from birth :))). “Faith” is not an instinct - it is an experience acquired in society! On average, in which society a person lives, he has that “faith”: a Muslim lives in a Muslim society, a Christian lives in a Christian society, a Jew lives in a Jewish society, a cannibal lives in a society of savages who worship spirits. They all believe what they were taught to believe!

Alexei/ 10.13.2015 Evgeniy, let your scientists substantiate the existence of your Self. What it is made of, where it came from, and where it will disappear. Just don’t write about the brain. If you put people's brains in morgues, you won't be able to tell one from the other. Whereas inside of us, clearly “sits”, each has its own “I”. Explain this, from the point of view of the Big Bang, and the emergence of everything from nothing.

Alexei/ 10/13/2015 Read the Bible. Get into it. Don't listen to anyone. Including fools who call it “obscurantism.” They simply cannot. And whoever wants to, will read it and discover something new for himself every time. Previously read chapters of the Bible will be perceived in a new way and supplemented with fresh admonition. I'm not even talking about the grace that, to one degree or another, descends on those who read and are ready to accept this scripture. Faith is a gift. I can compare faith to the musical gift of absolute pitch. This is when a person, having heard a sound, can name the note of that sound. And when you press the key of a correctly tuned grand piano or upright piano, these notes will coincide. Some people are already born with this gift, they hear notes. Most people are born with an undeveloped ear for music. But if you practice solfeggio, then gradually their hearing will develop to almost absolute, and they will also hear a note in a sound, and will be able to determine its height, relative to the staff. And there are people who do not want to develop an ear for music. But if people have had a bear step on their ear, no matter how much they practice, nothing will help them. There is no hearing at all. So it is with faith. Someone has faith from birth, someone acquires it through interest and reflection, and someone lives empty as a drum, believing that they do not need it. And someone is simply stupid to accommodate it.

Natalia/ 07/11/2015 Death is the door to eternal life, real life is only a preparation. And our eternal life will depend on how we live it - in heaven with God or in hell. Reincarnation and all experiences of seeing past lives are just a trick of evil spirits. a person becomes immersed during hypnosis, meditation, etc. into the region of fallen spirits - the heavens, they invade his consciousness and give him what he believes in... if you believe in reincarnation, get it... but they live a long time and know everything... therefore, be careful in your experiments. The American monk Seraphim Rose wrote about this very well in his books. You can argue about this question as much as you like, many can find the answer after death... only then it may be too late for the one who lived believing in rebirth... and the one who lived with the Lord, basing his life on the Gospel and patristic teaching, invested and into this life and into the Eternal. Follow the lives of the saints in Rus', these are not just beautiful words of the guru, etc. teachers, but an experienced life with God, and after their death they help all people - Matrona of Moscow, John of Kronstadt, Seraphim of Sarov. I wish every seeking person to find the Truth... to know God experientially, and not just in words and books. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. In the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 7, vv. 7-8).

life is pain/ 06/14/2015 Reincarnation is usually associated with magic, esotericism = devilry. When contacting the other world, only evil, crafty spirits come out; they can only deceive.

Guest/ 06/14/2015 Moody punched Darwin in the face and proved to everyone that we are not ordinary animals. But where is the truth: reincarnation or eternal torment is still a question. It would be good if reincarnation were true, it is more humane, I wouldn’t really want to burn FOREVER in unbearable torment in hell.

American psychologist and physician. He is best known for his books about life after death and near-death experiences.

Biography

He studied philosophy at the University of Virginia, where he subsequently received bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in this specialty.

He received his PhD in philosophy and psychology from Georgia Western College, where he later became a professor on the topic.

In 1976 he received his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from the Medical College of Georgia.

In 1998, Moody conducted research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and then worked as a forensic psychiatrist at the Georgia Maximum Security Prison Hospital.

Moody claims to have had a near-death experience in 1991 when he attempted suicide (which he recounts in one of his books). According to Moody, this was the result of an undiagnosed thyroid condition that affected his mental state. In an interview in 1993, R. Moody stated that he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

R. Moody was married three times. He currently lives in Alabama with his wife Cheryl and his adopted children Carter and Caroline.

Scientific activity

R. Moody was one of the first researchers of near-death experiences and described the experiences of approximately 150 people who experienced clinical death.

The term near-death experience was coined in 1975.

Moody's most popular book is Life After Life.

Bibliography

Reunion. Communication with the other world
Life Before Life: A Study of Past Life Regressions
Life after life
Life After Life: Light in the Distance
Life after life: A study of the phenomenon of "contact with death"
Life After Life and Further Thoughts on Life After Life
Life after life: Is there life after death?
Life after loss: How to cope with adversity and find hope
Glimpses of Eternity
All about meetings after death
Reunion: Communication with the Other World
Last laugh
Glimpses of Eternity: New Evidence of Life After Life

Raymond Moody - researcher, psychiatrist and philosopher, a pioneer in his field, studied near-death experiences and outlined them in the book “Life After Life”. In an interview with chiropractor Daniel Redwood, he says:

about the history of research into life after death;
why people see the ascension to the light in dying;
Is information from a past life dangerous?

A light in the end of a tunnel

Daniel Redwood ( DR): How would you respond to those who say that near-death experiences in the form of experiences of white light and transcendental peace are simply a consequence of a lack of oxygen in the brain?

Raymond Moody ( RM): When I first heard about this, I assumed that it was some kind of shock to the brain, etc. I know many doctors around the world who have researched this phenomenon, and they all started with the same assumption. All of us, talking with people who have gone through such experiences, are very close in our views.

The classic definition of a hallucination is a sensory experience without a corresponding external event. That is, a person sees and hears something that is not really there.

But we have many experiences of dying where patients, while outside their bodies, witnessed something happening at a distance, even on the other side of the hospital. And then there was independent confirmation of what this person was saying. Therefore, it is very difficult to explain this simply from a psychological or biochemical point of view.

Another thing that makes me think that near-death experiences are something other than just hallucinations is that the profound impact such experiences have on people is simply amazing. They have complete confidence that what we call death is simply a transition to another level of reality.

Although, I think there may not be a definitive answer to your question. Because ultimately, in this advanced area of the human mind, there are no experts who can give us the answer. There is no generally accepted established way to determine such a response. Everyone will have to look at this and decide in their own way.

All I can do is speak for myself and many of my colleagues in medicine who have experienced this. And we are all convinced that the patients really looked beyond the boundaries of reality.

Obvious facts of history

DR: Have you found any similarities in the dying experience among people from very different cultures? Are the experiences of an Australian Aboriginal man, an Indiana steelworker, and an Afghan shepherd different?

RM: Yes, obviously it is. It's quite interesting. The cultural difference in this area seems to be very small. There just aren't a lot of variations.

I myself have not seen cases outside the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, but my colleagues have. I received letters from the East, from China, Japan and India, describing identical experiences.

There were letters from those who had experienced similar things themselves, and from doctors who wrote reports.

Anthropologists find such evidence from time to time in ancient writings and even in preliterate cultures, and it is similar to what we find in emergency care settings in the West.

DR: Is the increasing number of reports of dying experiences in last years Is it a consequence of the advances in medicine that can bring people back to life or the fact that people are starting to talk more freely about it?

RM: My impression is that it is the first. If you look into history, you will find many such cases. They are in historical chronicles.

Gregory Tour wrote the book "History of the Franks." Or Venerable Bede's History of the English Church and People. There are references to very early writings, several hundred years before the birth of Christ.

Plato describes such a case. Hieronymus Bosch painted a painting in the 1500s depicting this theme. There are even scattered facts in the medical literature dating back to the 19th century.

And the Swiss mountaineer and geology professor Albert Heim fell in the late 1800s, resulting in a mystical experience that radically changed his life.

He became interested in the topic, interviewed fellow climbers, and discovered many near-death experiences, again identical to those we hear about today.

This has been going on for a long time, but I think, as you suggested, the capabilities of modern medicine have expanded so much that we are saving many more people from the clutches of death who have had such experiences.

Those who are not ready to give up see the light

DR: What percentage of people do not experience the classic ascension to the light when they are in a near-death situation, such as a terrible car accident? What makes such people different?

RM: Well, the cases are different, and it is interesting that the percentage of such people is higher, the closer they were to death.

Fred Schoonmaker, who is chief of cardiovascular medicine in Denver, surveyed a large number of patients whom he personally revived, and he found that about 60% of these patients brought back to life had this type of experience.

This is comparable to the findings of doctors Ken Ring and Mike Sabom, who studied a group of patients who may not have been in such a critical condition, but were unconscious and close to death.

They found that 45% of such patients experienced these conditions.

But this still does not provide a definitive answer to the question of why some experience such things and others do not. We don't really know.

There are many facts that I think we could assume - the age of the patient, the specific cause that led to the borderline state, whether it was a man or a woman, previous religious training, beliefs, etc.

None of these factors seem significant. Therefore, I can say that we simply do not know what it is.

Dr. Bruce Grayson, in a study several years ago, suggested that this has to do with whether or not a person is ready to give up at such a moment.

And those who are close to giving up move forward through the experience of dying.

Is reincarnation a fiction?

DR:Do you think reincarnation is metaphorical or literal? And what do you think about the survival of the soul?

RM: I definitely think reincarnation is metaphorical, but not in the way some might think.

First let me say that I don't know whether reincarnation exists or not, and I've done a lot of work with past life regressions.

From the point of view of obviousness, I simply cannot say “yes” or “no”.

But if you asked me about my feelings and intuition, I would answer “yes”. But still, I believe that reincarnation is metaphorical in the sense that it is a process so much more complex that we cannot even express it in ordinary language.

When we talk about this in our dimension, we have to use a linear form of expression.

But I feel like on the other side, all these linear categories that we use - evidence, time sequence and all that - are completely different.

Reincarnation is a much more complex experience that we cannot even imagine now.

The benefits and dangers of past life memories

DR: Have you seen people who were helped by immersion in past lives?

RM: Yes. There is no doubt about this. It was amazing for me. When I started the experiments, I didn’t even think about it as a therapeutic procedure. I explored this as an altered state of consciousness. And what really surprised me was that people who went through this experience benefited greatly from it and came to a new level of self-awareness and understanding of some of the difficult moments and neurological conflicts that they experienced in life.

DR:Is there any danger in receiving information from past lives?

RM: Answering the second question, I can say that the criteria are very vague. What we have in our Western culture, I think, is that we have systematically excluded ourselves from altered states of consciousness for many hundreds of years, but there are brave souls who will be able to look in and move there, and then help us all when we let's go there.

You ask about dangers. I think that there are dangers, of course, and I see them all the time. The first is an inflated ego and a kind of elitism - people who say “in my past life or in my past lives there was this or that,” and it becomes an ego trip. Some of them seem to want to exclude others by inflating themselves with all this. But, of course, these are in the minority.

And then there is this danger that the Tibetans have expressed. When a person embarks on this path and begins research in spiritual dimensions, many things appear that, according to the Tibetans, and I agree with them, can distract from the true path. Eastern doctrine means that when past lives start appearing, don't pay too much attention to them, because there are other things beyond that that you want to find. I think it's wonderful that past lives appear where you can look into and learn something about yourself from there. But at the same time, we must understand that this is a step, and if we spend too much time putting together puzzles from the details of past lives, then we may miss something important in our present life.

University practice

DR: How has your work with near-death experiences affected your academic career as a university psychology teacher? Was there any pressure on you to move towards less controversial areas of research?

RM: No, it would be good story, imagine yourself as a persecuted martyr, but no, that didn’t happen.

DR: Glad to hear that.

RM: It happens that I work at a very liberal college where people in my department are very interested in altered states of consciousness. I think it would be irresponsible to present this as some kind of compelling scientific evidence. As long as one engages with these topics with the idea that altered states can teach us a lot about ourselves, then there is no point in arguing.

DR: In the years since your first book was published, have you sensed an increasing openness of people to this information?

RM: There is no doubt about it. I was recently in Europe and visited eight cities.

In all countries, general practitioners brought me their articles for medical journals with their research on dying experiences. And we can all say, and this is a great contribution over the last 15 years, that it is now an accepted fact that people who are close to death go through amazing life-changing experiences.

But now the next step is to interpret these experiences and what they ultimately mean. And this is not even a matter of decision for the medical community.

It is not for doctors to decide whether there is life after death. The point of interest in the medical field is what explanation we can give for them when they appear.

We must be prepared to educate and support patients by letting them know that they are not alone.