Category: Near-Death Experience

Interview with author and past president of the International Association of Near Death Studies examines research into negative near death experiences. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Nancy Evans Bush, author of, Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences. During the interview Bush discusses how negative near death experiences are researched: Alex Tsakiris: On one hand I understand the need to talk about these negative near death experiences, the need to put it on the table and process it. But I don’t think that’s the only thing that you’re objecting to because I think you’re also objecting to the way researchers approach “near death experience hell.” Nancy Bush: There is so much on every side of this issue -- we are surrounded by people whose knees are jerking. There are automatic responses that people make. The convicted Atheists say, “Oh, it’s just these people are deluding themselves with the supernatural,” and the convinced metaphysicians say, “Oh, if only they’d believe then it would be different.” And the doctrinally religious say, “Well, if they’d just believe my stuff then that would take care of this.” I think the most frustrating aspect of this whole study is simply trying to get people to sit quietly and just listen to the experiences. Let go of their preconceptions for a few minutes, and just sit quietly and think, “Huh. What could this mean?” Alex Tsakiris: There’s a fine line here because I think we all appreciate that we’re embedded in this materialistic culture that constantly tells us that this is impossible, this is ridiculous, you’re crazy. So I think when people break through that, then there’s a certain need to go just as far as they can with this. But to an extent it leaves us with the question of what can we really say? We can say that materialism is clearly a failed proposition but I’m not really sure what else we can say beyond that. How do we venture forth into this great territory of what lies beyond? Nancy Bush: I think for me one of the frustrations is the numbers  of people who given a little bit of information will jump in and say, “Oh, I get it. I had one of these experiences. I can tell you what it means.” But I think we are still following breadcrumbs through the woods. Nancy Evans Bush's Website Play It: Download MP3 (39 min.) Read It: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Nancy Evans Bush to Skeptiko. Nancy is the former President of IANDS, the International Association for Near-Death Studies and she’s also the author of Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences. Nancy, welcome and thanks for joining me today on Skeptiko. Nancy Bush: Thanks, Alex.

Interview with psychologist and renown near-death experience researcher discusses how our language and system of logic limits our understanding of near-death experience accounts. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with renown near-death experience research and author of, Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife. During the interview Moody discusses the role of logic and nonsense in studying the near-death experience: Alex Tsakiris: Is it rigor and the logic that we’re missing or is there something fundamental to our experience in this body, in this world, that prevents us from understanding things differently? For example, we get these stories from near-death experience researchers where people come back and say, “I had a knowing that I’m unable to really bring back and internalize.” Are we limited by a system of logic or are we fundamentally unable to know certain things in this existence that we’re in? Dr. Raymond Moody: What a wonderful distinction.  As to the second part of your question whether there is some kind of unknowability in the world that we are just constitutionally unable to comprehend certain things, obviously I don’t know. By definition you wouldn’t be able to know that. But, I think that the first part of your question, is our logic limiting us in some fundamental way, I think it is, Alex, and I think just from our two conversations together I think I can prove it to you. What I can show is that these misconceptions about what we call “nonsense” create a kind of collective cognitive deficit in people that is hidden because everybody has it, right? If everybody has it there’s no way that people have of detecting it. The way that this manifests itself is that when people hear a sentence like, “There is life after death,” and unthinkingly they treat that just like a literal meaning, true or false proposition, right? So they try to process it by the rules of Aristotelian logic. Their minds go berserk, as you and I have seen many times probably and know people whose minds have gone berserk over this topic. Dr. Raymond Moody's Website Play It: Download MP3 (50 min.) Read It: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Dr. Raymond Moody to Skeptiko. In 1975, psychiatrist and Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Raymond Moody published Life After Life and coined the term, “near-death experience.” I guess it’s fair to say the world changed a little bit. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. It’s hard to measure the full impact of Dr. Moody’s work on medicine, on science, religion, and our culture as a whole but it’s certainly clear that this ground-breaking research has continued to challenge our understanding of the deepest questions that we all have, that keep us up at 2 o’clock in the morning. Dr. Moody, it’s a great pleasure to have you on Skeptiko. Thanks so much for joining me. Dr. Raymond Moody: Well, I’m just so happy to be with you today, Alex. I can already tell this is going to be fun. Thank you.

Interview with author Anthony Peake examines how our understanding of time may effect our understanding of the near-death experience. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Anthony Peake author of, The Labyrinth of Time. During the interview Peake discusses his understanding of the near-death experience: Alex Tsakiris: I’m totally with you that materialism just falls apart as soon as we start incorporating any of the most recent interesting work on consciousness. Materialism just doesn’t hold up. But your interpretation of the near-death experience is centered around this idea that we are then reliving our life in a real-death experience. I just want to tie that to a couple of observations I’ve made from some of the other guests I’ve had on, particularly Dr. Jeff Long and Dr. Pim van Lommel. What I couldn’t square with your explanation is the continuity of experience of the near-death experiencers, right? What these folks say over and over again is, “Hey, I remember I was in the helicopter being air-lifted out, and I was bleeding really bad and then boom! I was outside of the helicopter and I saw my body and I saw it land. Then I was in Heaven.  And then I was back.”  There is this continuity of experiences that seem very “this worldly.” Anthony Peake: I still argue that these people when they have near-death experiences, are having “near” death experiences, not actual death experiences in that they do come back. They do come back to this place and they do come back and exist in this place and survive in this place. They come back to be able to tell us of the experience that they had. Whereas I would argue in a real-death experience, when they don’t come back. And that’s the problem with my overall hypothesis because in order for it to happen, they don’t come back, in which case I could never ever prove it, I suppose. But when we ascribe the near-death experiences that are recorded within the annals of various books on near-death experience, there are individuals that come back. They have incredible experiences; they have obviously clearly no ethic experiences and experiences in many ways to me that parallels many of the experiences that people when they have dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and various other substances. So clearly it is sort of brain generated but not and that’s the danger of the trap we’re falling into of assuming that because these things are caused by brain chemicals therefore it is proof that it is just an epiphenomenon of the brain. I’d argue that the brain chemicals facilitate a wider experience of reality than you would get if you were embodied, as it were. Anthony Peake's Website Anthony's Cheating The Ferryman Blog/Forum Play It: Download MP3 (60 min.) Read It: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Anthony Peake to Skeptiko. He’s the author of several compelling books including, Is There Life After Death? and The Daemon. He’s here to talk about his latest book, The Labyrinth of Time: The Illusion of Past, Present, and Future. Welcome, Tony. Thanks for joining me today on Skeptiko. Anthony Peake: Great to be here, Alex. Really, really great.