Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

I have not had a near-death experience, but my father did when during surgery he suffered cardiac arrest. A scientist by training, he had never heard of this experience and doubted his own memory of it. Yet seeing himself outside his body, observing the surgeon trying to revive him, moving through darkness toward a clear vision of my deceased mother, and feeling unconditional love from the brilliant light behind her, before returning to his body . . . was life transforming for him.

He lost his fear of death, he told me, and I saw that he became a warmer person. My life was also transformed by his experience, as researching NDEs has altered my view of life, death, consciousness, and God.

For surgeon Bernie Siegel, “the knowledge that God is a loving, intelligent, and conscious energy” has come from dreams, drawings, and near-death experiences. He believes: “first, there was consciousness and consciousness was with God” and “consciousness was God, because God speaks in dreams and images―the universal language.” In his experience with patients, Siegel has learned that consciousness can be healing. To a cancer patient Siegel proposed: “visualizing God’s light melting a tumor that appears as a block of ice.” To another: “Let go and let God.” Siegel tells his patients: “By accepting ourselves as God’s creation, seeing beauty and meaning in what we are, just as we are, we accept others as God’s creation too.”

Bernie S. Siegel, The Art of Healing: Uncovering Your Inner Wisdom and Potential for Self-Healing
(New World Library, 2013), 198, 42, 36, 163, and 92.