Jeffrey Long's recent argument for an afterlife

Long is the founder of the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF.org). His recent article entitled "Evidence for Survival of Consciousness in Near-Death Experiences: Decades of Science and New Insights" won a $50,00 prize in the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies 2021 afterlife evidence contest. These are the opening paragraphs of his argument. Future posts will contain additional excerpts.

"Virtually everyone has wondered if there is an afterlife. This is understandable, given the appropriate concerns about the mortality of ourselves, our loved ones, and all of humanity. The question of an afterlife has been discussed and debated for millennia. As a physician practicing the medical specialty of radiation oncology, which is the use of radiation therapy to treat cancer, I have been intrigued by issues of our mortality. The question of what happens after bodily death is regularly present in my daily medical practice as I work with patients that have a life-threatening diagnosis of cancer. Prior investigations of near-death experience (NDE) combined with the research that I am presenting in this article have convinced me, based on evidence, that our consciousness survives bodily death.

"Evidence for the reality of an afterlife is available from multiple lines of scholarly study. Perhaps the most substantial evidence for the reality of an afterlife comes from near-death experiences (NDEs). It makes sense both scientifically and logically to investigate the experiences of those who died or had a seriously close brush with death regarding their possible insights into the survival of consciousness after death. NDE, and its consistent message of an afterlife, is the focus of this article.

"Scholarly research regarding near-death experiences has been published for over 45 years. NDE first became widely known in 1975 with the publication of Dr. Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life. As early as 2005 it was estimated that 'At least 55 researchers or research teams in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia published at least 65 research studies involving nearly 3500 NDErs, addressing the experience, its aftereffects, or both.'

"Up to the current time, near-death experiences have been the subject of hundreds of publications in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Many of these studies were published in the world’s leading medical and scientific journals. This article will reference select previously published NDE research to help present the current state-of-the-art understanding of NDE as evidence of an afterlife. 

"In addition, I will present new and previously unpublished research to advance knowledge about NDE and its important implications for the survival of consciousness after bodily death. Much of the unpublished research presented in this article updates or expands my previously published investigations. This new and previously unpublished research helps assure that this article offers the most current and state-of-the-art insights into the NDE evidence of an afterlife."

Jeffrey Long, MD, "Evidence for Survival of Consciousness in Near-Death Experiences: Decades of Science and New Insights." In the next several posts I will share excerpts from Long's 2021 article. Footnotes have been deleted. The complete text is available as a pdf at https://www.nderf.org.