Dr. George Richie's impact on NDE research

Dr. Pim van Lommel writes: “Although I had never forgotten the successfully resuscitated patient in 1969, with his memories of the period of his cardiac arrest, I had not done anything with the experience. This changed in 1976 when I read a book about near-death experiences by Dr. George Ritchie with the title Return from Tomorrow. When Richie had double pneumonia as a medical student in 1943, he experienced a period of clinical death. At the time antibiotics such as penicillin were not yet widely used. Following an episode of very high fever and extreme tightness of the chest, he passed away: he ceased breathing and his pulse also stopped. He was pronounced dead by a doctor and covered with a sheet.

“But a male nurse was so upset by the death of this medical student that he managed to persuade the attendant doctor to administer an adrenalin injection in the chest near the heart—a most unusual procedure in those days. Having been ‘dead’ for more than nine minutes, George Ritchie regained consciousness, to the immense surprise of the doctor and nurse.

“It emerged that during his spell of unconsciousness, the period in which he had been pronounced dead, he had had an extremely powerful experience of which he could recollect many details. At first he was unable and afraid to talk about it. Later he wrote a book about what happened to him in those nine minutes. And after becoming a psychiatrist, he began to share his experiences in lectures to medical students.

“One of the students attending these lectures was Raymond Moody, who was so intrigued by this story that he began to look into experiences that may occur during life-threatening situations. In 1975 he wrote the book Life After Life, which became a global best seller. In this book Moody first coined the term near-death experience (NDE).

“After reading Ritchie’s book, I kept wondering how somebody can possibly experience consciousness during cardiac arrest and whether this is a common occurrence. So in 1986 I began to systematically ask all the patients at my outpatient clinic who had undergone resuscitation whether they had any recollection of the period of their cardiac arrest. I was surprised to hear, within the space of two years, twelve reports of such a near-death experience among just over fifty cardiac arrest survivors.”

 

Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (HarperOne, 2010).

Dr. van Lommel’s first “near-death experience”

On his web site Dr. Pim van Lommel says he “worked as a cardiologist at the Rijnstate Hospital, an 800-bed teaching hospital in Arnhem in the Netherlands, from 1977 to 2003.” After more than twenty years of research, in 2001 van Lommel and his colleagues published in the medical journal The Lancet their Dutch study of near-death experiences. “Over the past several years Pim van Lommel has been lecturing all over the world on near-death experiences and the relationship between consciousness and brain function.”

I suggest from my research that van Lommel’s Consciousness Beyond Life provides the most thorough discussion of NDEs in a scientific book. Chapter titles include: What Happens in the Brain When the Heart Suddenly Stops? What Do We Know About Brain Function? Quantum Physics and Consciousness, The Brain and Consciousness, and Endless Consciousness. In 320 pages van Lommel offers a comprehensive narrative supported by more than 30 pages of endnotes. I refer extensively to this book in my writing about NDEs, but in my blog include a few of the arguments presented in this comprehensive study.

Van Lommel begins Consciousness Beyond Life with a quote written early in the 20th-century by Frederick van Eeden, a Dutch psychiatrist: “All science is empirical science, all theory is subordinate to perception; a single fact can overturn an entire system.” Then van Lommel relates his personal experience as a young cardiologist.

“It is 1969. At the coronary care unit the alarm goes off. The monitor shows that the electrocardiogram of a patient with a myocardial infarction (heart attack) has flat lined. The man has suffered a cardiac arrest. Two nurses hurry over to the patient, who is no longer responsive, and quickly draw the curtains around his bed. One of the nurses starts CPR while the other places a mask over his mouth and administers oxygen. A third nurse rushes over with the resuscitation trolley that contains the defibrillator. The defibrillator is charged, the paddles are covered in gel, the patient’s chest is bared, the medical staff let go of the patient and the bed, and the patient is defibrillated. He receives an electric shock to the chest. It has no effect. Heart massage and artificial respiration are resumed, and, in consultation with the doctor, extra medication is injected into the IV drip. Then the patient is defibrillated for the second time. This time his cardiac rhythm is reestablished, and after a spell of unconsciousness that lasted about four minutes, the patient regains consciousness, to the great relief of the nursing staff and the attendant doctor.

“I was the attending doctor. I had started my cardiology training that year. Following the successful resuscitation, everybody was pleased—everybody except the patient. He had been successfully revived, yet to everybody’s surprise he was extremely disappointed. He spoke of a tunnel, colors, a light, a beautiful landscape, and music. He was extremely emotional. The term near-death experience (NDE) did not yet exist, and I had never heard of people remembering the period of their cardiac arrest.

“While studying for my degree, I had learned that such a thing is in fact impossible: being unconscious means being unaware—and the same applies to people suffering a cardiac arrest or patients in a coma. At such a moment it is simply impossible to be conscious or to have memories because all brain function has ceased. In the event of a cardiac arrest, a patient is unconscious, is no longer breathing, and has no palpable pulse or blood pressure.”

Pim van Lommel, www.pimvanlommel.nl/Pim_van_lommel_eng.

A New Testament Prayer

O God of love,

may your grace and peace come,

may your will be done on earth as in heaven.

Keep us healthy and humble ‘til our time has come.

And as we forgive those who’ve done us harm,

forgive us for the harm we’ve done.

And keep us safe from temptation and evil.

For you are the Way, and the Truth, and the Light,

now and forever. Amen.

Dr. Parti's NDE affects his wife and children

Dr. Rajiv Parti's wife, Arpana, admitted: I both like and fear the new Rajiv and all the changes. The same was true, Dr. Parti writes, "of our (then) teenage daughter, Ambika. We had not talked to her in detail about my NDE. But one day she happened by the kitchen when Arpana and I were talking about the experience, and rather than stopping the conversation, we decided to include her. Before long, she was deeply engrossed in the story and very understanding of the transformational experience that had taken place.

“When we told her that we had agreed to swap our house for a smaller one, however, Ambika responded, This is going to affect my whole life! Mom, this is really going to change your whole life. 

"My sons had a similar reaction. When I came back from the hospital, neither wanted to hear about my experience. Our eldest child, Raghav, had a response of almost total indifference, not only to my near-death experience but also to me in general. I had not treated my son admirably. In fact I had not treated anyone in my family admirably.

“But I knew: It was not following the guidance from my near-death experience that might ruin my family. It would be to continue as I had, with very little true spiritual guidance at all!

On his website, Parti describes his wife’s decision to end their marriage. “As the days passed and our anger and vengeance ebbed, I finally heard the heartbreak in my wife’s voice in a new way. And I realized that I had broken her heart as well, even if unconsciously. And perhaps I started us down the road that brought us to impending divorce.

“Thank goodness I saw the opportunity to apply the lessons I learned from my NDE. I knew that the only way to change my relationship and thrive in love again was to change myself. And so I embarked upon a journey to heal my broken heart and grow in compassion, forgiveness, and love.

"It was not easy—it was painful like childbirth. But now my wife and I have a new marriage, a better relationship than we ever had. The abundance of love and joy is staggering! My old relationship had to die before we could experience this new love.

"And so I set out to become the best healer and coach I could be. I studied and learned new ways to apply the timeless wisdom shared with me during my near death experience. I took a vow of bodhisattva service, seva—as a heartbreak healer and love coach—helping the brokenhearted heal, and become empowered to thrive in love again.”

Rajiv Parti, Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back (Atria Books, 2016).

Learn more about his practice at https://www.rajivparti.com.

In this video interview Dr. Parti describes his NDE and explains how it transformed his life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l-nbk_8EII

Guided by the twelve-step program and angels

Dr. Rajiv Parti was encouraged when he learned the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, had been inspired by a near-death experience in 1934. While being treated at a clinic for his addiction, the clinic’s director asked Wilson “if he would like to dedicate himself to Jesus to see if such an act would rid him of his alcoholism. “Depressed and filled with despair, Wilson began to weep. I’ll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let him show himself! He shouted.

The effect was instant, electric, Wilson says. Suddenly my room blazed with an incredibly white Light. I was seized with an ecstasy beyond description. I have no words for this. I was conscious of nothing else for a time. Then, seen in the mind’s eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. Then came the blazing thought, ‘You are a free man.’ I know not at all how long I remained in this state, but finally the Light and the ecstasy subsided. As I became quieter a great peace stole over me, and I became acutely conscious of a presence, which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘must be the great reality. The God of the preachers.’

“Wilson never drank again. He told Dr. Bob Smith, an alcoholic in Akron, Ohio, about his experience, and the doctor also quit drinking and began to pursue a ‘spiritual remedy’ for his own alcoholism. The two men, Bill W. and Dr. Bob, became the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Their twelve-step program, Parti notes, was originally based on these affirmations:

1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2) Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.

4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

“When I look at the twelve steps, I can’t help but think that Wilson’s encounter with the Light was similar to my own with the Being of Light. I also couldn’t help but think that he too was asked to devise a means of spiritual healing much like the one I was being asked to devise. Following my surgery, I realized my addiction to painkillers was abating. Soon I took less than what was prescribed and only as needed for my pelvic pain.

“I felt compelled to meditate after returning home from the hospital, and now I was doing it daily, sometime several times a day. One day when I was meditating, a deep sadness came over me, caused by some of the same concerns that had driven me into depression. I began to think about the money I had lost in the stock market in 1999 and wondered why I had put all of my capital at risk just to try to make more when what I had already made was more than I ever expected. I began to wonder why I had gotten prostate cancer. Had God given it to me? Was this karmic payback for something I had done? Would I ever feel good about myself again?

“Then both Michael and Raphael appeared. In their pleasant way, they calmed me down; telling me that ‘going off the track’ during meditation was common. When you meditate, you are supposed to let thoughts arise, but detach from them, let them float downstream in the river of life, said Raphael.

Yes, that’s what’s supposed to happen, agreed Michael. But that doesn’t happen to most people, at least not in the beginning.

Thoughts have thorns, just like cactus, said Raphael. They stick to you and they hurt. Sometimes they don’t detach as quickly as you would like, and they hurt even when they do.

“There were easy ways to conquer these depressing thoughts, said Michael. It was all a matter of changing perspective. To do that, he suggested I develop two opposing personalities, Poor Rajiv and Lucky Rajiv. Poor Rajiv is the man who is stressed out because he lost money in the stock market and can’t accept that the losses were caused by his greed. Then he got cancer, and with it came multiple surgeries with complications. Now he blames God for his problems instead of considering his own karma. Lucky Rajiv is that guy who has a chance to follow his dharma, his purpose, and doesn’t have a huge mortgage. His life is easier, and he can explore a new meaning of life, maybe even change the world.

The angels told me to ponder the question during meditation: Which one do I want to be today? Lucky Rajiv or Poor Rajiv? I realized I could change the story around the circumstances of my life. As Raphael said: You cannot prevent pain, but suffering is an option. All I had to do was change the perspective, and I didn’t have to suffer.

Rajiv Parti, Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back (Atria Books, 2016).

Dr. Parti's recovery and new healing commitment

“I felt as though I was driving very fast through a dense white fog on a road I could not see. The drive was horrifying and exhilarating at the same time, horrifying because I feared I might slam into something and be killed on the roadside, yet exhilarating because I knew I was not driving at all but accelerating through the universe. In retrospect I realize it made no difference how I felt. I had no control over my voyage, not from the beginning when I left my body in the operating room until now as I zoomed toward the next destination. The universe had taken over and was in complete control of all aspects of my life.

Is that how it’s always been? I wondered as I zoomed through the fog. Has the universe always controlled my life and I just thought I was in charge? As I wondered what was coming next, I noticed that I seemed to decelerate, and as I did, the fog became brighter and my eyes began to hurt. I closed my eyes to shield them from the brightness, and when I opened them, I was in the recovery room. I looked above me and saw the anesthesiologist. He told me about the difficulty they had experienced during my surgery and said that ‘certain events’ had presented challenges for the surgeons and proved ‘at times very alarming.’

I saw you during my surgery, I said.

Really, he said, his smile fading.

Yes. I left my body and watched you from the ceiling.

Of course, he said, breezing through my medical file as though there was some clue in there as to why I left my body.

No really. I watched as you administered the anesthetic and even heard you tell a joke.

“Oh really. And what was the joke? I recalled it, the ribald joke that made the surgeon and operating room staff laugh. The anesthesiologist blushed when I told the joke. I must not have given you enough anesthesia, he said, looking hard at the file to avoid my gaze.

“No, you gave me plenty, I answered, recounting the amount of medication I had seen him administer. I told him about going to India where I saw my mother and sister plan their evening meal and how my late father rescued me on the cusp of hell. I started to tell him more, but he glanced at his watched and flipped the file closed. Very interesting, he said. I’ll come back later to hear about it.

“I never saw him again. The surgeon and a resident also visited, but neither stayed long once I began to talk about my near-death experience. Despite my dissatisfaction with the way my colleagues treated me, I knew I was a victim of karma. You sow what you reap.

“More attuned to this subject were the nurses. They spend quality time with the patients and hear experiences like these in ‘real time,’ as one nurse said. It is not uncommon for patients to awaken from their surgical slumber and tell nurses of encounters with departed loved ones or mysterious Beings of Light. When this happens, said one nurse, a simple check of their medical records usually reveals a cardiac arrest or some other brush with death while on the operating table.

When I saw Arpana I told her as rapidly as I could about my experience. She appeared nervous when I told her of leaving my body and frightened when I described my close encounter with hell. Yet she nearly laughed when she heard of my happiness at seeing my father because our relationships had not been cordial. And the past life experience got but a nod, because past lives are a pillar of the Hindu religion. But when I told her about being greeted by the two Christian saints, Michael and Raphael, she stopped me in my tracks.

Wait a minute, Arpana said. You are Hindu. What happened to the fifty thousand gods and goddesses in our religion? Why weren’t they there? What does all this mean? She said in a loud whisper.

It means big changes for us, I said. Raphael says I must now talk to patients about healing their spirit.

Arpana laughed. You don’t like to talk to patients. That’s why you became an anesthesiologist.

I smiled, knowing she was right. The angels told me that I now need to practice a new form of medicine, something they call consciousness-based healing.

What’s that? Arpana asked patiently. I don’t know, I admitted. I think it’s medicine that heals the spirit, a kinder form of medicine that helps the patient heal without using too many drug. Perhaps it has to do with integrating yoga or meditation or other modalities that elevate consciousness. I have to quit being an anesthesiologist and search for the path. It is out there. I just need to find it.

“Several nights later, before going to bed, I confessed to Arpana that I had entrapped our family in a world of materialism. I am the problem; I know that. I am the one who was told by the Being of Light I must change.

Okay, Arpana said. If they give us good guidance, I will believe that what you experienced was not a dream but a reality.

Rajiv Parti, Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back (Atria Books, 2016).

Listening to angels and the Being of Light

Dr. Rajiv Parti writes: “The past life dissolved around me, and I was back in the tunnel again. Ahead was a bright Light and next to me, once again, was my father. He led me down the tunnel toward the Light, and we looked at it together, its intensity oddly soothing. My father let go of my hand, and I kept moving forward. As I did so, two angelic forms emerged into the tunnel. They exuded a powerful vigor—a charisma and energy that made them seem magnetic. I approached them with awe and they hovered above me and smiled with joy and confidence. Telepathically they introduced themselves as Michael and Raphael, archangels of the Bible.

“Because I had studied the Bible, I was not afraid of these angels. What I could tell from this encounter, however, was that they were powerful spiritual beings and unmistakably angels. It was only with later research I learned that Saint Michael is the protector of people and the angel who opens doors and Saint Raphael is the angel of healers.

“The Light was still far away, and as we approached it, we went higher and then into a meadow that was green like emerald stones and peppered with rosebushes, the blooms as red as wine. The sweet smell of grass and roses made me almost delirious with pleasure. A crystal-clear stream of water cut through the meadow, and the air off the distant mountains was blowing gently. Around me in the sky was the deep and gentle sound of ‘om,’ as though it were being chanted by nature itself.

“I closed my eyes and went with my senses, now fully engaged. I was in a state of Shanti, pure peace, bliss, and love. The angels laughed at me. Some people who come here are so thrilled they would leave their body if they weren’t out of it already, communicated Michael. They feel something they have never felt before and find something inside they didn’t know exists, communicated Raphael. It takes them to a new place in themselves.

“I must have appeared nervous at being in this formless, nameless environment because Michael put his hand on my shoulder as a means of comfort and communicated. The higher you go up in the spiritual realms, the more formless it becomes.

Raphael touched my other shoulder, communicating further information. That’s right. You become surrounded by a powerful entity of energy, of pure love and intelligence, and this pure love is the base reality, the underlying fabric, of everything in the universe. It is the source of all creation, the creative force of the universe.

Yes, communicated Michael, this pure love is the source of all that makes the universe. It is contained in everything imaginable yet somehow ignored by so many. Enlightenment comes when a person realizes that love is everywhere and is the only thing that matters.

“Ahead was a silver-blue form that showed no sign of being male or female. This form was large and exuded a familiarity; perhaps it was a member of my family whom I deeply loved. I knew the Being of Light very well, yet at the same time it was new to me. Still, when it took me into its space and engulfed me with its blue Light, I was wrapped in its total knowledge.

“There was a lot to absorb, a lot to think about. But the Being of Light left me no time to do either. It began gently whispering in my ear. And as the words started, pure love—I don’t know what else to call it—pervaded everything, as if my five earthly senses were soaked in omniscient, all-powerful love. The more I became wrapped up with the Being of Light, the more distinct became the chant of ‘om.’ I was at once communicating with and in the Being of Light. I am one with the universe, I thought.

Everything will be all right for you, said the Being of Light, telling me that soon I would return to my earthly life. But there would be a change, said the Being. Now you will become a healer of the soul.

First came the cancer, said the Being, and along with that came increasing depression, often caused by an overwhelming fear of disability and death. Chronic pain followed the cancer surgery, and with it the disability and exhaustion that come from jolts of pain when one moves in the wrong way or from the nagging aches that keep one from ever being totally comfortable or sleeping soundly.

You have experienced these, said the Being. These are diseases that tax the soul. Since you know them well, you will show other people how to fight these diseases spiritually.

“In order to do this, the Being of Light revealed my new path. I would no longer be an anesthesiologist. Instead I would become a practitioner of spiritual medicine, a practitioner of consciousness-based healing. Instead of putting people to sleep, I would now focus on waking them up.

“Suddenly, I was in a clinic, one with no walls and bright natural light streaming through the windows. On the floor in various poses were patients performing yoga, and in another part of the clinic were a few rows of people sitting in cross-legged meditation poses, each looking blissful as he or she concentrated on gaining spiritual information from the universe.

This is consciousness-based healing, said the Being of Light. This is what you must learn and teach. This is your new life. You have been humbled by pain, so you have the knowledge. Finding the knowledge inside you is the best way to learn.

“I felt a tremendous sense of gratitude for this love that surrounded me. In retrospect, I think the Being of Light might have been Jesus, but I have no way of truly knowing. I do know that it was a cosmic consciousness of some kind, one that grants us understanding and institutes positive human change. I felt revived, reborn, a man with new plan, a man with a mission! I was going to change the world and my relationship to everything in it!

Rajiv Parti, Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back (Atria Books, 2016).