Near-Death Experiences: Messages from the Light

                 by Dr. Mark Pitstick

When I was nine years old, my Uncle Cliff’s car collided with a semi.  He nearly died from severe multiple injuries and was in the hospital for a long time.   When he finally came home, he was pale, thin, missing teeth, and couldn’t walk.  From his hospital bed in their living room, he spoke through a wired jaw about what he experienced when he almost died.  Walking in a meadow of lush green grass, hearing beautiful music, and seeing Jesus.  Feeling an accelerated awareness with everything being more brilliant and colorful than usual.  No longer fearing death.  Being so peaceful that, except for missing his family, he didn’t care if he came back.  
Tens of thousands of Near-Death Experience (NDE) cases, many of them documented by doctors and scientists, have demonstrated the persistence of awareness after “death.”  Typical stages during a NDE include: being out of the body, hearing a buzzing or ringing sound, going through a tunnel, seeing radiant light, meeting departed loved ones and spiritual beings, sensing beautiful scenes and colors, hearing angelic music, feeling peaceful and at home, learning lessons, being told it’s not ones time to stay on the Other Side, and a rapid journey back into the successfully resuscitated body.

Although NDEs were first described thousands of years ago, they are much more common now because of advances in medical resuscitative capabilities.  Many more people are now successfully brought back from the brink of biological or irreversible death.  These NDErs were temporarily clinically dead, that is, had cessation of their heart, lung, and/or brain functions.  During that time, a significant percentage of them have fascinating and life-changing experiences.   

There are so many validated NDE cases that they are collectively known as ‘tennis shoe stories.’  In Closer To The Light, Melvin Morse, M.D., and Paul Perry describe the story of psychologist Kim Clark who was counseling a patient named Maria after she had a cardiac arrest.  They state, “The woman wasn’t interested in what Clark had to say.  Instead, she wanted to talk about how she had floated around the hospital while doctors struggled to start her heart.  To prove that she had left her body, the woman insisted that there was a shoe on the ledge outside Clark’s window.  Clark opened the window, but could see no shoe.  ‘It’s out there,’ the woman insisted.  Clark leaned out, but still could not see the shoe.  ‘It’s around the corner,’ said the woman.  Courageously, Clark crawled onto the ledge of her fifth-floor window and around the corner.  There sat a shoe, just as Maria had described.”

The immense amount of validated research on NDEs constitute the most impressive evidence indicating life after death.  Taken together with the other categories, NDEs are the ‘final straw’ that convince many people that our real selves do not die.   

(excerpted from Dr. Pitstick's "Soul Proof")