Appendix A

Annotated Bibliography of Near-Death Experience Research

A Reader's Guide to the Major Works in the Field

Full-Length Edition

This appendix is for the reader who finishes the book and thinks, I want to read the sources for myself. Good. That is exactly the right response.

The near-death experience literature is now five decades deep. It spans clinical studies in leading medical journals, book-length case studies, and personal memoirs by people who came back from the brink. Some of it is careful, peer-reviewed science. Some of it is popular writing that must be read with care. Some of it is openly skeptical, arguing that these events are just the work of a dying brain. A reader new to the field needs a map.

This list offers that map. It sorts the major works into twelve groups, from the books that launched the modern field through the theological and philosophical frames that make sense of the data. Each entry includes a short note on what the work does well and where it has limits. The goal is a useful starting point, not a complete catalog. Full lists have been built by others.¹ What follows is enough to get a serious reader started.

Entries are grouped by their role in the wider field. Within each group, works appear in order of date. Where a work is treated at length in the main text, a link to the right chapter appears at the end of the note.

Foundational Works

Three books launched the modern study of near-death experiences. They gave the field its language, its early data, and its first real hearing in the medical world. Every later study builds on what these three cleared.

Moody, Raymond A., Jr. Life After Life. Atlanta: Mockingbird Books, 1975. The book that started it all. Moody, a doctor and thinker, coined the term "near-death experience." He gathered roughly 150 accounts from people who had been close to death. He found a common pattern: the tunnel, the light, the being of light, the life review, the border, the return. Moody was not a strict researcher. He used no control groups, no formal interviews, no stats. But he asked the right question at the right time. Every serious NDE researcher since has been building on the frame Moody set down here. (Engaged in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.)

Ring, Kenneth. Life at Death: A Scientific Study of the Near-Death Experience. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980. Ring, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, brought real rigor to the field. He used formal interviews, control groups, and stats to test whether Moody's patterns held up. They did. Ring built a scoring tool that let researchers measure how "deep" or "full" a given NDE was. Where Moody raised the question, Ring turned it into a research program. (Engaged in Chapter 6.)

Sabom, Michael B. Recollections of Death: A Medical Study. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Sabom was a heart doctor at Emory who set out to debunk NDE reports. He ended up backing them. His study was the first by a doctor with direct access to his own patients' medical records. He matched patients' out-of-body reports of their heart surgeries against the actual records. The details lined up. The book proved that at least some NDEs involve real, verified sight, not mere visions. That finding became the anchor of the case for real NDEs. (Engaged in Chapter 6 and Chapter 8.)

Major Peer-Reviewed Studies

The NDE field is sometimes brushed aside as stories and hearsay. These three studies answer that charge head-on. They are planned-in-advance hospital studies, published in top medical journals, and built to meet the standards of mainstream science.

van Lommel, Pim, Ruud van Wees, Timothy Meyers, and Ines Greyson. "Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Study in the Netherlands." The Lancet 358, no. 9298 (December 2001): 2039–45. The landmark study. Van Lommel's team followed 344 cardiac-arrest survivors across ten Dutch hospitals over thirteen years. Eighteen percent reported some NDE. Twelve percent reported a deep one. The study checked for drugs, length of blackout, and bodily factors. None of these predicted who would have an NDE and who would not. The fact that The Lancet published it gave the field a level of standing it had not held before. (Engaged in Chapter 6 and Chapter 8.)

Parnia, Sam, et al. "AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A Study." Resuscitation 85, no. 12 (December 2014): 1799–1805. Known as AWARE I. This was the first big, multi-hospital study built to test whether awareness during cardiac arrest could be proved. The team placed hidden pictures on high shelves in rooms where patients were revived. A patient who saw one during an out-of-body event would give hard proof the event was real. Of 2,060 cardiac arrests, 140 patients lived and were asked. Nine percent reported some NDE-like event. One patient described a verified out-of-body scene, though not one of the hidden pictures. The study proved that awareness during cardiac arrest does happen, but the picture test was hard to run in practice. (Engaged in Chapter 8.)

Parnia, Sam, et al. "AWAreness during REsuscitation—II." Resuscitation 191 (2023): 109903. AWARE II widened the methods. The team used both pictures and sounds during CPR. It found that some patients show signs of brain activity during cardiac arrest that standard tests would miss. Parnia has named this state "lucid dying." It is marked by vivid, recalled events that match the features Moody first noted. The study added fresh weight to the claim that the mind keeps working when the brain shows no output. (Engaged in Chapter 8 and Chapter 10.)

Full Overviews

These are the books to hand a friend who asks, "Where do I start?" Each one surveys the field broadly. Each weaves together case reports, science, and the author's own reading of what the data means.

van Lommel, Pim. Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2010. First published in Dutch in 2007. Van Lommel draws on his Lancet study and decades of clinical work. He reviews the full range of data. He takes on every major skeptical claim: lack of oxygen, brain chemicals, seizures, the dying-brain theory. He argues that the brain does not produce the mind. The book is careful, well-sourced, and grounded in medicine. It is the single best overview for a reader who wants the science first. (Engaged across Chapters 6–10.)

Greyson, Bruce. After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond. New York: St. Martin's Essentials, 2021. Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, has studied NDEs for over forty years. He built the Greyson Scale, the most widely used tool for scoring the depth of an NDE. This book is both a science summary and a personal story. Greyson tells how he went from skeptic to open-minded student. His writing is calm, kind, and free of hype. Any reader can pick it up. (Engaged in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.)

Long, Jeffrey, with Paul Perry. Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. New York: HarperOne, 2010. Long, a cancer doctor, founded the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF). He has built one of the largest NDE databases in the world. In this book, he lays out nine lines of proof for the reality of NDEs, drawn from over 1,300 cases. The book is strong on building a case step by step. Its main limit is that the data comes from self-reported online surveys, which brings bias. Used with care, it is still a rich source. (Engaged in Chapter 7.)

Long, Jeffrey. God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2016. A follow-up to Evidence of the Afterlife. This book zooms in on the spiritual content of NDEs: meetings with God or a being of light, life reviews, the feel of total love, and what NDErs say they learned about God. It is strongest when it lets the people who lived through these events speak. Readers should know that Long's readings of the data are broad and not tied to any one creed. He does not write from a Christian frame. (Engaged in Chapter 7 and Chapter 18.)

Veridical NDE Collections

Veridical NDEs are the cases that carry the most weight as proof. In these reports, the person describes things they could not have known through normal senses. Those details are then confirmed by outside witnesses or records. These works gather and study such cases.

Sabom, Michael B. Light and Death: One Doctor's Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998. Built around the Pam Reynolds case. Reynolds had a daring surgery. Her body was cooled to 60°F. Her heart was stopped. Her brain showed no activity. Yet she later described, in detail, the surgical tools used and words spoken while she was clinically dead. Doctors confirmed her account. The case remains one of the hardest to explain by brain science alone. Sabom also writes as a Christian, which is rare in this field. (The Reynolds case is treated in Chapter 8; case study in Appendix B.)

Ring, Kenneth, and Sharon Cooper. Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. Palo Alto: William James Center, 1999. A short but striking study. Ring and Cooper found and talked with thirty-one blind people who reported NDEs or out-of-body events. Some had been blind from birth. Yet their reports included vivid sight of their rooms and their bodies. In several cases, the details matched the real scene. If the mind is just the brain, and the visual brain has never had input, then what was seeing? This study poses one of the toughest puzzles for any brain-only account. (Engaged in Chapter 8; select cases in Appendix B.)

Long, Jeffrey, and the NDERF Database. The NDERF website (nderf.org) holds the largest open database of NDE reports. It has over 5,000 accounts from around the world. Each report comes with a survey. The database is searchable by feature: light, tunnel, life review, being of light, dead loved ones, and many others. Its strength is its size and its reach across cultures. Its limit is that the reports are self-chosen and told from memory. For any student of NDEs, it is a key starting tool.

Hellish and Distressing Near-Death Experiences

Not every NDE is filled with light and love. A real share of people report terror, darkness, and torment. These accounts are sometimes left out by authors who focus on the bright cases. The works below take the dark reports just as seriously.

Rawlings, Maurice. To Hell and Back. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993. Rawlings, a heart doctor, claimed that hellish NDEs are far more common than the data suggests. Many patients who have scary events during CPR later push the memory away, he argued. Researchers who wait days or weeks to ask miss these cases. The idea may hold a grain of truth. But Rawlings's methods have been widely faulted. He did not use formal interviews, and his strong views as a conservative Christian shaped which cases he chose to feature. The book works best as a warning against painting all NDEs as pleasant. It should not be read as strict science. (Engaged in Chapter 12.)

Bush, Nancy Evans. Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences. Cleveland, TN: Parson's Porch Books, 2012. Bush spent decades gathering and sorting distressing NDEs. She groups them into three types: the void (a vast, scary emptiness), the hellish scene (fire, torment, dark beings), and the loss of meaning (a crushing sense that nothing matters). Her sorting system is the most careful in the field. Her care for the people who lived these events is clear. She treats them with respect, not as scare stories. (Engaged in Chapter 12.)

Storm, Howard. My Descent into Death: A Second Chance at Life. New York: Doubleday, 2005. A first-person account. Storm, an art professor and self-described atheist, had a burst organ in Paris. His NDE began in deep darkness and terror. Then it turned. He met beings he called Jesus and angels. His story is among the most detailed personal accounts in the field. The felt length of the event is striking: it seemed to last hours, though his crisis took far less time on the clock. His story shows both the dark-to-light arc and the time-stretch effect that are central to this book. (Engaged in Chapter 12 and Chapter 10; case study in Appendix B.)

Christian Engagement with NDE Research

Most NDE authors write from a secular or broadly spiritual point of view. A smaller group asks what the data means for Christian belief. These works approach the findings as people who take both the science and the faith at full strength.

Miller, J. Steve. Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven: A Brief Introduction in Plain Language. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2012. Miller surveys the NDE data, meets the main skeptical claims, and argues that the total case points toward a real afterlife and a real God. The book is written in plain language and is easy for any reader to follow. Miller is fair to the critics and does not overstate his case. (Engaged in Chapter 6 and Chapter 8.)

Miller, J. Steve. Is Christianity Compatible with Deeper Near-Death Experiences? Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2019. Miller takes on a tension many Christians feel. NDE reports often describe a being of light who radiates love and says nothing about hell or the need for faith. Does that clash with the gospel? Miller argues it does not. He shows how the data can be read within a Christian frame without forcing it or thinning the faith. The book is a helpful bridge for Christian readers drawn to the data but uneasy about the theology. (Engaged in Chapter 18.)

Miller, J. Steve. Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife, Volume 1: A Groundbreaking, Scientific Apologetic — Evaluating Death-Related Visions, Terminal Lucidity, and After-Death Communications. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Academic, 2021. Miller shifts the lens from near-death experiences to the related but distinct category of deathbed experiences. Unlike NDErs, these patients actually die — so their reports describe the very dying window this book cares most about. The volume is built around eleven numbered “Lines of Evidence” across four chapters, covering phenomena before death (premonitions, knowing one is dying without physical cues), at the time of death (terminal lucidity, shared deathbed visions), and after death (after-death communications). The case of Anna Katharina Ehmer, a woman with severe lifelong cognitive impairment who sang hymns lucidly in the minutes before she died, is among the most striking. Miller draws together a vast multicultural literature and argues that the pattern resists a purely materialist reading. The book is careful, well-documented, and readable. (Engaged in Chapter 5 and Chapter 31.)

Miller, J. Steve. Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Academic, 2023. Foreword by Gary R. Habermas. This is the fullest Christian engagement with the global NDE and deathbed data now in print. Miller asks a question most NDE researchers do not: when people across every tradition report meeting a being of light, who do they say it is? His answer, drawn from the NDERF database of over five thousand cases, is striking. Eighteen percent identify the being as Jesus. Of the same total, only three reported seeing Krishna, two reported the Buddha, and none of the eighty self-identified Muslims reported Muhammad. He goes further: out of one hundred consecutive NDERF accounts, only three contained anything that clearly contradicted Christian doctrine. The book also covers the scarcity of anti-Christian elements in non-Western cases, draws lessons from hellish and distressing NDEs, and offers practical guidance for ministering to experiencers. Miller does not overclaim. He does not argue that NDEs prove Christianity. He argues that the data, taken as a whole, rarely opposes it. The book is the strongest single case for that claim. (Engaged in Chapter 18 and Chapter 12.)

Habermas, Gary R., and J. P. Moreland. Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998. A two-part book. Habermas handles the NDE chapters, giving a careful review of the proof from the standpoint of Christian apologetics. Moreland handles the philosophy, arguing that the soul is real and distinct from the body. Together they build a case that NDE data, joined to the case for dualism, supports Christian belief in life after death. The book is rigorous, fair to critics, and rooted in the scholarly literature. It is the strongest single work on NDEs from within the evangelical tradition. (Engaged in Chapter 6 and Chapter 8.)

Habermas, Gary R., and J. P. Moreland. Immortality: The Other Side of Death. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1992. An earlier and more popular take on the same ground covered in Beyond Death. The book reviews NDE proof, the case for the soul, and the biblical case for an afterlife. It is less technical than Beyond Death and makes a good entry point for readers new to both the data and the ideas.

Tabatt, Shaun. The NDE Conspiracy: Can We Trust Eyewitness Accounts of Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife? Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2025. A popular-level discernment workbook. Tabatt, a publishing executive and podcast host who has conducted hundreds of interviews with NDE experiencers, offers a framework for testing NDE claims against Scripture. The book is conversational and accessible. It is not scholarship — it does not engage the peer-reviewed literature or build an evidential case — but it fills a practical gap for Christian readers who want a guide to sorting what is trustworthy from what is not. Best read alongside the clinical and scholarly works listed above. (Engaged lightly in Chapter 12.)

Theological Anthropology

The NDE argument rests on a question that goes deeper than any single case study: What is a human being? If the mind is nothing more than the brain, then a mind that works apart from a dead brain is impossible by definition, and no amount of data will change that. If the person is a soul-body unity that can survive the body’s failure, then the NDE data fits a frame that already exists. These three works build that frame.

Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989; 2nd printing, 2000. The decisive work. Cooper, a philosopher at Calvin Seminary, walks through every major Old and New Testament passage that bears on what happens to a person at death. He shows that the Bible teaches a conscious intermediate state — believers are “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8) — and argues that this teaching requires some form of dualism. His view, which he calls “holistic dualism,” holds that the person is a genuine unity in this life but can survive death as a disembodied soul until the resurrection. The second printing includes a substantial new preface engaging the monist replies that followed the first edition. For NDE study, Cooper matters because his biblical case stands on its own two feet. If he is right, then a mind working apart from a dead brain is not a strange anomaly but exactly what the Bible leads us to expect. (The anchor source for Chapter 9; engaged in Chapter 5 and Chapter 8.)

Farris, Joshua R. An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. A constructive contemporary defense of substance dualism that answers head-on the common charge that dualism denigrates the body. Farris argues for what he calls “a substance dualism that embraces the material” — the soul is the seat of the person’s unique relation to God, but the body is good, willed by God, and essential to human wholeness. The book also engages disability directly, asking how dualism accounts for the dignity of persons whose cognitive capacities are impaired. For NDE study, Farris supplies the positive case: the dualism the data points to is not a grudging fallback but a rich and body-honoring account of the human person. (A supporting voice in Chapter 9 and Chapter 31.)

Wilkinson, Michael A. Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2024. Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology. Foreword by Stephen J. Wellum. A groundbreaking work of theological anthropology. Wilkinson argues that we should understand the human person in the light of the incarnate Christ. The two-natures Christology of Chalcedon — one person subsisting in two natures, divine and human — provides the pattern: the human being, like Christ, is a person subsisting in a nature (body and soul), and the person is not reducible to the nature. This “Chalcedonian anthropology” has far-reaching implications. For this book, the most important is Christological: the One who meets the dying soul at the threshold must be the divine-human Christ, one person in two natures, truly God and truly man. (A supporting voice in Chapter 9 and Chapter 18.)

Philosophical Engagement

The NDE field raises questions that go beyond the data. What does it mean for the mind-body problem if the mind survives a dead brain? What counts as proof? Two figures stand out for the rigor they bring to these questions.

Habermas, Gary R. Papers in the Journal of Near-Death Studies and other venues. Habermas has published widely on the weight of NDE reports, mainly the verified ones. His central question is: What kind of proof would it take to show that the mind survives the body, and how close do verified NDEs come? He applies the same methods he uses in his work on the risen Christ. His papers are vital for anyone who cares about the logic of the proof.

Moreland, J. P. The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014. A popular-level case for dualism. Moreland argues that the soul is a real, non-physical thing, distinct from the body. He draws on NDE data as one thread in his case. The book is clear, well-written, and easy to follow.

Moreland, J. P., and Scott B. Rae. Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000. A more scholarly case for dualism. Moreland and Rae develop a view in which the soul is the form of the body and apply it to hard questions in medical ethics. For NDE study, the book matters because it gives a framework: if dualism is true, then a mind working apart from a dead brain is just what we should expect. (The dualism question is treated in Chapter 8 and Chapter 9.)

Critical and Skeptical Literature

Honest thought requires hearing the critics. The best skeptical case belongs in this list. The NDE argument is only as strong as its answers to the hardest pushback.

Blackmore, Susan. Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993. The strongest book-length skeptical case. Blackmore, a psychologist, argues that every part of the NDE can be traced to known brain events. The tunnel comes from random firing in the visual brain. The life review is a seizure in the temporal lobe. The peace comes from brain chemicals. The out-of-body view is a model built by a brain cut off from its senses. Her arguments are sharp and deserve a careful reply. Her chief weakness is timing. She wrote before the big studies (van Lommel 2001, Parnia 2014) and before the strongest verified cases came to light. She does not fully address the hard problem: patients who report true details while their brains showed no function at all. (Engaged in Chapter 6; the skeptical claims are answered in Chapter 8.)

Van Lommel (Consciousness Beyond Life, chs. 7–9) and Greyson (After, chs. 7–8) each devote long chapters to answering the skeptics, Blackmore included. Those replies are the best place to see the full back-and-forth between the two sides.

Children's Near-Death Experiences

Children's NDEs carry a special weight as proof. Young children are less likely to have picked up grown-up ideas about what dying is "supposed" to feel like. When a four-year-old describes a classic NDE, the "it's all just culture" argument loses most of its force.

Morse, Melvin, with Paul Perry. Closer to the Light: Learning from the Near-Death Experiences of Children. New York: Villard Books, 1990. Morse, a children's doctor, gathered NDE reports from kids who had survived cardiac arrest or other life-or-death crises. He found that the children's accounts matched the adult pattern closely: the tunnel, the light, dead loved ones, the sense of peace. Some of the children were very young and had never heard of an NDE. Morse also ran a controlled test. He compared children who had nearly died with children who had been very sick but not near death. Only the near-death group reported NDEs. That rules out the idea that drugs or stress alone cause the events. (Engaged in Chapter 7 and Chapter 30.)

Atwater, P. M. H. The New Children and Near-Death Experiences. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, 2003. Atwater has spent decades studying children's NDEs and their long-term effects. She argues that children who have had NDEs often show lasting changes in personality, learning style, and even their senses. Some of these claims stretch past what the data can prove. The book is best read next to Morse's clinical work, as a wider look at how NDEs shape children over time, with healthy caution about the guesswork.

Other Works by Key Researchers

Several authors listed above have published other books that deserve a mention. These are not the landmark texts, but they push the field forward in useful ways.

Ring, Kenneth. Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience. New York: William Morrow, 1984. Ring's second NDE book. Where Life at Death focused on the event itself, this book focuses on the aftereffects: the lasting changes in values, beliefs, and behavior that NDErs report. Ring sees NDEs as a trigger for deep personal change.

Ring, Kenneth, with Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino. Lessons from the Light. New York: Plenum Press, 1998. Written for a general audience. Ring distills decades of work into practical lessons. What do NDErs say they learned? How do those lessons apply to people who have never had an NDE? The book is warmer and more personal than Ring's earlier academic work.

Parnia, Sam. Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries between Life and Death. New York: HarperOne, 2013. Parnia describes the medical advances that now allow patients to be brought back from longer stops of the heart. He frames NDEs within this context: as medicine pushes the window of reversible death wider, it also pushes the window in which NDEs happen. His tone is clinical and careful; he lets the medical data lead.

Parnia, Sam. Lucid Dying: The New Science of Life, Death, and the Soul. New York: HarperOne, 2024. Parnia's newest work. He builds on the AWARE studies and names "lucid dying" as a real, measurable state. He argues that what NDErs recall is not a vision but a clear, recalled experience that happens during the dying process. The book engages the latest brain science and CPR data. (Engaged in Chapter 8 and Chapter 10.)

Journals, Groups, and Online Resources

The NDE field is backed by several groups and publications that any serious reader should know.

Journal of Near-Death Studies (once called Anabiosis). Put out by IANDS. This is the field's own peer-reviewed journal, in print since 1981. It publishes studies, case reports, theory pieces, and book reviews. Any reader who wants to move past the popular books and into the primary research should start here.

Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), University of Virginia. Founded by Ian Stevenson and now led by Jim Tucker. DOPS is the leading academic center for the study of events tied to the survival of the mind after death. Its faculty (including Bruce Greyson, Ed Kelly, and Emily Kelly) have published widely on NDEs and related topics. DOPS brings the weight of a major research university to a field that is sometimes treated as fringe. Its NDE case files are among the most carefully kept in the world.

International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS). Founded in 1981 by Moody, Ring, Greyson, and others. IANDS is the main professional group for NDE researchers and the primary support network for people who have had NDEs. It runs yearly meetings, puts out the Journal of Near-Death Studies, and keeps a library of resources. Its website (iands.org) has case reports, teaching tools, and help for people looking for support.

Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF). Founded by Jeffrey Long. The NDERF site (nderf.org) holds the largest open database of NDE reports. Accounts come from around the world in many languages. Each report is paired with a survey. The database can be searched by NDE feature, age, medical context, and other factors. It is not a peer-reviewed source, but its size and scope make it a useful research tool.

A Note on Reading the Literature

The NDE field is a living conversation, not a settled case. The works listed here do not all agree. Blackmore's arguments sit next to van Lommel's. Rawlings's urgency sits next to Bush's gentle care. The careful reader should expect this. Disagreement is how good thinking works.

I believe the total weight of the data is strong. The verified cases, the children's reports, the planned studies, the blind NDErs, the patients who describe facts that no brain-based model can account for: taken together, they build a case that something real happens when a person comes close to death. This book builds on that case and takes it in a direction the researchers themselves do not always take. But the data stands on its own, no matter what any theologian does with it.

The best way to test that claim is to read the sources yourself. Start with Greyson's After or van Lommel's Consciousness Beyond Life for a wide-angle view. Read Sabom's Light and Death for the single most striking case. Read Blackmore's Dying to Live for the strongest skeptical pushback. Then decide for yourself.

For cases sorted by what they show, see Appendix B. For a glossary of terms used in the book, see Appendix C. For a cross-reference map showing where each major topic is treated in the main chapters, see Appendix D.