Near Death Experiences Books

The title, "To Heaven & Back," subtitled "True Stories of Those Who Have Made the Journey" is misleading because this book has few stories and more of the author's opinion using the bible as her reference. If you are interested in reading NDE stories, then I would not recommend this book. However, if you are brand new to religion, this book will get you on a good start along with reading the bible. But don't take my word for it, there are other books and other religions out there so do your homework. And good luck on your journey.

This book was wonderful. I have read many books on near death experiences (NDE's) and Mrs. Bennett's book is unique in that the all experiences are understood from the Christian perspective. Many, if not most, NDE books are not Christian and can lead someone down a dangerous path. Mrs. Bennett relays the experiences of several people of actually died, left their body and went to heaven. I highly recommend this book, especially for those who have lost loved ones and you know they are in heaven.

While I was somewhat reluctant and skeptical when I began the book, I was very much moved by how Vincent integrates religious texts with the experiences of modern-day people in an protrayal that seems almost objective. The result is a work that is overwhelmingly consistent and convincing.

On the surface....it promises to be a very insightful and informative book. Admittedly, we do not get the opportunity to preview any excerpts form the book itself in the Amazon preview....and I now know why! The substance of the book is MISSING! I feel that this book was written to take advantage of the market for this subject! In other words, to make money! I wanted to read a real book, complete with analysis of the NDE, see some thought provoking concepts analysed, etc! This is the first book that I have been able to "preview" that upon purchase I feel ripped off.....I want my money back!!!!

I absolutely adored the description of the author's near-death experience. It is one of the best I have ever read. However, I don't think the techniques she recommends for replicating one's own NDE will work to the extent implied in the title and intro. Sure, maybe one can have an out-of-body experience in a dream, but that is a far different experience than the one she had when she "died," when she went to a supreme heavenly place and felt total joy and bliss. I thought the connection she made between the two was a bit of a stretch.

We have all done it before.In fact we do it all the time.That is how Dianne morrissey explains how we all leave our bodies at night when we are asleep. In her book she gives the reader all the tools necessary to take control of one's out of body experience. She shows us how to use certain exercises to cause a focused out of body experience. Dianne Had a near death experience that caused her to project out of her body . She was pronounced dead for several minutes before coming back. She has never been the same since. This is her story and her teachings. Don't miss out on this book.

This was by far, one of the most emotionally heart tugging books I have ever read. To all of the reviews trashing this book, I am absolutely flabbergasted. Did we read the same book? The author is not self congragulatory. The book does not promote suicide, or make it seem like NO BIG DEAL! It is a very moving and soul baring account of a Mother & Son's dual regrets, a family's torment and a lesson to be learned for all. That suicide is NEVER the answer! Never, ever in a million years will you convince me that this woman is delusional, or worse...profiting off of her son's tragic death. I can empathize with the personal pain of readers who might have endured what Anne Puryear's family did, and wonder why they cannot find the same answers from someone they have lost, but none of us live the same story. Ask yourself what kind of Mother could shamelessly prey on the emotions of her family, and the memory of her deceased son by fabricating such a heartbreaking book. It's NOT Anne Puryear imo. I, myself have been to the brink of such an irreversible act, and I thank Anne for spreading the message that suicide is the ultimate soul destroyer. That although the soul may live on, the regrets and repercussions are equally eternal.

In my work - I research and write about how we plan our lives before we're born - I am often asked by people to comment on suicide. Now I will simply refer them to this magnificent book. This book has the power to heal the hearts of those whose lives have been touched by suicide - and it may very well prevent some people from taking their own lives. Thank you Anne Puryear for having the courage to write this book!
-Robert Schwartz, author of Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?

What a great book. Not what I expected at all!

A must read in line with Conversations with God.

Highly recommended!

I found this book helpful. I had a family member (an aunt) commit suicide. I did not find that it made suicide an attractive out of life. To the contrary, I think it honestly showed the emotional upheaval Stephen's suicide left in the family.

I recommend this book to those mature enough spiritually to read it.

If you are wondering whether or not you will love or hate this book after reading many of the very disparate opions written here, I hope to clear it up a bit...

Firstly, if you are an admamant atheist, forget it.
If you are a fundamentalist Christian, not for you.
However, if you are an openminded skeptic, much like myself, who is interested in the existence of near death experiences and other kinds of strange and unexplainable paranormal occurances, you might like the book, or at least be interested.

If you have just suffered a loss of a loved one very recently (say, within 6 - 12 months) perhaps this book might be a little much to take all in one gulp, if you don't agree with the beliefs. I myself do agree with many of the beliefs and that's why I gave this book such a high rating. Some of the beliefs in the book are: 1. Life after death exists. Communication with souls who have crossed over is possible. 2. Suicide is not an option for young people because it causes so much pain for those left behind. (However, for older people with chronic fatal illnesses it is different)

I think that a lot of the reason that people did not like this book is because they may have focused more on the suicide notes that Stephen left behind, and not the tormented words of his mother. These notes are sad, yes, but in Stephen's twisted way, he tried to make light of the situation and made lots of jokes and thought everything would be better once he died. The notes are truly sad and I think we should try to remember how naive he was at 15 years of age. I lost one of my best friends to suicide, and I am sure that she thought she would be better off "over there" because she was in so much mental anguish. Stephen's notes do not belie the immense pain he must have felt, probably because even in his death he was trying to uplift the people around him and help them get over grieving for him. He had a personality that seeked to please others, and the jokes and pronouncements about how he'll be so much better off dead and on the other side are a sad lie to himself. Or maybe he really did not know how much his family would suffer. I myself did not forsee how horrifying suicide could be. I thought that if anyone around me ever did that, it would be like griveing a normal death. How wrong I was.

I can understand why people would react so strongly to this book. Most of the people, from what I can tell from their posting, have lost someone to suicide. This type of death causes so much pain in those left behind that many people actually suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some people are looking for someone to blame for Stephen's death, as much as they are looking to blame someone for the death of their own loved one. In this case, it is the author, Anne, who gets blamed. Many grievers also feel unmitigated anger, towards everything and anything. This is a normal part of grief. These people need to express their anger in a healthy way. That's why I wouldn't reccomend this book for someone who is in the "raw" part of their grief. If they don't agree with the ideas in the book it will just piss them off more than they already are.

I thank Anne for being brave enough to publish such a controversial book. It has helped me, as much as it has inflammed others. (from the ratings of the postings, the ratio seems to be about half and half) I personally do not believe a suicidal teenager would take their life after reading this book. The aftermath of suicide is clearly stated (perhaps many of the negative reviewers did not read the book through to the end, which is unfortunate, as they may have come away with a different perspective. The consequences of suicide on the other side is to see the incredible pain that the person who killed themselves has caused. And to experience that there is no way for them to take away this gigantic and final and terrible mistake. Stephen many times says that he wishes he could change what happened, that what he believed before he did it (see above, his suicide notes) was absolutely completely crazy. The book very explicitly states that suicide is not an option. It would be interesting to hear from a teenager who has read the book, and whether or not it helped them see this.

It is true however, that some people will want to do it and find cause to end their lives no matter what. They will try to find "answers" and reasons, as if looking for someone else to guide their own hand. With that said, any kind of material, be it a book, a song, or the words of a loved one, that can be twisted into some sick kind of urging to end their lives. That is their own fault, not the fault of someone like Anne, someone who wrote the sad lyrics to a song, or even your fault, if you feel that you may have pushed your loved one to suicide. You didn't. It was their desicion, alone.

I really thought that I was going to enjoy this novel but instead I found myself looking forward to it being over. After 200 pages, I still felt like I was reading the introduction and waiting for the real story to begin. I did not care about any of the characters and I found the story to be boring. On a separate note, I have absolutely no idea how the cover art fits in with the story because none of the drawn images figure into the story. I wonder what the purpose of that was? I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Yesterday, I finished "The Thin Place." The trouble is that I started a year and a half ago. When it first came out, I tried to get through it and couldn't. I lent it to my grandmother, who devours books, only she couldn't get through it either. I tried one more time, then finally gave up and sold the book. So, when I recently stumbled upon "The Thin Place" on a library shelf, it stared out at me, mournfully, saying, "You never got through me!" I don't like to quit things but wasn't sure I could actually finish it. I usually get through books on the first try. I figured, now is as good a time as any.

Having since gone through two years of intense English courses, I finally got through "The Thin Place." I'm really glad I did. I truly enjoyed the story. I felt myself immersed not only in Davises world but in The World as I was reading it. I think the best way to describe this book is that while reading it, I experienced the actual universe. There are passages where you actually feel space: dimensions, stars, math. I lost my breath at some of the descriptions. Kathryn Davis truly creates a novel that transcends reading; The Thin Place is an experience.

That being said, the cover is misleading, the book flap and other descriptions aren't well written, and there are still passages where I am not sure what is going on. I don't know whether I am strong enough to go back in that book and try to figure them out again. It was like gymnastics. It took me 2 hours to read 50 pages. It was challenging to get through but I miss being in the book.

I hope to read some of her other work. I want to say that I will take this book as a leaping off point for others that require a lot of energy to unravel. It might be the start of a new path of literature for me. Maybe this book helps my brain to open like the ant does to the peony.

What was i thinking? i actually had this in my wishlist and got it for christmas. I never am one to give up on a book, but there are just too many good ones out there to struggle like this!! i told myself to at least get to page 50...I CANT!! I have no clue as to what ive read so far! For me to toss a book and not even put it on a shelf...its bad. Im tossing it!!

I picked up this book after seeing it on NPR's list of summer/beach books. I wonder if they actually read it. I thought it would deal with the thin place between worlds. I stuck with it to the bitter end ... thinking something was going to happen, but couldn't recommend anyone else bother. The description of the characters was detailed but nothing happens. I believe a good book has to have more of a plot than this one did.

I love to read, and I was very excited when I saw this book. I thought it would be an etheral story of the thinning of the veil between our World and the other side. I am almost halfway through and I just cannot keep reading. I feel like the author is trying so hard to show her skill at beautiful prose that she forgets her story. It's boring, very confusing, and unfortunately did not live up (for me) to the wonderful painting used on the cover. Being a wonderful writer is one thing, but there is not a gripping story here.

Part romance, part science fiction, part mystery and loaded with silly humor Hello, Gorgeous! is the story of twenty-four year old former sorority sister, party girl, hairdresser Caitlyn James who is transformed into a government agent cyborg after dying in a car accident. Caitlyn keeps her personality - and her fashion sense - but due to her infusion of "nanobytes" she gains superhuman strength, speed, and memory recall. The downside is that she has no desire to work as a secret assassin for The Boss, who is responsible for saving her life.

Wanting only to highlight her hair - and possibly beat up her supervisor - Caitlyn is reluctantly persuaded to use her talents to track down a serial killer but her main motivation to join the hunt comes from meeting Dimitri Novakov - a handsome rogue agent with a few secrets of his own. He's everything Caitlyn could want in a boyfriend, but he also might be the killer she's after.

MaryJanice Davidson crafts a delightful, fun adventure in this lighthearted and sexy novel. Similar to Davidson's Alaskan Royal Family series, the characters are witty and likable. Though the cyborg plot is certainly ridiculous, the unbelievability factor only adds to its humorous charm as a fast-paced summer read.

Hair salon owner Caitlin dies in a car accident and wakes up to discover that she has been given superhero powers courtesy of a government project just like the Bionic Woman. The project head, a man known as The Boss, forces Caitlin to work for them on miscellaneous missions like Nikita, but with no apparent training whatsoever. Unlike Jamie Sommers or Nikita, however, Caitlin will hardly rise to the occasion. She is no more than an inarticulate, superficial boozehound looking for Prince Charming, albeit one who can run faster and punch harder than your average trailer trash bimbo.

The humor is pathetic and the plotting and conflict are superficial at best. During the course of one mission, the big play by the boss is pretending to send Caitlin to Paris, France only to reveal that.... oh, I cracking up with unfettered laughter here... she's only going to Paris, Texas. Har. De. Har. Har. During the course of this mission she encounters Dimitri, a fellow cyberborg who is also (to fulfill a girl's princess fantasies) a Lithuanian duke with his own castle! Be still my heart! Meanwhile, The Boss crashed a party and meets Caitlin's BFF Stacey and they promptly fall in implausible love, which makes Caitlin want to kill someone, preferably The Boss. She spends a lot of time stomping around complaining about The Boss and Stacey and generally acting like a two year old in the midst of a tantrum.

This lightweight and derivative contribution to the superspy chick subgenre might have been mildly entertaining. Might have been. If, that is, the author had seen fit to create even one real female character with any depth, intelligence or wit. Instead, she gives us cartoon drawings for characters and poorly-executed missions. The only originality given the reader here is the sheer number of times the f-bomb can be dropped per chick-lit page. Of course, the f-bomb is merely one among many many many other curse words planted throughout the book like so much cow manure in a cornfield. The profanity-laden dialogue of both Caitlin and her BFF Stacey is symptomatic of their apparent inability to have an articulate conversation with anyone. Both of them appear to be no more or less than self-absorbed, alcoholic bimbos. If I wanted to experience the joys of such entertainment, I could tune in to the next episode of COPS.

I gave this book 2 stars only because I reserve one star for books I loathe and despise.

As always, MaryJanice Davidson provides a strong, independant female character with tons of funny wit and amazing talent, plus some steamy scenes as well! Complete with a goregous, inherently masculine male lead character and a great plot, Davidson gives a great show and a wonderful time!

What would you do if you are out for a good time with friends, and then wake up some time later, and you are that lady from the bionic woman? This is cool premise and it struck me as just so funny. She is just like Lindsay Wagner ( I think her name was - only saw them in reruns). Sometimes it was silly, but it still had me laughing. And a good laugh is always worth the ticket. 4 stars for originality, 1 one star for fun.

Not sure how it will hold up as a series, but willing to go another book or two to see.

One moment Caitlyn James is having a night out with her friends and the next moment she is waking up nine days later as a bionic woman. The team that rebuilt Caitlyn is dubbed the Wagner Team (after the old TV show The Bionic Woman). Caitlyn is now the only "fully functioning cybernetic organism who has retained her humanity." This is not to say she is the ONLY cybernetic person existing. There is one other, the Wolf.

Since the O.S.F. (Office of Scientific Findings) saved Caitlyn's life and rebuilt her, they believe she now belongs to them. However, Caitlyn disagrees; she never asked them to save her. The head of O.S.F., known by most simply as The Boss, has given Caitlyn the field code name of Mirage. Why? Because no one knows when or if she will ever show up for an assignment when summoned by The Boss. (O.S.F. seems to have a thing for code name.)

Caitlyn has an upscale salon shop to run. She has no time for O.S.F. But when people start dying due to the Wolf, according to The Boss, Caitlyn's conscience forces her to accept the mission. There is one huge problem. The gorgeous, smart, and funny Wolf thought SHE was the one killing off members of the Wagner team. Now what?

**** I work in a hospital. So when Stacy, Caitlyn's best friend, says she had called the hospital and was told Caitlyn was dead, I almost fell out of my chair. Law suit city! No one in a hospital can admit the death of a patient over a phone to anyone. (Long distance next-of-kin, perhaps, IF consent forms are notarized and faxed in.)

Otherwise, I found this story to be terrific. Sure, Caitlyn seems childish at times and tries too hard to be flippant; however, I would probably react the same way if I found myself in her place. But it is the secondary characters of Stacy and The Boss that often steal the spot light. Those characters are so well done! If you are looking for a light read with some humor (sometimes over-the-top) and a little who-dunnit, then this book is for you. ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

this book is a complete waste of time the only enjoyable part is the introduction, the rest seems like some inside joke between I don't know who. This book is not worth any money or time

Having read Ishmael, The Story of B, and After Dachau, I thought I knew what I was getting into with this book. I should have done my research. Perhaps if Daniel Quinn had provided a more accurate introduction (or not written one at all) I would have been able to take something from this book. As it is, I spent a too much time distracted by the thought that maybe, just maybe, he meant what he said and this was the result of a dream coupled with the extreme coincidence of his collaboration with Tom Whalen. My time would have been better served reading this book the way I know I would have had I not read his intro -- ignoring the vivid but useless description of the "physical" characteristics of this invented afterlife, and focusing on the message. Even with that in mind, I think Quinn has missed his mark here. There's certainly a good dose of creativity and some humor, and it paints a fascinating picture, but in the end I feel like I wasted my time. I can certainly think of better ways to impart dribbles of philosophy -- perhaps if he had spent less time describing the fantasy and more time actually trying to make a point, it would have been worthwhile. As it is, the "message" could easily be distilled into a single page, and we would all be much better for it.

If any of this book is true, you will do everything to prolong your life. What this book describes can only be one person's version of Hell.

I LOVED this book. The introduction is the best part. It makes the rest of the book so much more fascinating.

Reading the back cover of the book, text that is given in the editorial reviews section above, you are reading the most clever, the funniest part of the book. The next best is the Introduction - coincidences, human interaction, human fraility. No need to read beyond that. The book is clever, making marvelous connections to real historical people. Unfortunately, the cleverness is useless when the clever premise and/or connection degrades into drivel ... often close but never successful, funny or perceptive. There's too much good and excellent literature to waste your time on this. Even if you wish to mindlessly kill time, you can easily find better mindless reading.

The fact that this book has been published at all is bewildering. The author has created a theory that purports to explain the NDE phenomenon through debunking; the difficulty is that she does not provide any evidence at all! The entire book consists of her observations and comments, and this simpy does not suffice. She dismisses the evidence that DOES exist without addressing it.

For example: the most challenging and interesting book on the subject is Michael Sabom's "Recollections at Death". He presents numerous well-documented cases that suggest that the NDE is real - and he also provides a thoughtful, articulate and fair-minded discussion of the possible answers.

Blackmore does not actually deal with any of the evidence, with one exception: she refers to the ONE detailed case where he does not provide the original records. He includes it because of its uniqueness - in ALL other cases, he includes the original medical records. She makes a joke about it and disregards it; she never makes the point that his book is filled with evidence based on origical records and personnel. Any reader who is not familiar with Sabom might think that this one case is typical of the entire book!

Reading this book has made me much more aware and sceptical of authors who claim to be experts. If I was not familiar with the work done on this subject, I would not know how misleading and simply inaccurate Blackmore's book is. Why didn't the publishers check for accuracy? Why was a book about a theory published without evidence?

In addition, Blackmore claims to have had a NDE herself. This is not true. She describes a hallucination following the use of drugs - then goes on to describe the related experience and associates it with the NDEs of people on the verge of death! A disgraceful book.

This book fails on several levels. Mainly, however, because it is not objective. It starts from a particular premise and then endeavours to prove the validity of that premise despite the facts that the author encounters during her journey of 'honest' investigation.

The book must have been written before the now celebrated and quite astonishing case of Pam Reynolds who in Phoenix Arizona underwent 'shut-down' surgery. In this pioneering operative technique all the blood is drained from the patient's brain and it was during one of these shut-down procedures that Pam experienced a NDE. During the operation, Pam could not only recall in some detail what was said and but also describe the equipment that was being used by Dr Speztler, the surgeon in charge, and his team although she was clinically (and verifiably so) brain-dead at the time.

Dr Blackmore apparently is a Zen Practitioner and so it seems incredibly bizarre that she should imagine that 'all' we are and experience can be simply explained away by the somewhat limited model of reality as understood by science today. Surely one should, at the very least, have the modesty to entertain the remote possibility that the mysteries of life, mind and matter may not yet fully be understood by humanity?

Susan Blackmore once believed in Tarot, ESP, and all things wild and wonderful. Alas, for those who yearn to believe in the Wonders of the Invisible World, she is a meticulous thinker who carefully gathers and investigates the evidence. This is by far the best book on NDEs. But if what you want is some reassurance of life after death, this book will disappoint. Beautifully thought out and wonderfully written.

This is an excellent, well written, thought-provoking book. Susan Blackmore started her research career hunting for evidence of the supernatural. When most people would have given up, she persisted, tracking down other people's experiences and doing her own experiments. One track of that journey took her into "Near Death Experiences", which is partly what this book is about. While we can never really know what happens during death, no one has tried harder or with greater honesty to find out. Her account of that journey and where it took her makes fascinating reading, and while her conclusions may take some digestion, at least they are reassuringly rational.

People want to think that there is something better. But thinking and wanting of something better doesn not mean it be true. Take the afterlife for example. I've talked at least a dozen times with two renown neuroscientists at NYU. I was planning on writing a script that featured this phenomena - the afterlife. After reading some basic neuroscience and philosophy books I concluded, as the neuroscientists had previously, that there in all actuality probably is no afterlife. Current advances in neurology in death hint at this and will probably once and for all prove its non-existance. It's slowly becoming fact whether you want to believe it or not. Here's what the neuroscientists pointed out. During the first 5-15 mins of death the brain is being asphyxiated (choked) due to lack of oxygen. It is during this time that the mind hallucinates (tripping - like on drugs) and sifts through images of the past (memories; life flashing before your eyes) accompanied by past figures and white. The mind is desparately trying to grasp onto the "self" that's slowly drowning in its own memories. This is where people who experienced NDE's (near death experiences) erronously claim proof of an afterlife. However, they did not really endure the entire trip TO death. Once you reach complete death there is just nothing. Your existence is complete. Nothing- not even that. I can't even lingustically put it into words. But this is nothing at all to fear because the plane of fear is non-existent at this stage. Most NDE's are experienced at hospitals. Because of this simple fact many are saved before they reach the 15-20 min mark that marks complete mental and physical death. There have been stories of people who experienced NDE's for hours. Mind you these stories surfaced from the 60's- 80's when our medical technology was inferior to todays and the true line of death was not completely defined. So many NDE claims have to be taken with a grain of salt. Today you'll never ever hear of an NDE lasting for mor that 15-20 mins - and even with those times there is usually some sort of brain damage. Mind you - the brain is a very complex part. Your consciousness will do anything to keep you alive - anything. But because people have had these experiences and come out of them does not in any way, shape or form suggest that an afterlife is even plausable. These Near Death Experiences are purely psychological and should be treated as such - not spiritual endeavours.

This book completely logically defends what those neuroscientists pointed out to me earlier -that an afterlife is just wishful thinking.

This is a wonderful work by great philosopher Paul Edwards.I should rather say that this is the only work along with Immortality(again by Paul Edwards) that has completely disected, bisected and reduced to shreds the case of Reincarnation.
Immortality is a slightly different work as in that book, Edwards is an editor and has done the wonderful job by not being biased in any way by producing the views by different scholars over the ages that are in favour of reincarnation as well as the ones who are not in its favour.

Being born and brought up in India I have been hearing this view throughout my life: reincarnation and Karma ,which is the basic foundation of Hinduism. This was propagated in Hinduism by Brahmans to deal with Caste system and later to justify the sufferings in the world. To sum it up, it is the philosophy followed by people who are a burden to society and dont have the guts to stand up and reach out to the people to alleviate there misery and suffering.This was opposed by Carvaka school of thought as well, but Edwards has not listed it.Even some Sikhs have started believing in this sick and utterly superfluos so called philosophy.Basically any religion following this so called philosophy of Karma and Reincarnation is not a religion but a social disease.Some have gone so far as to compare it with the Law of Conservation of Energy and Karma with the Newton's third law of motion.

Paul Edwards has effectively dealt with all these points and the result is this wonderful work ,Reincarnation : A Critical Examination.

It is a breath of fresh air to have at long last a systematic examination of these strange Eastern beliefs. No one could have done the job better than Paul Edwards. His arguments are devastating, his references voluminous, his scholarship awesome. Edwards brings his usual incisiveness, clarity, and wit to bear on ancient beliefs that underlie much of the fuzzy thinking of the New Age movement. He deftly exposes the philosophical and practical deficiencies of the concept of Karma and provides a trenchant critique of the evidence in favor of reincarnation.

I have a disdain for the notion of reincarnation, and to my mind, others who are similarly skeptical, such as Paul Edwards, the author of this book, never propound the best arguments against it.

If we were ordained to live many times over, the friendships and loving relationships that we experience in any given lifetime would be rendered worthless by an eschatological process that usually erases our memories clean of them and sends us back into the world to acquire new ones.

Moreover, if our parents, siblings and descendants in one lifetime might be related to us in a different manner in another lifetime, the whole process of rebirth becomes somewhat incestuous, notwithstanding the transposition of bodies and the absence of memories. If there is a Supreme Being, he's surely restored more divine order to universal chaos than would actually exist if we really were to live again.

So I actually picked up Edwards's book as a member of the anti-reincarnation choir waiting to be preached to, but this book was only somewhat satisfying in that regard. He spends a lot of time inveighing against the methodology used by New Age gurus and parapsychologists, exposing the frauds and charlatans among them. This includes a re-examination of the famous "Bridey Murphy" case.

Otherwise, it seems to be a book meant primarily for philosophy students and teachers. Many of its arguments allude to terms and concepts that leave this political science major scratching my head.

Others will sound more familiar such as the "absence of justice" argument (those of us who don't remember our past incarnations won't remember why we are being rewarded or punished in our present ones) and the "population" argument (the amount of people who have ever lived is many times greater than those alive now - so in what sort of halfway house are unreincarnated souls waiting to be reborn in? And if we have all lived before, why is it that new souls are no longer being created?).

If it is intended as a scholarly work, it's a somewhat slipshod one. There are a number of occasions where the author is developing a line of thought and then breaks it off, promising to pick it up again in a later chapter.

Edwards's argument is largely an atheistic one against any sort of post-death survival whatsoever, relying largely upon what he sees as the inseparability of the mind and the body. However, he does concede the theoretical possibility of an apocalyptic resurrection and reconstruction of original body parts and a reconstitution of each original mind within. The mind/body issue is apparently an age-old philosophical dispute, and Edwards comes down squarely on the side that the mind cannot exist separate and apart from the body that it directs.

But however persuasive his argument against ANY sort of survival might be from an empirical point of view, it seems to largely ignore stories of Near-Death-Experiences (NDE's) in which an unconscious patient was later able to give accurate descriptions of what was going on around him.

Maybe these stories would also lose their credibility upon being subjected to the same rigorous academic scrutiny that Edwards and others subject Ian Wilson's cases of spontaneous memories of past lives, but that has never been done to my satisfaction, in this book or in any other skeptical work.

Edwards has a sardonic wit that I can especially appreciate, and he often interrupts his empirical analysis to skewer a number of targets, including religious fundamentalism. His disparagement of the divine in general may yet prove to be correct, but it is an undercurrent that runs through this work and sometimes detracts from it. At one point, he borrows from Christian philosopher, C.S. Lewis, to inveigh against theocracy as "the worst of all governments".

Both Edwards and Lewis seem oblivious to the truism that atheism can be as much of a religion as theism, and the destruction wrought during the 20th century by atheistic governments in Germany and Soviet Russia suggest that it can be just as deadly.

Regardless of the state of evidence concerning survival in general and reincarnation in particular or of the existence of a divine being, a little less trenchant agnosticism and awe towards the Unknown might suit Edwards better as a human being and as an academic.

Only guillible believers in reincarnation who has shut their minds to the facts, their consciences, and different viewpoints could possibly review this book poorly. It is an excellent work, but only understood in its full implications by minds free of childish fantasies

If one has written a book entitled Reincarnation, even if only to discredit it, it would still be well to have a passing acquaintance with how it is supposed to work.
In chapter 16 of this book, author Edwards seeks to debunk Ian Stevenson. Here he informs us that most human lives are quite wretched, and that no one would want to incarnate into any such life. Since people are indeed born into such situations, he concludes that this refutes the notion of reincarnation, which Edwards declares straightaway to be "fantastic if not indeed pure nonsense".
Evidently, the author is assuming the act of reincarnation is voluntary.
Buddhists have been studying this "fantastic" idea of reincarnation for millennia, and their interest in this matter is well-known. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is essentially an instruction manual on how to avoid reincarnation. It describes death as something like the big sleep, and the bardo after death as a sort of dreamscape. According to this text, unless one has attained sufficient stability of mind through meditation and other practices, the process of reincarnation is INVOLUNTARY. And so, yes, people do get reincarnated into awful situations - because they have no more control over the process than most of us have over our dreams.
The idea that consciousness might exist independent of a physical body is also subject to Edwards' "fantastic if not indeed pure nonsense" dismissal. Apparently he belongs to the Alice in Wonderland school of investigation - first the verdict, then the evidence. Edwards is quite clear about this - he proudly parades his prejudice as a "presumption", and concludes, "EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF SPECIFIC FLAWS, a rational person will conclude that Stevenson's reports are seriously defective" [emphasis added]. An odd notion of rationality.
According to some physicists, our reality may actually possess 12 dimensions (M-theory). This idea has been greeted with a bemused interest. However, woe unto anyone who dare propose that just one of those extra dimensions might be a home for the subtle energies of mind.
Well-reasoned skepticism is a good thing - it forces us to hone our thinking. However, as stated by Karl Popper, the eminent philosopher of science, if you set out to refute someone else's theory, you are obliged to first give that theory its best shot. This author doesn’t even come close.

After reading many other books on Near Death Experiences, I came to the conclusion that this book was very biassed in its presentation. 75% of other books on near death experiences tell about people who had met Jesus at the end of a tunnel. He was as an immense light of love. He introduced himself and talked to them before they had to return to their bodies. There were also experiences of people taken to hell and came back to life to tell about it. This book had an agenda to promote, the occult. It doesn't tell the whole story on near death experiences, only the views of her occult movement. Not worth wasting your time reading.

I enjoyed this work tremendously and found it inspiring and honest. I can see how many would rather have a feel good - everything was wonderful approach to the NDE, but I would prefer the good and the bad. Everyone gets the experience they need or have earned - which is the bottom line message of this book. I can see how the author generated controversy with her experiences, but I found her writing tremendously interesting and useful.

I was very disappointed with this book. It cannot be considered a serious study of the NDE. A waste of time, unless you think NDE experiences are related to alien abductions.

I divide Atwater's book into two parts. The first half is an interesting overview of the near-death experience (NDE). The second half deals with New Age-like, occult-like issues that depart from NDE. The second section is so New Age-y and off-the-point (and so counter to my beliefs religious and otherwise), that I could only stand to thumb through it. This half of the book contains the silly remarks that draw many complaints in reviews. The purpose of the book really seems to promote interest in all sorts of occult practices (especially in light of her anti-Christian attitude, described below, and her occupation as a psychic advisor and as a writer in occult topics). My questioning of her motive for this "bait-and-switch" book is supported by her wanderings into non-NDE topics (such as the alien abduction) and her claims to have had every type of paranormal experience (including both types of "walk in" phenomena: now that she has a different soul, doens't that make her a different person?).

Secondly, I object to Atwater's contemporary politically correct way of joyfully respecting all belief systems and cultures except for Christianity. Christians come in all varieties and cannot be stereotyped. In every reference to Christians the tension begins and Ms. Atwater never misses an opportunity to stab them in the back and twist the knife. She can't be respectful to Christianity at all for one second. Not once. I think that this blind anger invalidates her overall judgment and might turn readers away from more NDE research. How can I trust someone whose writing is always biased and whose conclusions are partial? Real research must be objective, but Atwater redefines the word.

One of the most astonishing things about the book was the jealousy the author speaks of. If NDEs are short voyages to death and the experience generally develops one's personality and conscience, it is interesting to see experiencers who are still selfish and go after fame and success in a very negative manner.

I loved the book, because I believe the author is open and sincere with her subject. I am reading the Complete Idiot's Guide... right now and it is as good as this one.