Life After Life (book review)

Life after Life is written by Raymond Moody, and doctor who interviewed 150 people who had near-death experiences. Many of his subjects were clinically dead and then were resuscitated within 20 minutes of dying. Moody found amazing similarities between all of their stories, which is summarized as follows:

"A man is dying, and as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress, he suddenly finds himself outside his own physical body. He watches himself being resuscitated by the hospital staff, he can see and hear what’s happening around him - but other people can’t hear him or see him. He’s in a state of emotional turmoil.

Soon other things begin to happen. He feels he’s moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel towards a brilliant loving light. This ‘Being of Light’ shows him a panoramic playback of his life. At some point he approaches a barrier or border – where he sees the spirits of his dead relatives and friends. He’s overwhelmed by an intense feeling of joy and love, he wants to stay where he is, yet he’s told that he must go back, as his time has not come yet. Reluctantly, he goes back to his body.

Later he tries to tell other people what happened to him, but he can find no words to describe it – the experience is ineffable. He also finds that people don’t believe him – so he stops talking about it. Still, the experience affects his whole life profoundly – he completely loses the fear of death. In fact – he knows that death does not exist."

Moody makes several observations:

• Because of the similarities in stories, Moody believes that annihilation is simply not possible. Therefore, atheists are wrong when they say that life simply ends.
• Christian believe that the Being of Light is either Jesus or an angel, though none see a physical form.
  
• No one says they see heaven or hell.
• The light does speak to some of the people. It is non-judgmental, doesn't speak audibly, but communicates directly via thoughts.
  
• The Light indicates importance in these questions. "What relationships did you make while on earth and what did you learn?" Doing and being.
  
• No one saw heaven or hell, was judged, or saw pearly gates, etc.
  
• He admits that he cannot PROVE that life after death exists. All of his subjects did not ultimately die, they all came back.
  

My own observations:

Assuming these things are true, people will draw a few conclusions:

• Everyone goes to heaven, regardless of how they lived or;
  
• Everyone has eternal life. You can't get to heaven or hell until you're judged and you won't be judged until you actually, ultimately die. The fact that you came back, either by choice or design means you weren't ready to enter eternity.
  

So, his interviews did not change my theology. Moody, on the other hand, went on to invent a machine that supposedly lets living people talk to their dead relatives. I admit that sounds a bit wacky.

Does it provide any comfort for the death of my 17-year old daughter? Not really. It's interesting to think of her floating over her own body, then having a conversation with Jesus about whether she could come back to life or not. I suppose if she was offered to come back, but she would be a quadriplegic vegetable,