Debunking the NDE Debunkers

While Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have been reported for centuries, it was not until the 1970s when Drs. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Raymond Moody, both American psychiatrists, brought it into the public view with books on the subject.   The implication of the NDE is that we do in fact have two bodies, as St. Paul told us - a physical one and a spiritual one.  Or to put it another way, the research strongly suggests that the mind is separate from the brain and is able to operate independently of the physical body.

 NDE researchers have identified six basic characteristics associated with the NDE:

1.  Seeing things from outside the body as in observing one's operations from above or viewing an accident scene from outside the accident.

2.  A feeling that one is in a tunnel and that he or she is proceeding through that     tunnel toward a light at the end of the tunnel.

3.  Being greeted by deceased relative or friends who act as a guide, by an angel,    or by a Being of Light, and then receiving some kind of orientation relative to the person's situation.

4.  A life review in which the person sees every instant of her or his life flash in front of her/him.

5.  Being told by the Being of Light, the "angel," guide or relative that he/she must return to the body, and usually protesting it.

6.  A complete transformation in the person's outlook, generally moving from a materialistic outlook to a spiritual one.  

Many of the NDE stories are impressive and convincing, but  the "debunkers" - those cynical scientific fundamentalists whose have made science their religion while claiming to be skeptics - have attempted to  come up with arguments opposing the idea that mind and brain are separate.  I've rarely, if ever, seen all the arguments advanced by skeptics and debunkers addressed at one time.  However, R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D. addresses all of them in Your Eternal Self, a comprehensive overview of all the evidence for the argument that we are eternal beings temporarily housed in a physical shell.  "... all have been demonstrated to be implausible," Hogan states, referring to the debunkers' theories on the NDE.   Here are the primary theories offered by the debunkers:  

    The Oxygen Deprivation Theory:  One of the debunker's favorite theories is that the NDE is nothing more than the hallucination of an oxygen-deprived brain.  "That  explanation was never given credence by anyone who knows anything about the brain's function," Hogan states, pointing out that people who undergo a NDE describe their senses as being more acutely aware than they had ever been, while the person suffering from loss of oxygen is stuperous or comatose, with very little brain function.

     The Dying Brain Theory:    Hogan points to research indicating that a dying brain has confusional and paranoid thinking, not the alert thinking and aware observations of the NDEr.  He also mentions research by Michael Sabom, M.D. showing that the NDE occurred after the brain had already passed the dying experience.

    The Medication Theory:  Of course, there are numerous NDEs not involving medication or drugs.  But where there is some drug or medication involved, Hogan cites the research of Michael Sabom, a Georgia cardiologist, and Melvin Morse, a professor of pediatrics, both demonstrating that the experiences are quite different from hallucinations caused by drugs.  "The reports are of sensations and consciousness that are more lucid than normal, an effect opposite to that of a brain clouded by drugs," Hogan states. 

    The Mental Instability Theory:  Some debunkers have suggested that NDEs are a result of mental instability.  Hogan cites research indicating that NDE subjects were actually significantly healthier than psychiatric inpatients and outpatients and somewhat healthier than college students.   He quotes Dr. Melvin Morse as saying that NDEs are predominantly positive and an acknowledgement of reality.

   The Defense Against Dying Theory:   Debunkers also claim that the NDE is simply a self-defense mechanism for the person who is confronted with extinction. "But this conflicts with the feeling of the enhanced self-identity that invariably occurs in an NDE," Hogan points out, going on to mention that this theory suggests a dream-like state, whereas NDEs are marked by absolute clarity.

   The Religious Expectation Theory:   "If it were fulfilling the experiencer's expectations of what dying is like, we would expect that only people who believed in and expected a near-death experience would have one, not suicides who anticipate annihilation, fundamentalists who expect only to see God, or agnostics and atheists who would not believe in an NDE phenomenon at all," Hogan writes, adding that this is definitely not the case.

   The Cultural Expectation Theory:   Hogan cites research demonstrating that different cultures have produced remarkably similar findings, thus showing that they're not dependent on expectations in any culture.

     The Hearsay Theory:  Some debunkers speculate that the NDE is pieced together after a trauma from bits and pieces of information gathered from medical personnel while the experiencer floated in and out of consciousness.   Here again, research has shown that experiencers have observed things outside their visual fields and what is going on in the emergency room or trauma scene.

      The Temporal Lobe Seizure Theory:  While temporal lobe seizures produce illusions, hallucinations, and feeling of despair, these negative experiences are clearly not consistent with positive NDEs.

Hogan mentions some interesting research by Carl Becker, Ph.D., professor of comparative thought at Kyoto University and a scholar in bioethics, death, and dying.  Becker determined that NDEs are real, verifiable, objective events, as 1) experiencers have clairvoyant or precognitive knowledge they could not have known that is later verified; 2) the NDE is the same across cultures and religions; 3) the NDE is different from religious expectations and are thus not fantasies; 4) in some cases, a third party has observed visionary figures seen by the experiencers, thus indicating that they are not subjective hallucinations.

"Today, humankind, especially in the West, is intellectually precocious and spiritually retarded," Hogan opines.  "The result is that those areas of our lives based in technology are advanced and those that rely on understanding the meaning of life are primitive.  People are engineering moon landings during their work days and going home to family conflicts, financial stress, and fear of death that leaves their lives full of tension, fear, and unhappiness." 

 For more about Dr. Hogan and his book, check  http://greaterreality.com/indextext.html