Consciousness Beyond Life
The Science of the Near-Death Experience
Published on 5. September 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
448 pages
978-0-06-177726-4 (ISBN)
Description
Dr. Pim van Lommel, a renowned cardiologist, was so inspired by the stories his patients told of their Near Death Experiences (NDEs) that he became the first medical practitioner to risk his reputation with a full, systematic trial into the phenomenon. He interviewed 344 heart patients at his hospital who had all clinically died, some for five minutes or longer, before being resuscitated. Of these, 62 - or 18 per cent - reported some ongoing experience after the medical monitors had pronounced them to be dead. Van Lommel claims these are authentic experiences which cannot be reduced to the imagination, psychosis or an oxygen deficiency; people are permanently changed by an NDE. In "Consciousness Beyond Life", van Lommel explains how people who are clinically dead can have such a transformative experience, illustrating his argument with stories of people who have gone through an NDE. In van Lommel's opinion, our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and he shows that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.
Reviews / Votes
"Dr. Pim van Lommel's Consciousness Beyond Life is an exciting, informative, and thorough overview of near-death experiences. As one of the foremost experts in the field, his work moves us closer to rational comprehension of human kind's deepest mystery- life after death." -- Raymond A. Moody MD,PhD, author of Life After Life "In Consciousness Beyond Life, cardiologist Pim van Lommel constructs a model of consciousness that courageously builds on all we know. The resulting view is... bright and hopeful... and has the redeeming feature of being consistent with scientific data, which in our era makes all the difference." -- Dr. Larry Dossey "Pim van Lommel shows that the symphony of human consciousness does continue... [even] at the portals of death. His evidence is robust, and can no longer be ignored either by the science community, or by society at large." -- Dr. Ervin Laszlo "Most books on NDEs only touch on some of the ideas that are presented, but the distinctive contribution of this book is that it presents and defends a complete theory of consciousness... What a brilliant, erudite and magisterial book. A magnificent achievement, clearly a landmark book. " -- Dr. Kenneth Ring, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Connecticut "Consciousness Beyond Life confronts the apparent enigma of clear thinking, accurate perception, and enhanced memory in people who are clinically dead. This rigorous and provocative book may change our ideas about the mind and how we practice medicine." -- Bruce Greyson, M.D., Carlson Professor of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine "I highly recommend Consciousness Beyond Life. Van Lommel is convinced that NDEs are real experiences, not just some sort of brain malfunction. He... has studied NDEs for more than 20 years and this is an authoritative look, with solid medical background. " -- Dr. Charles T. Tart, Ph.D. "There have been several books published which explore consciousness, the near-death experience, or the brain, but van Lommel's book is the most comprehensive... Human beings are something more than physical bodies. There is life after death. Read Consciousness Beyond Life and expand your mind with hope." -- Basil & Spice "The most significant contribution to the field to appear in many years, containing as it does [van Lommel's] mature philosophical reflections on the implications of the findings of his study on near-death experiences in survivors of cardiac arrest." -- David Lorimer, editor of the Network ReviewMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
561 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-177726-4 (9780061777264)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2010
1st Edition
HarperCollins
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Pim van Lommel is a world-renowned cardiologist and medical expert on near-death experiences. For more than twenty-five years he worked as a cardiologist at an eight-hundred-bed teaching hospital in the Netherlands where he began studying near-death experiences in patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In addition to his sensational study published in the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet, van Lommel has authored chapters in several books about near-death experiences and also published many articles about the subject. Over the past several years, van Lommel has been lecturing all over the world on near-death experiences and the relationship between consciousness and brain function. In 2005, he was granted the Bruce Greyson Research Award on behalf of the International Association of Near-Death Studies. In 2006, the president of India awarded him the lifetime achievement award at the World Congress on Clinical and Preventive Cardiology in New Delhi.