Appendix A
A Reader's Guide to the Near-Death-Experience Literature
Condensed Edition
A woman's heart stops in surgery. For several minutes she has no measurable brain activity. When she wakes, she describes the surgical instruments, the conversations in the room, and a meeting with dead relatives she didn't know had died. Her surgeon confirms the details.
Stories like that one fill the near-death-experience (NDE) literature. Some of the research behind them is strong. Some is weak. Some is popular and widely quoted but hard to verify. Some is published in top medical journals and has stood up under peer review for decades. If you want to dig deeper into the evidence this book draws on, you need to know which is which.
That is what this appendix is for. I have organized the major works by category, and for each one I've tried to say plainly what it is, why it matters, and where its limits are. I don't expect most readers to track down every title here. But for the reader who wants to check my sources, or who wants to keep reading after finishing this book, this is the place to start.
The works listed here are the ones I've drawn on most heavily in Chapters 5, 6, 9, 10, and 30. A curated set of individual case studies appears in Appendix B.
These are the books that opened the field. None of them would pass the methods used by later clinical research. But without them there would be no field at all. They named the thing, listed its common features, and gave researchers a shared language.
Raymond A. Moody Jr., Life After Life (Atlanta: Mockingbird Books, 1975).
The book that started it all. Moody, a psychiatrist and philosopher, coined the term "near-death experience" and identified the pattern most people now recognize: the tunnel, the light, the life review, the border, the reluctant return. His sample was small and anecdotal. He made no claim to scientific rigor. But his descriptions proved remarkably stable across later, larger studies, and his work launched four decades of medical and psychological research. Read it for historical context, not as evidence in itself.1
Kenneth Ring, Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980).
Ring was the first researcher to study NDEs with careful methods. He used structured talks and number-based study of 102 survivors of close brushes with death. His five-stage model (peace, body leaving, entering darkness, seeing light, entering light) gave the field its first research-based structure. Ring also noted that the depth and frequency of NDE features were similar across cardiac arrest, accident, and suicide-attempt groups. This was an early signal that the experience was not simply a product of expectation or diagnosis.
Kenneth Ring, Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience (New York: William Morrow, 1984).
Ring's follow-up shifted focus from what NDEs are to what they do. He tracked what happened to NDE survivors over the long term. Many lost their fear of death. They showed more concern for others and moved away from organized religion toward a broader sense of the spiritual. The aftereffects data has held up well. The book's speculative chapters on planetary prophecy and human evolution have not.2
Michael B. Sabom, Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation (New York: Harper & Row, 1982).
Sabom, a cardiologist, brought clinical credibility to the field. He compared the descriptions cardiac-arrest patients gave of their own resuscitations with what actually happened, as documented in medical records. In a control group, patients who had not had NDEs guessed wrong about the details of resuscitation procedures. NDE patients got them right. This was the first controlled proof that patients could see real things while their hearts had stopped. It remains one of the strongest arguments against the claim that NDEs are just brain tricks. Used in Chapter 6.3
Michael B. Sabom, Light and Death: One Doctor's Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998).
Sabom's second book gives the most detailed medical account of the Pam Reynolds case, the single most famous NDE in the literature. Reynolds underwent a standstill operation in which her body temperature was lowered, her heart was stopped, and her brain showed no electrical activity. She reported detailed veridical observations from the operating room during that period. Sabom provides the clinical documentation. The case is discussed at length in Appendix B.
These are the studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals. They represent the strongest empirical evidence in the field. Their methodology is public, their data is available for scrutiny, and they have survived the review process at some of the world's most respected venues.
Pim van Lommel, Ruud van Wees, Vincent Meyers, and Inge Greyson, "Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands," The Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45.
The Dutch study. Van Lommel and colleagues conducted a prospective study of 344 cardiac-arrest survivors across ten hospitals. Eighteen percent reported an NDE. Its great strength is the design: patients were talked to within days of their hearts restarting, not years later. The medical facts were written down in real time. Van Lommel found no body-related, mental, or drug-related factor that predicted who would have an NDE and who would not. The Lancet publication gave the field a level of mainstream medical attention it had never had. Cited extensively in Chapter 6.4
Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperOne, 2010).
Van Lommel's full-length book expands on the Lancet study and argues that the mind is not made by the brain. The chapters on clinical data are solid and clear. The later chapters, which draw on quantum physics to make the case, are more guesswork than science. Readers should keep the well-proven clinical findings apart from the theory van Lommel builds on top of them.
Sam Parnia et al., "AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A Prospective Study," Resuscitation 85 (2014): 1799–1805.
The AWARE I study was the first large, prospective study designed to test veridical out-of-body reports during cardiac arrest. Researchers placed hidden visual targets in resuscitation rooms. Of 2,060 cardiac-arrest events, 140 survivors were interviewed. Nine percent reported NDEs. Two percent reported awareness with explicit recall. One verified case of visual and auditory awareness during a three-minute period of cardiac arrest was documented. The hidden-target test did not produce any proven "hits." But the study's main gift is the one proven case and the careful methods it brought to the question.5
Sam Parnia et al., "AWAreness during REsuscitation—II: A Multi-Centre Study of Consciousness and Awareness in Cardiac Arrest," Resuscitation 191 (2023): 109903.
AWARE II grew the scope, studying 567 cardiac-arrest patients across 25 hospitals. Survivors reported recalled experiences of death at a higher rate than before, when structured talks were used. Brain scans in a subset of patients showed spikes of brain work during CPR. Parnia's team reads this as a sign of clear, waking thought during the dying process. The study does not settle the cause, but it shows that something real happens in the brain at the point of dying that lines up with aware experience. Used in Chapter 5 and Chapter 9.6
Bruce Greyson, 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, is the most senior active NDE researcher. His Greyson NDE Scale (1983) remains the standard measurement tool. After is his career summary: fifty years of clinical work and research, written for a general audience. Greyson is cautious and measured. He presents the evidence without overreaching, acknowledges the limits of what can be proven, and is careful to distinguish between what the data shows and what it might mean. For the reader who wants a single, balanced overview of the field from its most respected voice, this is the book.7
A note on methodology. The shift from story-based collections (Moody, Ring) to planned clinical studies (van Lommel, Parnia, Greyson) marks the biggest turning point in NDE research. Planned studies talk to patients shortly after their hearts restart, compare their reports against medical records, and control for other possible causes. They cannot prove that the mind survives death. But they can show, and do show, that some patients report correct details of events that took place while their hearts were stopped and their brains showed no measurable activity. That is the core evidence this book relies on.
Jeffrey Long with Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (New York: HarperOne, 2010).
Long, a radiation oncologist, founded the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF). He built the largest NDE database in the world, with over 4,000 accounts at the time of publication and many more since. His method is survey-based: experiencers submit detailed questionnaires online, and Long analyzes the responses statistically. The book argues nine lines of evidence for the reality of NDEs. Its strength is the sheer size of the dataset and the cross-cultural consistency Long finds. Its weakness is self-selection: the database draws from people who seek out an NDE website, which may skew toward those who view their experience positively. Long is also more confident in his conclusions than the data strictly warrants. Use this book for its breadth and its patterns, not as a standalone proof.8
Jeffrey Long with Paul Perry, God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperOne, 2016).
Long's follow-up focuses specifically on the God-encounter element of NDEs. He finds that most experiencers report a sense of an overwhelmingly loving presence. Long draws conclusions that go beyond what survey data can prove on its own. Still, the reported encounter with a loving presence shows striking consistency across religious and non-religious experiencers. That pattern is worth noting. I treat it with caution.
Not every NDE is an encounter with light and peace. A smaller but significant percentage of reported experiences are frightening, dark, or hellish. This literature matters for our purposes because it bears directly on the question of what the soul meets at death when it is not ready for what it finds. I draw on it especially in Chapter 10.
Maurice Rawlings, Beyond Death's Door (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978).
Rawlings, a cardiologist, argued that hellish NDEs are far more common than the literature suggests, because patients repress frightening experiences quickly after resuscitation. He claimed to interview patients within minutes of cardiac arrest, before repression could set in, and found a much higher rate of distressing experiences than Moody or Ring reported. His clinical claims are striking, but his methods are poorly recorded. His strong Christian beliefs raise questions about whether his expectations shaped what he heard from patients. Later researchers have not confirmed his specific ratios. Read Rawlings as a corrective to the idea that all NDEs are pleasant, but treat his numbers with caution.9
Nancy Evans Bush, Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences (Cleveland: Nancy Evans Bush, 2012).
Bush, a former president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), is the most careful researcher of distressing NDEs. She identifies three main types: the inverse or "hellish" experience (darkness, demonic beings, torment), the void experience (an empty, meaningless nothingness), and the experience of judgment or cosmic indifference. Bush writes from personal experience. She had a distressing NDE herself and spent decades working through its meaning. The book is honest, measured, and theologically sensitive. It is the best single source on the topic.10
Bruce Greyson and Nancy Evans Bush, "Distressing Near-Death Experiences," Psychiatry 55 (1992): 95–110.
The foundational academic article on distressing NDEs. Greyson and Bush studied fifty accounts and sorted them into three types. The first is a normal NDE that turns frightening, often through a loss of control. The second is the void, a sense of empty nothingness. The third is the graphic "hellish" experience. The article brought scholarly rigor to a topic that had been mostly handled anecdotally. It remains the standard reference.
Howard Storm, My Descent into Death: A Second Chance at Life (New York: Doubleday, 2005).
Storm, an art professor and committed atheist, suffered a ruptured intestine in Paris in 1985. He reported a terrifying NDE in which hostile beings attacked him in darkness. The experience then shifted: Storm cried out for help, and a being of light came to him. He later became a United Church of Christ pastor. His case is the fullest account of a hellish NDE that turns toward rescue. I use it in Chapter 10 and Chapter 13 as an example of what I call "the cry from the darkness." The book is a memoir, not a medical report. The details are vivid, but they are Storm's own telling, not checked by outside records.
Most NDE researchers are clinicians or psychologists, not theologians. The works below represent serious attempts by Christian thinkers to engage the NDE evidence theologically.
J. Steve Miller, 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 writes as a Christian thinker and looks at the NDE evidence with a clear question in mind: do these experiences point to God? The book is clearly written, with useful summaries of the major studies. It is not original research but a guide to the research of others. For a lay reader who wants the Christian case laid out simply, it works well. I have used Miller as a gateway source in Chapter 6.11
Gary R. Habermas and J. P. Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality (1998; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004).
Habermas and Moreland, both thinkers trained in philosophy, build a layered case for life after death. They draw on NDEs, the rising of Jesus from the dead, and arguments for the soul. The NDE chapters are balanced and careful. The chapters on the soul are among the clearest short treatments of the view that we are more than our bodies. Moreland's case that the soul is a simple, non-physical thing is especially useful. The book as a whole is the strongest single volume that brings NDE evidence and Christian philosophy together. Referenced in Chapters 6 and 5.12
What about skeptical responses? I should note that the NDE literature has drawn serious criticism. Susan Blackmore (Dying to Live, 1993) argued that NDEs can be explained by brain chemistry in the dying person. Keith Augustine has published wide-ranging critiques. Jason Braithwaite has proposed that the brain's time-sensing region is the cause. I engage these objections in Chapter 6, where I argue that the verified cases are the hardest for brain-only explanations to account for. But the reader should know that the field is truly debated, and I have tried to show the evidence fairly rather than stack the deck.
Readers who want to go beyond the popular books and into the primary research should know where that research is published.
Journal of Near-Death Studies (JNDS), published by the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), 1982–present.
JNDS is the main scholarly journal for NDE research. It publishes peer-reviewed articles on what NDEs are like, how they affect people, what the brain does during them, and what they might mean. The journal has been running for over forty years and is the single most important venue for specialized NDE research. Its scope is narrow by design: it exists to study the experience and its effects, not to settle metaphysical questions. Back issues are available through IANDS. For any reader who wants to check primary sources, this is where most of them live.13
Resuscitation, published by Elsevier, 1972–present.
Resuscitation is the leading medical journal for cardiac-arrest and CPR research. It published both the AWARE I (2014) and AWARE II (2023) studies. The fact that NDE research appears here, side by side with standard heart-restart medicine, gives the field a level of trust it could not earn from a niche journal alone. When critics claim the field is fringe, point them to Resuscitation.
The Lancet, published by Elsevier, 1823–present.
One of the oldest and most prestigious medical journals in the world. Van Lommel's 2001 prospective study was published here. That single publication did more to bring NDE research into mainstream medicine than perhaps any other event in the field's history.
Three more works are worth mentioning, even though they fall outside the main categories above.
Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying (New York: Poseidon Press, 1992).
Not an NDE book, strictly speaking. Callanan and Kelley are both hospice nurses. They describe what they call "nearing death awareness." In their last hours or days, some dying patients seem to see dead loved ones. Others speak of travel or describe scenes of beauty. The book is kind and grounded in what the nurses saw firsthand at the bedside. For this book, it matters because the deathbed visions Callanan describes overlap with the NDE encounter and the pattern I build in Chapter 5.14
Pin van Lommel, "Non-local Consciousness: A Concept Based on Scientific Research on Near-Death Experiences During Cardiac Arrest," Journal of Consciousness Studies 20, nos. 1–2 (2013): 7–48.
A short academic article in which van Lommel lays out his core argument that the mind exists beyond the brain. Easier to read than the full book for those who want his central case without the quantum-physics guesswork.
Janice Miner Holden, Bruce Greyson, and Debbie James, eds., The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2009).
The closest thing the field has to a complete scholarly reference. The Handbook covers the history of NDE research, the major studies, proposed explanations (both brain-based and non-material), cross-cultural NDEs, lasting effects on survivors, and the frightening-experience research. Each chapter is written by a leading researcher. For the seminary student or academic who needs a single authoritative overview, this is it.15
I want to close with a word of honesty. I am a theologian, not a neuroscientist. I have tried to read this literature carefully and to represent it fairly. The NDE evidence does not prove the soul's survival after death. It does not prove that God meets the dying. What it does is give us well-documented cases. In those cases, people report conscious experience during cardiac arrest. They perceive things they should not be able to perceive. And they come back changed. Those cases fit the theological picture I am painting in this book. They do not require it. But they are consistent with it in ways that deserve serious attention from anyone who cares about what happens when we die.
↑ 1. Moody's original sample consisted of roughly 150 interviews, none conducted under controlled conditions. He acknowledged this openly. Later editions of Life After Life include a foreword by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
↑ 2. Ring's aftereffects research was later extended and confirmed by Pim van Lommel's longitudinal follow-up, which tracked cardiac-arrest survivors over an eight-year period.
↑ 3. Sabom, Recollections of Death, 81–115. The control-group comparison is reported in chapter 8.
↑ 4. Van Lommel et al., "Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest," The Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45. The eighteen-percent incidence rate has been broadly confirmed by subsequent prospective studies.
↑ 5. Parnia et al., "AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation," Resuscitation 85 (2014): 1799–1805. The single verified case involved a patient who accurately described events during a three-minute period of documented cardiac arrest, including auditory details of an automated external defibrillator.
↑ 6. Parnia et al., "AWAreness during REsuscitation—II," Resuscitation 191 (2023): 109903. The brain-scan findings are reported in added data files and have drawn much discussion among doctors who study cardiac arrest.
↑ 7. Greyson developed the NDE Scale in 1983 (Bruce Greyson, "The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, Reliability, and Validity," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 171 [1983]: 369–75). The scale remains the standard tool for scoring and sorting NDEs in research.
↑ 8. The NDERF database now contains over 5,000 accounts. The cross-cultural patterns Long finds are real, but keep in mind that people who seek out an NDE website may not be a fair sample of all who have had the experience.
↑ 9. Rawlings's claims about the frequency of hellish NDEs have been challenged by Nancy Evans Bush, Bruce Greyson, and others. The best current estimates place the incidence of distressing NDEs at roughly one to twenty-three percent of all reported NDEs, depending on the sample and the definition used. See Bush, Dancing Past the Dark, chapter 1.
↑ 10. Bush served as president of IANDS and as editor of its newsletter. Her mix of personal experience, clinical knowledge, and scholarly care makes her the most trusted voice on the frightening-NDE research.
↑ 11. Miller also published Near-Death Experiences: Evidence for Survival? (2017), a revised and updated version. Both editions are useful entry points for a lay Christian audience.
↑ 12. Habermas and Moreland, Beyond Death, especially chapters 5–9 (NDE evidence) and chapters 10–12 (philosophical case for the soul). Moreland's argument for the soul as a simple substance is developed more fully in J. P. Moreland, The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014).
↑ 13. JNDS was originally titled Anabiosis (1981–1982) before adopting its current name. It is indexed in PsycINFO and other standard academic databases.
↑ 14. Callanan and Kelley, Final Gifts, especially chapters 2–5. The patterns they describe are consistent with the deathbed vision literature going back to Sir William Barrett, Death-Bed Visions (London: Methuen, 1926).
↑ 15. Holden, Greyson, and James, The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences. Particularly useful chapters include Holden's review of veridical perception cases (chapter 7) and Greyson's overview of explanatory models (chapter 10).