Afterlife exists says top brain surgeon [says he was there during coma]

The Telegraph ^ | October 9, 2012 | Mark Hughes

[grundle]

Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, fell into a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis.

During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion "shut down" and that he then experienced "something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death." In an essay for American magazine Newsweek, which he wrote to promote his book Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a "place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones" and "shimmering beings".

He continues: "Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms." The doctor adds that a "huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. the sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn't get you wet."

Dr Alexander says he had heard stories from patients who spoke of outer body experiences but had disregarded them as "wishful thinking" but has reconsidered his opinion following his own experience.

He added: "I know full well how extraordinary, how frankly unbelievable, all this sounds. Had someone even a doctor told me a story like this in the old days, I would have been quite certain that they were under the spell of some delusion.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don’t automatically believe nor automatically disbelieve what is called “private revelation.”

Hildegard of Bingen had them for over 70 years, and they weren’t “near-death” experiences either: they were intense visions that came to her, on and off, through all 5 senses, from age 3 until her death at age 81.

Even she did not consider them automatically worthy of belief, and for a long time didn’t know if they were a delusion or a gift.

I admire her sane and balanced point of view. God is capable of giving us visions; on the other hand, the brain itself is inconceivably complex, and capable of engendering convincingly fantastic other worlds.

But I want to ask the doctrinaire atheists this question: why and how would unaided materialistic evolution -— you know, that mechanistic process totally defined by survival and reproductive fitness -— have given us such powerful, apparently otherworldly, perceptions, capacities, and drives?

I ask you.

[Pagey]

Just as an aside, that “woman” with the Blue eyes must’ve been pretty darn close to him in order for him to note the eye color.

[grundle]

Thanks for telling me that. Still, it’s good that she didn’t end up becoming the first teacher in space.

[OB1kNOb]

God....sometimes... does allow us choices. Some choose to go on and die, some believe that they have things left undone and come back.

My wife is one that chose to return. In 1994 she contracted viral meningeal-encephalitis and was in ICU for 14 days. During that time she coded one morning while I was there. They revived her and she ultimately recovered after 18 days in the hospital. We are both Christians. She told me months later that while she was coded she found herself standing in front of a veil or curtain and could feel this overwhelming sense of pure ultimate love on the other side. Her urge to be drawn towards that love was very strong and she inately knew it was from God and that her problems and troubles would all be gone if she went towards that love.

She said someone spoke to her (an angel?) and told her she had a choice, that she could either go back to us and continue living, or go through the veil, but once through the veil/curtain she could not change her mind or return to us. She said she really wanted to go through the veil, but saw me trying to raise our three young children (12, 9, & 7 yo)without her and decided to return back to us. Praise God our kids are now 30, 27, and 25 and she's still with me after 35 years of marriage. I believe my wife was given that choice and she decided to forego her reward and return back to finish things that would have been disasterous for me and the kids without her.

[Aliska]

That was a neat I don’t know what that kind of writing is, parable I think. Anyway, gold streets would get boring after awhile. I just got that from a Pentecostal song about streets paved with gold.

[Aliska]

That was a thoughtful post, a different perspective on things. I was vaguely aware that there are different states of consciousness, and I had an NDE in my 20's but it was unpleasant and very frightening. I think it mirrored the state of my soul at the time. Just sucked out of my body at my heart like a vacuum, was I relieved to get back. Now I pray I won't have any more of anything like that, when I go I go.

I think I had Twilight sleep when i had my last child but I guess if you feel pain but don't remember it, it's questionable.

I might come back and look at your link. I've had enough trouble with my mind that I don't engage in any type of technique, practice that could alter my consciousness. I take prescription drugs and they have messed my brain up enough I think. I do think you can reprogram your brain if you are patient, perhaps not everyone. A schizophrenic mathematician did. I forget the name of the film about him.

The Ambien, I don't know personally but it seems like a drug for good and for ill. Very encouraging how it can help comatose/brain damaged patients. I wouldn't want to take it, however.

[LibLieSlayer]

It is an old story but it moves me every time that I read it. There are lessons to be learned in that story. I do not care what Heaven looks like... I just want to spend eternity there! GOD bless.

LLS