by Marinus Jan Marijs
The scientific/academic research concerning life after death started in around 1875. When in 1972 parapsychologists were asked which field of research gave the best data related to the question “Is there life after death?”; near death experience were seen as the best field of research. The near death experience is phenomenological almost identical to the out of the body experience, but with the difference that in the second one heartbeat, respiration and other vital functions lie still for several minutes. It concerns patients, that survive, although they were first declared clinically death. Especially the improved reanimation have been the cause for the increasing number of near death experiences. Some have written that the perceptions that manifest themselves during a near death experience are being caused by lack of oxygen. However this explanation fails in relation to the out of the body experience where the vital functions have not been stopped. Furthermore there is a number of people who have had hundreds of out of the body experiences, who would have had brain damage, if it had to do with a lack of oxygen.
In a report discussing near death experiences, it was mentioned that a person had a near death experience while being monitored at an intensive care unit, the monitor indicated that the patient had a cardiac arrest for 47 seconds. In such a short period there cannot be a lack of oxygen in the brain.
The personal accounts of the perceptions that have been done during a near death experience have been verified in many cases by independent observers, such as medical personal, and been proven correct. These data are difficult to explain on naturalistic, psychological, physiological or pharmacological grounds. The near death experiences have been scientifically examined for example by cardiologist Pim van Lommel, who published his results in the medical Journal the Lancet.
(The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world’s best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals. -Wikipedia) .Van Lommel’s excellent study gives substantial support for the idea that there is life after death.
Drawing of a 6 year old girl of her NDE. In Pim van Lommel’s : “Eindeloos bewustzijn”.
