“Heaven is Real,” a Newsweek cover proclaimed last week. Renowned neurosurgeon Eben Alexander’s scientific worldview had previously led him to view near-death experiences as having plausible scientific explanations. However, spending seven days in a coma convinced him that the afterlife truly exists.
Accounts of out-of-body encounters with the spiritual world have a long history. Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) wrote 25 books about his trips to heaven and hell. However, public fascination with the subject exploded after the 1975 publication of physician Raymond Moody’s “Life After Life” and cardiologist Maurice Rawlings’s “Beyond Death’s Door,” both of which featured dozens of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs). These NDEs commonly involved feelings of being out of one’s body and of peace and quiet, meeting one or more “Beings of Light,” a life review, and a new perspective on life and death.
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