PROOF OF HEAVEN by Dr. Eben Alexander

This month I read a recently published book called Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander about his near death experience (NDE). This book is getting a lot of media attention including being the cover story in Newsweek Oct 15, 2012 issue. Dr. Alexander’s NDE is getting attention partly because he is a respected academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. His NDE was unusual in that while he was in another dimension his cortex was completely shut down and he was under medical observation the whole time. The fact that his higher order brain functions were totally offline is significant because it meant that his NDE couldn’t be the result of his brain making up the experience.

Dr. Alexander understood the brain and how it works. He had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the strange stories people told who had under gone severe trauma. But once he’d had his own experience, he knew they were real experiences. He now intends to spend the rest of his life investigating the nature of consciousness. He knows for certain that we are more than our physical brain.

Dr. Alexander’s NDE is also unusual in that unlike most people, who remember who they are in the physical and are met by a loved one, he had no remembrance of who he was in his physical body and he never met anyone that he knew.

The book is an enjoyable read. Dr. Alexander goes back and forth between his inner spiritual journey and what his family experienced while he is in a coma. His illness started when he woke up in terrible pain. His wife called 911 after he lost consciousness and he was rushed to the hospital. The medical staff didn’t know what was wrong with him at first, but after running tests discovered he had bacterial meningitis. This is a rare and deadly disease especially in adults. Dr. Alexander describes in detail what was happening to his body and how the doctors were treating his illness. His chances of survival beyond a vegetative state were low when he was admitted to the hospital and went down the longer he was in a coma.

While in a coma Dr. Alexander went to a world where there was no sense of time as we experience it. “Then I heard a new sound: a living sound, like the richest, most complex, most beautiful piece of music you’ve ever heard. Growing in volume as a pure white light descended.” p. 39. He found himself in a beautiful new world where he flew over a lush, green countryside. He describes the world as an incredible dream. Only it wasn’t a dream. “This place I’d found myself in was completely real.” p. 39.

For much of his journey he was with a young woman. They rode together on the wing of a butterfly. Without using words the woman communicated with him. Her message was: “You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.” Dr. Alexander said, “The message flooded me with a vast and crazy sensation of relief. It was like being handed the rules to a game I’d been playing all my life without ever fully understanding it.” p. 41. He was also told he’d be shown many things but that eventually he’d go back. He didn’t know where he was to go back to since he didn’t remember his physical life.

Later he goes to a place of clouds where some kind of advanced beings were. He writes, “I continued forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light.” p. 46–47. He felt this was God, the Creator, the Source who was responsible for making the universe. “Through the Orb, Om told me that there is not one universe but many–in fact, more than I could conceive–but that love lay at the center of them all. . . Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth–no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be.” p. 49.

On Dr. Alexander’s seventh day in the coma, as the doctors were considering discontinuing treatment, he returned to his body. When he was back home he told his son about his NDE and his son told him to write it down before he read about other people’s NDEs so they wouldn’t influence him. He did as his son suggested.

As a result of his NDE he understood that death is not the end of consciousness but a part of a positive journey. He writes, “God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal–and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.” p. 161.

I highly recommend Dr. Alexander’s book for those interested in what lies beyond this physical world.

Dr. Alexander has established a nonprofit charity to help create a better future for earth and its inhabitants and to advance research and education concerning spiritually transformative experiences. You may want to visit www.Eternea.org. It is a great source of materials on NDE, past lives, and mystical experiences.

If you’d like to hear more about Dr. Alexander’s experience here is a YouTube of an interview he did with Steve Paulson at the 2012 Bioethics Forum entitled “Research on Near Death & The Experience Of Dying”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwLgxniI7KM

Here is a YouTube of Dr. Alexander’s experience.