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The NDE Conspiracy: Can We Trust Eyewitness Accounts of Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife?
352 pages, Paperback
Published May 6, 2025
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November 30, 2025
AN ENTHUSIASTIC ENDORSEMENT OF MOST NDEs, BUT ALSO A NOTE OF WARNING
Shaun Tabatt is a podcaster who also works in the Christian publishing industry.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 2025 book about a Near-Death Experience (NDE) and an out-of-body (OBE) his wife told him about having experienced: “my late wife Lynette, who went home to Heaven on March 17, 2024, after a 19-month battle with brain cancer. Had I not been immersed in the near-death experience for several years though my work in podcasting and publishing, I don’t that know that I would have had the right understanding and vocabulary to help her make sense of these two experiences… there was no way for me to verify whether she was near death or had clinically died in either of these circumstances. I can’t tell you definitively if her soul left her body or she met her welcoming committee and had her out-of-body experience in the midst of a dream or open vision. If it was in the latter circumstance, that would be referred to as a spiritually transformative experience or STE…
“What I can tell you is that these two experiences opened up a series of long conversations where we were able to talk about what she could expect when she transitioned into the afterlife and the things she could look forward to in Heaven. These two experiences and our related conversations gave Lynette great confidence and much hope over the difficult seven months that were ahead as the cancer slowly broke her body down before she breathed her last breath.” (Pg. 8-9)
He recounts, “I was raised in an extremely conservative Christian denomination that was not big on what we would have described as excesses of the Holy Spirit or anything that would fall under the heading of supernatural. This left me predisposed to be suspect of anything that fell outside of what I deemed the normal and safe Christian life… in December 2014, I joined Baker Publishing Group as a senior publicist and little did I know that I was about to begin my education on the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, and all things near-death experiences and afterlife… A big part of my job … involved traveling to ministry conferences hosted by … organizations such as Bethel Church and Global Awakening, where I was introduced to the Holy Spirit in ways I’d never dreamed possible… I was radically transformed… I now had an expectation that I would encounter the supernatural.” (Pg. 9-10)
He continues, “My first teacher… in the NDE space was John Burke [author of ‘Imagine Heaven’]… he opened my mind to the possibility that rather than the last-ditch efforts of a dying brain, God may actually be involved in and extremely purposeful in these experiences… Now enter my second teacher, Randy Kay [author or ‘Dying to Meet Jesus’]… That first interview Randy and I did for ‘The Shaun Tabatt Show' would go on to reach millions of viewers. This led to a podcast called ‘2 Christian dudes’ where Randy and I interviewed men and women who themselves had a near-death experience… What started as a solitary podcast episode has spurred both Randy and me to dedicate a significant amount of our time to ongoing work in the NDE and afterlife space.” (Pg. 10-13)
He explains, “I want to be up front about the worldview lens through which I process and understand my work and research into this space… My Christian faith and what I’ve read about the afterlife in the Bible both guide how I approach and understand what people have shared with me about their near-death experiences. In the latter part of this book, we will be engaging with themes and topics that are part of the broader NDE and afterlife conversation that fall far outside of the bounds of orthodox Christianity. In fact, some of these are practices the Bible explicitly warns Christians to avoid… I just want you the reader to know where my biases lie. One of the dangers I see in the afterlife space is that there is a tendency to want to put experiencers on a pedestal, making them the expert for all things afterlife related.” (Pg. 17-18)
He explains, “Once I got past my question of why NDEs are so common, I began to wonder about their purpose. Why would God allow these afterlife encounters on such a mega scale at this specific time in history?… I began to understand that there is a massive, often positive transformation that happens in the individual following their NDE… All of this began to make me see that God’s intentions with these NDEs may simply be to show people that He is real and that Heaven and Hell are actual, real, possible eternal destinations in the afterlife… If God is able to make inanimate objects animate to let the world know about Him, it doesn’t seem like a far leap to believe that He can send humans back from the afterlife to testify to what they’ve seen and heard on the other side of the veil.” (Pg. 19)
He clarifies, “My hope as you read this book is that you get the tools and framework you need to receive the good and encouraging things that are for the taking in these amazing NDE stories---and avoid the things that could lead you into spiritual darkness and deception.” (Pg. 23) Later, he adds, “Satan has been lying and deceiving since the Garden of Eden… While God is working to reveal Himself and the true possible eternal destinations of Heaven and hell through these afterlife encounters, satan and his hordes are working to hijack these experiences to lead people away from God… Throughout this book I’ll be preparing you to discern the good from the bad in these NDE encounters.” (Pg. 41)
He admits, “There is a subcategory of the spiritual transformative experience that … I’m finally going to bravely address here… I know what I’m going to say may not be received well by all of my author friends… Many of those [STE] books… get into rather fanciful details. For example, I remember one book in which the author writes about seeing the angels hard at work in the mailroom of Heaven and another who describes children’s day at the amusement park in Heaven… I do get nervous when prophetical voices make fantastical claims about the afterlife.” (Pg. 50-51)
He outlines “My 9-Point NDE Framework’: “1. Gateway to the Afterlife; 2. Out-of-Body Experience; 3. Heightened Senses; 4. Encountering Other Beings; 5. Life Review; 6. Encountering Otherworldly (‘heavenly’ or ‘hellish’) Realms; 7. Learning Special Knowledge; 8. Returning to Your Earth-Bound Body; 9. Post-NDE Lingering Effects.” (Pg. 60-63) But he also notes that “Researchers have made numerous cases for alternative medical explanations for NDEs. Some of these include: Cerebral Hypoxia (Reduced Oxygen Supply to the Brain); Neurotransmitter Imbalance; REM Sleep Intrusion; Temporal Lobe Seizures; Psychological Response to Trauma.” (Pg. 66-67)
He reports a podcast episode where Cathy Byrd [author of ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’] stated that her 2-year old son had accounts suggestive of reincarnation: “Our podcast audience was none too happy with their episode, telling us they were disappointed that we were dabbling in reincarnation and New Age ideas…. We came away … learning the lesson that our audience would not stand for us giving airtime to topics of this nature. And while we never did another episode of the podcast talking about past-life memories, that still doesn’t take away the fact that stories of past-life memories are a common staple in the near-death experience space.” (Pg. 111-112)
He asserts, “While it would be convenient to simply say these past-life memories are true accounts of reincarnation, my Christian faith and worldview do not allow for me to accept that as a reasonable explanation... The Bible clearly teaches that people live only once and face judgment after death before entering Heaven or hell, which is a direct contradiction of the concept of reincarnation.” (Pg. 119-120) Later he adds, “Pre-life memories are incompatible with a Christian faith and worldview pretty much for all the same reasons past-life memories are incompatible with it.” (Pg. 125)
He says of a Netflix series on near-death experiences, “I was a bit disappointed with the latter half of the series that had an extreme focus on psychics, mediums, and reincarnation… it seems that much of the new and popular content coming up in the NDE space has a propensity to shy away from medical explanations for NDEs and discussions about NDEs that fit within the boundaries of historical and orthodox Christian thought. It’s like there’s an aversion to anything that isn’t tied to psychics, mediums, and the extreme paranormal.” (Pg. 129) He then says of Alien Encounters, “Personally, I don’t believe that aliens are real… I do think there is a tolerable case to be made that these alien encounters are either near-death experiences or spiritual transformative experiences.” (Pg. l49)
In the final chapter, he suggests, “I believe [Satan] is also attempting to use near-death experiences in a similar way to confuse people to the end that they will doubt the truth of God’s Word and ultimately choose their own path that leads to eternal destruction.” (Pg. 161) He concludes, “satan is at work today attempting to confuse and twist this gift of NDEs to lead people away from the truths about God that we read in the Bible… [and] down a dark and destructive path that takes them far away from God.” (Pg. 174)
This book will mostly appeal to more-or-less ‘conservative’ Christians who are interested in NDEs.
Shaun Tabatt is a podcaster who also works in the Christian publishing industry.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 2025 book about a Near-Death Experience (NDE) and an out-of-body (OBE) his wife told him about having experienced: “my late wife Lynette, who went home to Heaven on March 17, 2024, after a 19-month battle with brain cancer. Had I not been immersed in the near-death experience for several years though my work in podcasting and publishing, I don’t that know that I would have had the right understanding and vocabulary to help her make sense of these two experiences… there was no way for me to verify whether she was near death or had clinically died in either of these circumstances. I can’t tell you definitively if her soul left her body or she met her welcoming committee and had her out-of-body experience in the midst of a dream or open vision. If it was in the latter circumstance, that would be referred to as a spiritually transformative experience or STE…
“What I can tell you is that these two experiences opened up a series of long conversations where we were able to talk about what she could expect when she transitioned into the afterlife and the things she could look forward to in Heaven. These two experiences and our related conversations gave Lynette great confidence and much hope over the difficult seven months that were ahead as the cancer slowly broke her body down before she breathed her last breath.” (Pg. 8-9)
He recounts, “I was raised in an extremely conservative Christian denomination that was not big on what we would have described as excesses of the Holy Spirit or anything that would fall under the heading of supernatural. This left me predisposed to be suspect of anything that fell outside of what I deemed the normal and safe Christian life… in December 2014, I joined Baker Publishing Group as a senior publicist and little did I know that I was about to begin my education on the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, and all things near-death experiences and afterlife… A big part of my job … involved traveling to ministry conferences hosted by … organizations such as Bethel Church and Global Awakening, where I was introduced to the Holy Spirit in ways I’d never dreamed possible… I was radically transformed… I now had an expectation that I would encounter the supernatural.” (Pg. 9-10)
He continues, “My first teacher… in the NDE space was John Burke [author of ‘Imagine Heaven’]… he opened my mind to the possibility that rather than the last-ditch efforts of a dying brain, God may actually be involved in and extremely purposeful in these experiences… Now enter my second teacher, Randy Kay [author or ‘Dying to Meet Jesus’]… That first interview Randy and I did for ‘The Shaun Tabatt Show' would go on to reach millions of viewers. This led to a podcast called ‘2 Christian dudes’ where Randy and I interviewed men and women who themselves had a near-death experience… What started as a solitary podcast episode has spurred both Randy and me to dedicate a significant amount of our time to ongoing work in the NDE and afterlife space.” (Pg. 10-13)
He explains, “I want to be up front about the worldview lens through which I process and understand my work and research into this space… My Christian faith and what I’ve read about the afterlife in the Bible both guide how I approach and understand what people have shared with me about their near-death experiences. In the latter part of this book, we will be engaging with themes and topics that are part of the broader NDE and afterlife conversation that fall far outside of the bounds of orthodox Christianity. In fact, some of these are practices the Bible explicitly warns Christians to avoid… I just want you the reader to know where my biases lie. One of the dangers I see in the afterlife space is that there is a tendency to want to put experiencers on a pedestal, making them the expert for all things afterlife related.” (Pg. 17-18)
He explains, “Once I got past my question of why NDEs are so common, I began to wonder about their purpose. Why would God allow these afterlife encounters on such a mega scale at this specific time in history?… I began to understand that there is a massive, often positive transformation that happens in the individual following their NDE… All of this began to make me see that God’s intentions with these NDEs may simply be to show people that He is real and that Heaven and Hell are actual, real, possible eternal destinations in the afterlife… If God is able to make inanimate objects animate to let the world know about Him, it doesn’t seem like a far leap to believe that He can send humans back from the afterlife to testify to what they’ve seen and heard on the other side of the veil.” (Pg. 19)
He clarifies, “My hope as you read this book is that you get the tools and framework you need to receive the good and encouraging things that are for the taking in these amazing NDE stories---and avoid the things that could lead you into spiritual darkness and deception.” (Pg. 23) Later, he adds, “Satan has been lying and deceiving since the Garden of Eden… While God is working to reveal Himself and the true possible eternal destinations of Heaven and hell through these afterlife encounters, satan and his hordes are working to hijack these experiences to lead people away from God… Throughout this book I’ll be preparing you to discern the good from the bad in these NDE encounters.” (Pg. 41)
He admits, “There is a subcategory of the spiritual transformative experience that … I’m finally going to bravely address here… I know what I’m going to say may not be received well by all of my author friends… Many of those [STE] books… get into rather fanciful details. For example, I remember one book in which the author writes about seeing the angels hard at work in the mailroom of Heaven and another who describes children’s day at the amusement park in Heaven… I do get nervous when prophetical voices make fantastical claims about the afterlife.” (Pg. 50-51)
He outlines “My 9-Point NDE Framework’: “1. Gateway to the Afterlife; 2. Out-of-Body Experience; 3. Heightened Senses; 4. Encountering Other Beings; 5. Life Review; 6. Encountering Otherworldly (‘heavenly’ or ‘hellish’) Realms; 7. Learning Special Knowledge; 8. Returning to Your Earth-Bound Body; 9. Post-NDE Lingering Effects.” (Pg. 60-63) But he also notes that “Researchers have made numerous cases for alternative medical explanations for NDEs. Some of these include: Cerebral Hypoxia (Reduced Oxygen Supply to the Brain); Neurotransmitter Imbalance; REM Sleep Intrusion; Temporal Lobe Seizures; Psychological Response to Trauma.” (Pg. 66-67)
He reports a podcast episode where Cathy Byrd [author of ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’] stated that her 2-year old son had accounts suggestive of reincarnation: “Our podcast audience was none too happy with their episode, telling us they were disappointed that we were dabbling in reincarnation and New Age ideas…. We came away … learning the lesson that our audience would not stand for us giving airtime to topics of this nature. And while we never did another episode of the podcast talking about past-life memories, that still doesn’t take away the fact that stories of past-life memories are a common staple in the near-death experience space.” (Pg. 111-112)
He asserts, “While it would be convenient to simply say these past-life memories are true accounts of reincarnation, my Christian faith and worldview do not allow for me to accept that as a reasonable explanation... The Bible clearly teaches that people live only once and face judgment after death before entering Heaven or hell, which is a direct contradiction of the concept of reincarnation.” (Pg. 119-120) Later he adds, “Pre-life memories are incompatible with a Christian faith and worldview pretty much for all the same reasons past-life memories are incompatible with it.” (Pg. 125)
He says of a Netflix series on near-death experiences, “I was a bit disappointed with the latter half of the series that had an extreme focus on psychics, mediums, and reincarnation… it seems that much of the new and popular content coming up in the NDE space has a propensity to shy away from medical explanations for NDEs and discussions about NDEs that fit within the boundaries of historical and orthodox Christian thought. It’s like there’s an aversion to anything that isn’t tied to psychics, mediums, and the extreme paranormal.” (Pg. 129) He then says of Alien Encounters, “Personally, I don’t believe that aliens are real… I do think there is a tolerable case to be made that these alien encounters are either near-death experiences or spiritual transformative experiences.” (Pg. l49)
In the final chapter, he suggests, “I believe [Satan] is also attempting to use near-death experiences in a similar way to confuse people to the end that they will doubt the truth of God’s Word and ultimately choose their own path that leads to eternal destruction.” (Pg. 161) He concludes, “satan is at work today attempting to confuse and twist this gift of NDEs to lead people away from the truths about God that we read in the Bible… [and] down a dark and destructive path that takes them far away from God.” (Pg. 174)
This book will mostly appeal to more-or-less ‘conservative’ Christians who are interested in NDEs.
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