Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They're Going

by Patricia Pearson

From the award-winning, groundbreaking author of A Brief History of Anxiety...Yours and Mine comes a touching, exhilarating, challenging exploration of the inexplicable gleamings of another world many of us experience, in life, in grief, and near death.

Sparked by extraordinary experiences that occurred in her family when her father and her sister both died in 2008, Patricia Pearson was launched on a journey of investigation into what she calls "a curious sort of modern underground--a world beneath the secular world, inhabited by ordinary human beings having extraordinary experiences that they aren't, on the whole, willing to disclose." Roughly half the bereaved population, about 20% of those near death who recover, and an unreported number of the dying witness or experience a sensed presence, the mystery of near-death awareness, and, if they are not in horrible pain or medicated into unconsciousness, rationally inexplicable feelings of transcendence and grace as they depart on the journey from which none of us return. 

Pearson brings us effortlessly into her illuminating quest for answers, inspiring us to own up to experiences we may never have shared with anyone. Secular or religious, all of us wonder deeply about these things if we let ourselves, and also about the medical, social and psychological implications of understanding what it means to pass through heaven's door.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spirituality, Death, Canada, Paranormal, Personal Development, Religion

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 8, 2014

About the author

Canadian journalist and daughter of Canadian diplomat Geoffrey Pearson and former Ontario Senator Landon Pearson, and the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Lester Pearson.

She resigned her weekly column at the National Post in 2003 to protest that newspaper's support for the Bush administration.

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science and Spirituality! Herein a journalist explores a topic that is the ultimate mystery but one many of us don't want to talk about — what happens when we die. Not just the "near death experience" that is sometimes discussed (and sensationalized), but also the "shared death experience" where people around the dying person also have experiences, such as visions or a feeling of presence, which are unexpected and a little mystical. The process of Dying, just like life itself, is very much a shared experience.

And sometimes, when you start looking into it, the mystical is almost commonplace.

I found the book a bit too long in places, but only because Pearson was singing to the choir with me. I don't need convincing! I found there were too many examples, however, the book gets 5 stars for Pearson daring to run headfirst into the wall of skepticism and having the bravery to keep on going, testing the wall, and daring to peek at what might be on the other side.

(Also a small note to add that Tibetan Buddhists have been exploring and documenting these experiences for centuries.)

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could say I found this book interesting, but I cannot. I have read a lot of books on death, OBEs, NDEs, and Heaven. This book had lots of technical and research talk, and quite a bit of scientific suppositions. The real people experiences were remotely dotted here and there and barely touched on the experiences of dying and death perception. The title is misleading. There was no real "investigating" what comes after. That subject was barely touched upon except for a few anecdotes the author related about her own experiences with her sister and father. If you want to read about scientific research, historical anecdotes, and the like, then you may enjoy this book. I did not.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author and journalist Patricia Pearson, prompted by some extraordinary experiences surrounding the deaths of her father and sister (nine weeks apart), trained her investigative eye on the research and anecdotal literature surrounding near-death and related phenomena, and after several years and dozens of sources, has compiled her findings in Opening Heaven's Door. In addition to fascinating first-hand accounts of what the dead and dying are trying to communicate to us, Pearson backs up each section with the peer-reviewed studies by respected scientists that skeptics would accept as proof in any other field; but as Pearson found during this investigation, the science surrounding death and near-death experiences demands a higher standard.

I see it every day in the websites I frequent: As soon as someone makes reference to God or paranormal experiences, the condescending intellectuals start commenting, "The world will be a better place once people stop believing in some invisible sky fairy", with the underlying message being, "I science and you're a gullible fool who believes in children's stories". Although they obviously think of themselves as the seekers of and possessors of the one true truth, these people can't even be properly called skeptics as they refuse to consider new evidence -- some cases are simply closed. This was the situation that Pearson also found repeatedly:

Psi, short for psychic, refers to a number of cognitive abilities that can't be accounted for through identified senses, including clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition. Don't look these up on Wikipedia, because there's an interesting cultural subplot going on at the moment in which paranormal topics are edited by activist skeptics in a manner that presents them as having been officially debunked.

That's a broad definition for the paranormal and not really the focus of this book (which only veers into this territory when exploring people's precognition of someone dying before they get the official news), but it does illustrate this current atmosphere we have in which no amount of proof for contact with the dead or return from death is sufficient to sway "official" thought. Pearson discovered that around half of grieving people and end-of-life medical professionals have experienced supernatural contact with the recently deceased, and yet even medical schools don't prepare their students for the experience. She quotes Martha Farah, director of Neuroscience and Society at the University of Pennsylvania, who said in a 2009 lecture:

We should cultivate a certain epistemological modesty and not assume that we can explain everything that matters -- or even what it means to matter -- in terms of chemistry, biology and physics. And certainly, we should not infer that whatever cannot be explained in those terms does not matter.

Pearson delves into how we got to this point of dogmatic disbelief in anything that can't be quantified in a lab and how our ancient and common experiences surrounding death somehow came to be lumped under the dismissive title of "paranormal phenomena":

Death was medicalized and secularized, removed from a sacred context, and then -- a subsequent and unexpected development -- patients began returning from it...So we have managed to lose the language and ritual around spiritual experiences of death even as we have managed to increase the likelihood of hearing back from the near-dead about their spiritual encounters.

For the most part, Pearson found that those who returned from near-death experiences (or "NDEers") had entered the by now famous white light that suffused them with feelings of love and well-being, often sensing the presence of family members, and returning with a sense of peace and with no fear of death. I did find the following to be surprising though:

NDEers become less dogmatically religious -- if they were religious to begin with -- yet more actively spiritual…In other words, their NDEs convinced the majority of people who had one that the doctrine they had been accustomed to, whatever it was, was off base.

If NDEers are telling us that we will eventually return to some primal, satisfying, creative energy stream -- an afterlife which doesn't necessitate a belief in the "invisible sky fairy" that militant atheists say is to blame for all the horror we have ever seen play out on earth -- then who wouldn't want to believe in that? Who wouldn't want to believe that those we've lost have entered that place of peace and joy? And when we have scientific studies that support the existence of an afterlife -- an afterlife that doesn't require your belief in it for you to enter -- how spiritually dull would a person need to be to want to fight against the proofs?

I will admit that, like plenty of people, I suffer from confirmation bias: I tend to agree with information that aligns with what I already believe. As a result, Opening Heaven's Door was an intriguing and satisfying read for me. On the other hand, I can see that those who have a confirmation bias against the notion of an afterlife would probably not be swayed by the information contained here.

[Stephanie Thoresen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being agnostic, I'm always skeptical of stories about NDE's and the afterlife, and what I like about Ms. Pearson's book is that I can tell she comes from that same place. What she presents are personal experiences along with anecdotes, research studies, experiments and topics like ESP and The Third Man along with alternate scientific theories and often not talked about terrifying and dark experiences that some people have with body paralysis. So, she gives us everything, the good, the bad and the explanations science has for some of these events, and while she definitely leans toward spiritual answers, it's refreshing to give readers such varied accounts to make up their own minds from.

But what I most love about her message is the idea that, as humans, we have spent the last few hundreds years becoming either too entrenched in church doctrine or, more recently, too scientific to really listen to our core spiritualism. When my beautiful mother died earlier this year, I felt like I'd had a spiritual awakening because I felt so at peace and grateful to have been with her and a continued sense that she was with me, that she had passed into another world and was okay. I just knew it to be true. Eventually, I started to convince myself the feelings I had could be explained away rationally and that there is no afterlife. Books like this remind me that it's okay to listen to your gut, that there really may be something there and that we can't explain everything with science.

[Charles Oakley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but a bit repetitive. I felt like there were so many valid points, lost inside the text.

[Rachel Vorobej · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be a fascinating read! Patricia Pearson takes us with her as she explores the world of signals, waves and experiences, both her own personal accounts, as well as many accounts from others, of the seemingly impossible. The personal accounts are set against scientific studies from the fields of psychology and neuro-science, and their findings add an extra dimension to Pearson’s discussion and exploration into the culture and knowledge surrounding near death experiences. Pearson highlights that “our sense of awakening and confoundment is a very new reaction to a deeply ancient experience”, and throughout her book Pearson explains experiences that connect us in intimate ways, yet are largely left undiscussed because of their abstract presence in our lives. When people have experiences that cannot be explained, how can we explain them to others? Opening Heaven’s Door opens our eyes to the final moments of the dying, and the profound peace that many experience before they pass on—Patricia Pearson is giving a voice to these stories and experiences and it is amazing how common they are. This book is easy to read, yet powerfully expressive in Pearson’s own recollections as well as conveying other’s stories. Pearson also includes her characteristic wit and light-hearted humour at the appropriate times, while maintaining a serious tone where needed. I would highly recommend this book!

[Mary Kenyon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the personal stories, but the science bit got a bit heavy for me.
I wrote down this passage: "'Welcome to our tribe,' someone said to me wryly that summer, speaking of the crazy shift in perspective that comes with grieving, and that is exactly how it felt. Suddenly there were people who understood how you could feel as if you were constantly gulping air. It was a bond that was fiercely intimate; even if we had nothing else in common, we had death in common now...The experience of grieving is so socially fractured."
She "gets it." How we can feel so alone in a room filled with people that have no idea what it feels like to lose a loved one.
She gets something else too; that hesitancy to share real experiences "from beyond" that have brought comfort, for the doubt and the inevitable "rational explanation" that only serves to hurt or take away that comfort from the person who has experienced the phenomenon.

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this last night and sat up most of the night reading till the end. She talks mostly about people knowing before it's their time that they are going to go. What I found interesting what that many people who are on the verge of dying will talk about going on a trip--they will ask for their tickets or where is the train or car or plane to take them. Before my friend Susan died she talked about "going home".

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tată meu a murit în pijamaua lui cu dungi albastre, pe un pat moale, într-o casă tăcută. Nu era bolnav. La trei sau patru dimineaţa, a suspinat destul de tare încît să o trezească pe mama. Un suspin, un geamăt, o ultimă suflare. Ea s-a aplecat să-i maseze spatele, presupunînd, adormită, că visase ceva urît, după care s-a cufundat în tihna pîcloasă a inconştienţei. În cîteva ore s-a făcut dimineaţă, iar lumina de martie s-a revărsat, subţire. Mama s-a trezit şi, în drum spre baie, a trecut pe lîngă trupul întins al celui care-i fusese soţ timp de 54 de ani.
A coborît, reluîndu-şi ritualurile monotone în bucătărie – făcînd cafeaua, punînd chifla tăiată în două în prăjitorul de pîine, ascultînd radioul. Eu dădeam un interviu despre o carte nou-apărută. Vorbeam la radio, eu, cea mai mică dintre cei cinci copii ai săi, sporovăind cu o autoritate impresionantă vrute şi nevrute despre un proces iniţiat de un bărbat care suferise traume psihologice inestimabile după ce a găsit o muscă moartă într-o sticlă de apă.
„Acţiunea era întemeiată?”, mă întreba gazda emisiunii. Era posibil ca viaţa cuiva să fie distrusă din cauza unei muşte moarte?
Mama şi-a uns chifla cu gem, gîndindu-se la ziua ce o aştepta. Întîlniri, un prînz luat cu cineva, o ieşire cu Rachel, nepoata ei, care venise în vizită în vacanţa de primăvară. Nu s-a întrebat de ce
Geoffrey, tatăl meu, încă mai rămăsese în pat. Nu-şi ascuţise simţul precauţiei faţă de un bărbat sănătos, care tocmai împlinise 80 de ani.
În sînul familiilor, atenţia oamenilor se îndreaptă spre situaţiile de criză – iar în 2008, la începutul primăverii, toţi eram şocaţi din cauza stării surorii mele, Katharine. Ea, şi nu tata, era cea care se confrunta cu moartea. Katharine cea plină de viaţă, o femeie deosebit de plăcută – mamă, soră şiiubită –, suferea acum, torturată de răspîndirea rapidă a unui cancer mamar metastatic.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jag blev nog lite "meh" eftersom författaren otaliga gånger skrev om vikten kombinera andlighet med vetenskap, men ändå resolut lät bli att skriva om vad som rent fysiskt händer i hjärnan/kroppen hos en döende/död. De få gånger det ändå nämndes kändes det som att den information viftades bort eftersom författaren inte tyckte om den. ("Fnys, så banalt att snacka om döende synapser när någon har en nära-döden-upplevelse! Flämt!"). Någonstans måste en vetenskaplig utgångspunkt ändå utgå från att människor är blobbar av biologiskt material och att det påverkar psyket, oavsett man tror på en andevärld utanför blobbigheten eller inte.

[Stan James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book (well, it was an ebook, so the picking up was virtual) for three reasons:

1. It was on sale. Cheap is always a price I like.
2. I've loved these sorts of nutty topics (out of body experiences, telepathy, Bigfoot, ghosts, Bigfoot ghosts with telepathy, etc.) since I was a kid.
3. It seemed like good background material for a novel I'm writing that coincidentally embraces the subject of death and near-death experiences.

Journalist Patricia Pearson draws from a range of studies and personal accounts stretching back decades to dig into the near death experience (NDE) and other related phenomenon. The deaths of her sister and father serve as a framing device for the book and Pearson is up front about how their deaths and oddities around the deaths helped develop her interest in and shape her point of view on the subject.

Despite the title of the book, Pearson paints NDEs as more of a spiritual awakening rather than a religious experience. Indeed, more people have apparently turned away from religion after having an NDE while at the same time becoming more spiritual. Throughout the various studies and research Pearson shows how little science has been able to quantify what happens when someone comes close to dying and recovers or just plain dies. In the main the affected individuals seem to traverse into another realm or reality, out of their bodies, often meeting other people they know who are already dead, and for the most part the experiences are positive, even joyful. As you may suspect, conducting experiments around people who have just escaped death is a bit tricky, as scientists, smart and diligent as they may be, cannot hang around intersections indefinitely waiting for near-fatal traffic accidents to occur. Well, they could, but probably not with funding from a university.

My biggest issue with the book is its relative shapelessness. Pearson writes well and has put in a lot of research on the subject (the bibliography and notes are extensive), the tone remains respectful and she never makes declarative statements one way or the other ("The Buddhists are right, if you screw up in your post-life you come back as a dung beetle!"), but the book has no sense of progression. She documents the subject and then the book ends. Maybe I'm trying too hard to impose a narrative structure on something that doesn't necessarily need one.

In any case, if you have any interest in the subject matter--and yes, most NDEs center around being surrounded by glowing light, a tremendous sense of love and no fear of death--this is a sober and serious look at it.

[Christian Engler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Pearson’s book comes from the standpoint of a skeptic turned believer writer/journalist who had an open mind and ear concerning her dying sister, Katharine’s, ethereal experience. Before her passing, she was blessed to be intuitively and spiritually aware of a divine grandiosity that not only enveloped her but allowed her to sense and feel a transcendent intimacy, a unity that allowed her and connected her to her father who had unexpectedly passed away a short time before her. While the family was sadly preparing for her coming death, Katharine and Patricia’s father died in his sleep, a blow that nobody saw coming. In the eulogy for her dad, Katharine opened up about her experience. She was not shy, reluctant or overzealous to convince anyone. She just spoke her truth. It was what it was. And while no empirical data could corroborate her experience of energy, a presence and a feeling of well being, it was irrelevant what people thought, the believers and unbelievers. Her sister’s experience opened up Pandora's box for Patricia Pearson, sending her on a journey that stretched into many areas of the medical, scientific, palliative, religious and psychological worlds, highways and byways that often intersected. Ultimately, they all merged into one road to one destination. In her book, she covers thanatological pioneers, aspects of precognition of the dying, their symbolic language, how: “I have to get the bus” really means that the person is ready for their trip. She covers visions, how the dying can see and sense loved ones who have predeceased them, as happened with her sister Katharine who was dying from metastatic breast cancer. She delves into the world of the Near Death Experience (NDEs) and Nearing Death Awareness (NDAs) as well as the science of dying and its cross cultural components, how people from different ethnicities and cultural views see death and how death approaches them. An ironic aspect to dying is that the purview of the one who is dying seems to broaden rather than narrow, which seems very contradictory to what dying is all about. What was so great about this book was that there were many aspects of science included as well as cultural and theological additives. For such a vast, mysterious and difficult topic, Patricia Pearson covered her topic well; it was investigative without being judgemental. I’m sure her sister’s spirit was with her all along in the writing journey.

[Marina Quattrocchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Pearson has certainly done her research for his book. Although it is well researched, I loved the personal perspective she brought to her book. After both her father's and her sister's death, and a mysterious experience her sister had before her death, Pearson sought answers to the complex subject of that hinterland between death and dying, the experiences of the dying, and the question of life after death. Many years ago I read Raymond Moody's book, Life After Life, which was life changing for me. It completely took away my fear of death and dying. Pearson's book extends this further, helping us understand the emotions of the dying, how they may be trying to connect with us, and how dying is just a continuum of life, a journey, not to be feared. Highly recommend this book to anyone who has a relative or friend who may be passing, or anyone curious about the hereafter. Fantastic read.

[Vicki H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most interesting points I want to remember:
1. Dying people may dream or speak about going on a journey (tickets, what time do I leave, I want to go home, etc.)
2. Terminal lucidity: dying people with diminished brain capacity due to dementia or stroke may talk completely normally to loved ones in last days (briefly)
3. not uncommon for bereaved people to have vision or sense presence of departed loved one; found very comforting but rarely spoken about
4. dying people may see or hear deceased loved ones beckoning to them. Great comfort and appealing.
5. People who have had near death experiences lose their fear of death and believe they will be going to a wonderful place beyond our understanding.

[Sema · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason i even own this book is because i won it in a giveaway and im actually really glad i won it. I dont normally read books like these but this one was really good. If you're someone who's interested in spirits and have dealt with feeling a dead loved one around you then this book is something that might comfort you. Pearson talks about her own experiences along with other peoples and it really is an interesting read. I would have read it at a much faster speed if it wasnt for all the school work ive had. Its a quick read that gets you thinking. I really enjoyed reading it which surprised me because i normally dont read nonfiction.

[Daknees57 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Patricia Pearson for persevering and getting this master work published! I couldn't put it down. This is an extremely well researched text drawing on historical and present day accounts of psychic phenomena such as Near Death Experiences, sensed presence, and out of body experiences. The catalyst for the book was the author's personal experience at the time of her father's and shortly thereafter, her sister's death. For me, this was an exciting and hopeful overview of what lies 'on the other side of the veil'.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to enjoy paranormal books but only within strict parameters. They either have to be unabashedly creepy or hyper objective. This is neither. I understand the author's critique of rational materialism, at least in the sense that it discounts subjective experience. But Pearson seems to accept personal experience and intuition without critique, which is why I stopped reading. If you're looking for an interesting look at objectively written paranormal subject matter, I'd look at Sam Parnia's Erasing Death.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What was fascinating about this book was the similar experiences people share, over the course of hundreds of years and from people living all over the globe.
This book discusses the following interesting topics:
The Phenomenon of Nearing Death Awareness
Uncanny Experiences at the Moment of Death
The Phenomenon of a Sensed Presence
How the Dying Attain Peace
What Near Death Experiences tell us about where the dying go
How NDEs change the lives of those who have experienced them

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sparked by extraordinary experiences that occurred when the author lost both her father and sister in the same year, Patricia Pearson explores what we may experience when we die. With first hand accounts from medical staff and those who have had a Near Death experiance(NDE), and Researchers in the field..

The book needed to be edited better, the author kept making the same points over and over again.
Thought provoking, a quick read, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[Kimberly Foulger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I needed more of the hope, the stories and less of the research which went in strange directions and tangents that didn't have much to do with the original premise of the book. I enjoyed it though and would recommend it with caveats that it can get bogged down in places

[Amy Chevalier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of body stories, death omens, death projections. Nothing really new.

[Bevjirwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

life after death,process of dying etc. learned some,most already familiar.

[Paul Bone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever been visited by a recently-deceased relative? Have you felt a presence, seen a form at the end of your bed, then found out the next day that at that same hour of the visitation that person died? Have you ever felt a guiding presence, seen a person, or heard a comforting voice in times of duress and felt that presence as a reality and not a dream? Have you had a near-death experience yourself and come back from it? Sat vigil while the dying beloved came into a sense of calm and lucidity and said that they “have to go” soon? All these questions are explored in Patricia Pearson’s book with a sceptic’s dutiful nod to rationalism and the believer’s sense of awe. What Pearson asks us to do, in the end, is not to dismiss experiences like this simply as constructions of the brain, especially when many people find unspeakable (in the best sense) solace in them. The book begins with her own family story of spiritual visitations that cannot be explained away by reason and logic. I won’t spoil it. The experience led her to tentatively ask others if similar visitations had happened. The answer is yes. Not surprisingly, many people have not spoken of these experiences at all, for fear of ridicule, of if they have it has been only furtively.

I came across this book in something else I was reading only tangentially related to these kinds of experiences, but I was interested because I had a similar experience myself. Two years ago, I had a dream about my stepfather, who had just died. Two days after his death, in this dream I was with my brothers as we watched my stepfather leave the house. I don’t want to divulge too much in fear of cheapening the pristine quality of the vision. It was both a dream and unlike dreams in its clarity, continuity, and comfort. It was unsettling, but every time I have reflected on it I feel more and more solace in it. Was it only a dream, or was it his sprit on its way to the other world? I don’t know. We have all heard or experienced stories like this. My great-great-grandmother was committed to an insane asylum in 1914. My great-grandmother, her daughter, saw her walking beside her, at a little distance, through a field of Queen Anne’s Lace one day. Two days later, the family received word that she had died in the asylum of tuberculosis. Is this a coincidence? Possibly. But also maybe not.

Pearson recounts many other examples like this, many far more dramatic and striking. Along the way, she cites some science and a few key studies, as well as skeptical theories that try to account for encounters with the spiritual world as the result of lack of oxygen, projections of the brain, hallucinations, etc. It’s not that science denies people have these experiences, but in our post-Enlightenment world, we reflexively attribute material causes to them. What Pearson is trying to argue is that these experiences are profoundly moving to people, and trying to find “causes” for them entirely misses the point people take away from them. They often dramatically change their lives, after some difficulty “coming back” to the real world, and quite often lead lives of active kindness and compassion. Science traditionally has explained these experiences as psychoses or, more benignly, projections of the brain. What if our brains are instead equipped to receive these experiences rather than create them, and what if, in our rationalist world views, we have simply atrophied our abilities to receive them? It was not so long ago, after all, that cultures took it for granted that sprits walked around and visited the living.

Pearson also aligns these experiences with many faith traditions, including Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, who promise reunification with the one. Indeed, survivors of near-death experiences often speak of feeling that they were going back home. People visited by loved ones often feel afterward as if death is nothing to be afraid of. And just to be balanced, she mentions that the spirit world is inhabited not just by benevolent grandmothers. Depending on one’s cultural touchstones, it could be the demon-haunted bardo or purgatory one must first cross through. In the end, however, it seems that a unifying sense of love pervades these experiences and informs the lives of those who have them. Is it wishful thinking? Could be. Is it real? Could also be. What I think the book tries to do is return a sense of dignity and respect to these kinds of experiences and the people they have affected. Just because science cannot explain them, she seems to be saying, doesn’t mean they aren’t real. The proof hardly matters. It simply is. Who are we to say it’s not real?

[Kerry Mayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Pearson’s own experience of unexplained happenings within her family sparked her interest in researching this fascinating area.

When her sister was suffering from cancer, their father died suddenly in the night, appearing as a feeling of light and joy to his ailing daughter for two hours, before anyone even knew that he had passed. Her sister was not someone given to fanciful notions and the book has example after example of rational, mentally-stable beings who have had similar experiences.

The book covers Near-Death Awareness, Near-Death Experiences, Sensed Presences and Uncanny Experiences at the moment of Death. What struck me were the similarities across cultural and religious boundaries that are difficult to account for.

Pearson also includes a healthy amount of research and the outcomes of scientific studies to back up her own findings.

Pearson comes across as a sane individual looking for answers to spiritual questions without the narrow focus of the tenets of organised religion. It is shocking how many people with similar experiences conceal them from even their closest family and friends and I would like to think this book could spark broader debate amongst and greater acceptance of people who would like to speak up.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often had chills reading this book; it is a compilation of research, traditional beliefs, and personal accounts that seem to prove the existence of an afterlife, and an interconnectedness between us, even if we don't yet know how to explain that possibility in scientific terms to satisfy everyone. Twin studies (one twin closes their eyes while being monitored and the distant twin's brain responds the same way) and the entanglement phenomenon (two particles with no physical link can exert influences upon one another at a distance) show the existence of invisible connections. But it was reading of people's near-death experiences that blew my mind the most, particularly the way they are able to perceive in detail the circumstances happening around them even while technically dead. One woman underwent a severe brain surgery, and was being monitored three different ways to ensure she was deeply anesthetized. Still, she hovered above herself during the procedure and remembered exactly what she saw and heard in sharp detail. We don't know how to explain this, and because of that, regardless of how undeniable the experiences are, the experiencers themselves struggle to discuss them in a skeptical world that strips away meaning. I feel grateful to Pearson for delving into this topic and bringing forth these enlightening accounts.

[Laura Pope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating

Having had a few of my own close brushes with the afterworld and how it comes in touch with us I found this book a lovely and thoughtful collection of impressions.

It is so immensely clear to me that we see so little of what is truly around us. As my mother approaches her end I decided to read again and think again about what death really brings. I have never had any doubt that we carry on in some way but just what way is the question? Patricia obviously I'm deeply pursued just exactly what we might encounter and what her loved ones encounter. I highly recommend this book as you have to stop and think many times through it as to just what it really means.

[Erika Powers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Learned of a Near Death Experience scale; interesting.

Time doesn't exist; but LeMieux already told me.

Feelings of peace and surrounded by light. Exquisite beauty, extraordinary colors, some see people they know, some dont. Some people get a sense they are dying and become aware of the peace that is to come, and they make a choice to go and quit fighting death.

"suddenly I knew I was eternal, but I was indestructible, that I always existed, and I always would exist. There was no end, there was no end."

Pretty weak book with a shit ton of extra words; written like a story and all I want is facts.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was more than willing to believe the people who have experienced out of body, near death experiences or presences so found all the attempts to give a scientific explanation for these unnecessary and mostly unconvincing. Can we not just accept that there are some things we can’t understand?

Or to use a quote from the book
“We should cultivate a certain epistemological modesty and not assume that we can explain everything that matters - or even what it means to matter - in terms of chemistry, biology and physics. And certainly, we should not infer that whatever cannot be explained in those terms does not matter”

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, its about a man who can talk to loved ones who have passed away,he says their are different levels in heaven and people go to one aligned with their development leve. He talks about when he was a boy and how he was affected by just suddenly knowing something that others didn't perceive.It takes him some time to decide to actually do the mediumship. If you like this type of thing its a very good

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a supplement to alot of other books I have read about NDE's, etc. She gives alot of information on different viewpoints and possibilities. I would have preferred MORE of the personal stories and the effect they have on other's lives. She does a bit of that throughout. All around, it's a book that I enjoyed a little and emphasizes the need to not be afraid of death.