For a while now I have read books about the afterlife, and I think I had first read books about this subject even before my Father passed away 11 years ago. I remember reading books about an NDE (Near Death Experience) even as far back as boarding school in 1994. Since then I've read books on past life regression (Many Lives Many Masters and pretty much all of Brian Weiss's stuff), studied to be a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist myself and undergone many, many past and in between life regressions (the stuff I get up to in my spare time I tell ya!), read books on Auto writing (Sounds of Silence, Laws of the Spirit World ), Spiritual fluffy stuff on the subject (Journey of Souls by Michael Newton) and quite a few other books in the same vein that don't immediately come to mind right now. To say I am curious about the afterlife would be putting it mildly. But then again, isn't everyone? When Proof of Life started showing up on best seller lists I wondered if I needed to read yet another book on the same subject. If there's one thing I had learned from all my own reading and research, was that everyone seemed to have their own theory and their own "experience" as to what happened after. Whether it was Jesus they saw, Meher Baba, Sai Baba, dead relative, their description of the afterlife, angels.. there was absolutely no consistency and while I really wanted to believe in their experiences and my own, I have remained skeptical. I found the varying degrees of each one's descriptions very convenient to their beliefs and I find it amusing that the inconsistency goes so deep they are unable to even agree on an answer to a simple question- does hell exist or not? The spiritualites will have you believe the soul hates being separated from the Creator so Earth IS hell, whereas the religious describe vividly a fiery pit where all the sinners go. Anyhow, when my friend mentioned Proof of Heaven a few weeks ago, I dismissed it saying I really didn't want to give it a go till I later went home and read about the book a bit. The words "Neurosurgeon" and "Harvard University" started to lure me in and I thought, maybe, just maybe this book will be different. It'll be the one that'll tell me what REALLY is going on. After all the author doesn't call it "thoughts" of heaven... he's a neurosurgeon giving me actual proof dammit!
After finishing Inferno earlier today, I started on Proof of Heaven as I knew it would be a quick read as these kind of books usually are. While it took me only a few hours to get through it, the Author could have spared me a lot of time and just written an article on his experience as that's really what his experience could be described in- a couple of thousand words, if not a few hundred. Most of the book he talks about his childhood and his family and his wife and then what his family members were going through while he was in a coma and how his disease was miraculous and one of a kind, how his NDE was very different (as it allowed him to go "deeper" than anyone else- although we don't know what that means) and how his recovery was also miraculous. There is some scientific jargon thrown in there with some stuff about his being adopted, his almost drinking problem, blah blah yada yada. The juicy bit? He wakes up (although it's not really him so there is no waking and he doesn't remember his life as a human) in some sort of dark gooey jelly like place, then hears music and flies with a woman on the wings of a butterfly, then goes and meets "God" that he refers to as Om (this should make the Hindus and the spiritualites very happy) and then.. he goes back to his body. All the while he had no recollection of who he was in the physical plane or any knowledge of people praying for him but says clearly that it was those prayers that saved him and brought him back, although its unclear how. He did gets lots of learning though about that world and other Universes and lots of things were taught to him, especially the idea that its all about Love. The rest of the learnings he tells us he has full recollection of, but couldn't really put into words as they was so magical, but am sure he won't have any issues doing so a year and another book deal from now.
I feel kind of cheated as I do when I read some non fiction books about like diet, or some major business theories, which could in essence be put into a paragraph but is stretched on for 200 pages. And after I was done with the predictable and cheesy end of the book, I googled the guy a bit. Scientists have slammed the book and the authors claim that he was completely brain dead and hence the images could not have been his hallucinations. Another reviewer on Amazon did some digging and found some malpractice suits the good ol' Doc had tried to cover up so there are those questions about his character. Yet, I'd love to be a believer if there was anything of absolute substance in this book but unfortunately, since his whole experience was barely described, there is really nothing TO believe. So magical heaven or just a dead end? I guess only time will tell. In the meantime I'd suggest you save your precious moments here on earth and not spend them reading this book.
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