Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife Paperback – October 23, 2012

As someone who has experienced an NDE, and struggled with many of the same things that Eben discusses here, I am not surprised at the response that many are having to this book. To say "people who have NDE experiences often find the telling of their story, while trying to impart the information they receive during their experience, a difficult task," would be an understatement as vast as the universe.The clinical aspects of Dr. Alexander's experience are what make this story unique, along with his outright conversion from a "Scientific Reductionist" to someone who sees clearly that consciousness and the vast majority of "what is," are found outside of our space/time universe and current medical or science books.To get the most out of any book on NDEs, and especially one that intertwines a very personal journey to find family and self, you must start with an open mind and heart. Unfortunately, those who have already hardened their views on both sides of the spectrums of Science and Religion, will dismiss much of what anyone writes on this topic, because it doesn't fit their narrow, dogmatic view of the world.Even worse, it forces them to look outside of their safe little boxes, and take the effort to learn, while being open to the possibility that current models of both science and faith are a good starting point, but not the ENTIRE answer.Einstein's quote at the beginning of the chapter "A Final Dilemma" says it best..."I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be."Whether you begin as a Christian, a Buddhist, Quantum Physicist or a simple seeker of knowledge beyond current understanding, moving outside of the constructs of your current ways of thinking is imperative to discovery.Fundamentalism, whether it be religious or scientific, is really no different than intellectual bigotry, closed to expanded thoughts, or encompassing new ways of looking for expanded information. Eben's book embraces both worlds, and does so gracefully, without discounting any specific ideology.Eben's experience was certainly deeper, and far more expansive than most I have read (including my own NDE). I do agree that the lack of detail about his time in "heaven" (a term that I find limiting) is frustrating to a point. And yet, the need to spend much of this book on the technical side of his coma, his quest and victory regarding his family (past and present), as well as touching on the scientific aspects of the current science regarding external consciousness, make this short book an excellent jumping-off point for deeper study and discussion.And there's the rub...After experiencing my own NDE (in 1996), I spent almost two obsessive years trying in vain to "connect the dots of knowledge imparted to me," before putting it all back "in a box" so that I could get on with living my life. Through a series of events over the past two years, I find myself very much back into "telling the story." I now realize that no book, video, or movie is able to even scratch the surface of answering the great questions of life after death, consciousness, and how they all relate to quantum theory. Expecting "the answers" from a book of this size and configuration is naïve and lazy at best.There is a reason that the section in this book called "Reading List" is expansive. Much has been written on this topic from both the spiritual and scientific approach. If you are a true seeker of the truth, you will not start or end your journey for knowledge with Eben's book. Instead, you will appreciate the facts of his experience, the unique medical reality of his coma, and the amazing revelations about family, love and the eternal nature of consciousness, as the BEGINNING of the journey to true understanding.While this book in not an expansive, all-inclusive answer to the melding of Science and Religion, I give it 5 stars for being an important, unique story, bringing focus to the need for a global change in the perception and understanding of reality, consciousness and the interconnectedness of everything in creation.

PROOF OF HEAVEN is a very well written book. One must suspect that editor Ptolemy Tompkins played a strong role in the structure and writing of this book. I say that because one would not expect a neurologist to have the skills to write a breezy, colorful account of his near death experience. An account that is a joy to read. Whatever, this book is another addition to the growing list of books in which authors describe the memories of what they experienced during a state of unconsciousness. In this author's case, that state lasted for roughly six days. The cause was a serious case of E. coli meningitis, and the patient nearly died. The author goes to great lengths of effort to establish that the story of his illness and his recovery is absolutely true. And, I for one, think he told it the way it really happened.What we learn is that our author had a long history of participating in the medical profession, and, for virtually his entire medical career, had been associated with very prestigious institutions of medicine, including Harvard Medical School. He is also author, or co-author, of many articles pertaining to the field of neurology.In the early pages of his book, he begins to describe in words (his best efforts) what he remembers of the experiences he had during a time that his outer brain layers were totally inactive. I won't try to use medical terms for this occurrence. His experiences were not an exact parallel to those of others who have also told of near death experiences. But, perhaps that makes his account all the more interesting. His story, and the many similar accounts, show that a world exists that is on a higher level than the dream world we experience as we sleep, or the world of daydreams, that we all occasionally enter, when we are awake. It is a world that is in many ways "very real."Now clearly, the author believed that, during this short time of six days, several times he entered heaven and indeed was in the presence of God (Om),His quotes, "The (false) suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the Universe, and the cure for it - which I received partially within the Gateway and completely within the core - was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ...." (Chapter 14) and, "I did not just believe in God: I knew God" (Chapter 32) shows us that he believed that he had indeed had a meeting with God Himself. So, we perhaps tend to say to ourselves, "If his experience was on a much higher level than a dream, then his perception that he met God must be correct." But, recall that Christopher Columbus believed that he had discovered India, and the fact that his boats were real and his crewmen were real and the wind was real did not change the fact that his conclusions were all wrong. So, we must be careful totally believing, or totally disbelieving, the visions that Eben Alexander experienced. What seems most obvious is that he does his best in his book to describe his experiences during his state of unconsciousness. And his memories show us that we humans must, in the years ahead, push farther into this shadowy area of human knowledge.Another quote also gives us insight into Alexander's spiritual happening. "The Spinning Melody - up to then my ticket into these higher regions - would no longer take me there. The gates of Heaven were closed." And, "On the day that the doors of Heaven were closed to me, I felt a sense of sadness unlike any I'd ever known." (Chapter 22). Thus, clearly we meet a man who recalls an experience of entering heaven.But, as we consider this book, and others that tell similar stories of entering heaven (for example, "Heaven is for Real"), we must consider that a great revelation is available to us in the form of the Christian New Testament. In that book, we learn that the kingdom of heaven does not allow souls that have sin in them to enter heaven. This is made obvious to us in that we are shown a God who is now busily working to destroy the sin in the souls of our Universe. And when he succeeds, "clean" souls will be brought into the real heaven. Now clearly, if souls that are sinful could enter heaven there would be no reason for God's efforts to cleanse us all of this thing called sin. So it becomes apparent that these near death experiences, while much more "solid" than our night dreams, often even involving clairvoyance and other paranormal phenomena, are not the ultimate thing that our souls can expect to someday experience when we enter heaven.A last quote, "....Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment. (Chaper15). Here we can see clearly, again, that our author experienced something that was to him a true meeting with God. And his view, after his near death experience, is that he, and others, at some time in the past have enjoyed a closeness with God. This view conflicts, of course, with many scriptures of the New Testament. I will mention that a book I recently downloaded at no cost presents nearly every scripture in the Bible that discusses the subject of entry into heaven. Many members of Sunday school groups have been sending a flyer around the whole country listing the days when this book can again be downloaded free. I suggest to those who may read and enjoy Proof of Heaven that they should follow with a careful reading of Heaven is in Your Future (DuRocher). That book is not a quick reading experience, but it is down to earth and focused on an almost new age view of the Christian scriptures. Those who like books detailing near death experiences will probably enjoy it because it is not a dry old school view of the meaning of the Christian Bible. It will be free again, according to the email flyer I just received, on Sunday September 22nd, and Sunday September 29th (Amazon Book Store). Download it on your computer and compare it to these new age books. It will be a task that will "strain the brain." But, it will be fun.