{"id":2819,"date":"2012-12-03T05:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T05:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2819"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:56:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:56:23","slug":"more-on-the-science-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2819","title":{"rendered":"More on “The Science of Heaven”"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:<\/span><\/strong> Having read some of the reviews of his book posted on Amazon (see below) I suspect just reading this article will suffice. <\/em><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago I posted this article Neurosurgeon reconsiders his beliefs after his own out of body experience<\/a> on a subject almost everyone is interested in – what happens after we die.<\/p>\n

The surgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander<\/a>, has a follow-up article in which he restates and defends his position – which in my view is really quite the reasonable position. <\/p>\n

Since telling my story here, I\u2019ve been amazed and profoundly gratified at how powerfully it has resonated with people all over the world. But I\u2019ve also weathered considerable criticism\u2014in large part from people who are appalled that I, a brain surgeon, could possibly make the claim that I experienced what I did.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

This is certainly the assessment I
\nwould have made myself\u2014before my experience. When the higher-order
\nthought processes overseen by the cortex are interrupted, there is
\ninevitably a period, as the cortex gets slowly back online, when a
\npatient can feel deeply disoriented, even outright insane. As I write in
\nProof of Heaven<\/em>, I\u2019d seen many of my own patients in this period of their recovery. It\u2019s a harrowing sight from the outside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

I
\nalso experienced that transitional period, when my mind began to regain
\nconsciousness: I remember a vivid paranoid nightmare in which my wife
\nand doctors were trying to kill me, and I was only saved from certain
\ndeath by a ninja couple after being pushed from a 60-story cancer
\nhospital in south Florida. But that period of disorientation and
\ndelusion had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to me before my
\ncortex began to recover: the period, that is, when it was shut down and
\nincapable of supporting consciousness at all. During that period, I
\nexperienced something very similar to what countless other people who
\nhave undergone near-death experiences have witnessed: the transition to a
\nrealm beyond the physical, and a vast broadening of my consciousness.
\nThe only real difference between my experience and those others is that
\nmy brain was, essentially, deader than theirs.<\/p>\n

It's really quite a fascinating article, and not too long, sooo hit the link forthe whole thing.<\/p>\n

His book, which I have not read, can be found here Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife<\/a>. It already has 735 (and counting) reviews up on Amazon, in just five weeks. So people are interested. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: Having read some of the reviews of his book posted on Amazon (see below) I suspect just reading this article will suffice. A few weeks ago I posted this article Neurosurgeon reconsiders his beliefs after his own out of body experience on a subject almost everyone is interested in – what happens after we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8541,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions\/8541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}