Simon & Schuster Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into the Afterlife

What a wonderful book.

Un livre écrit par un neuro chirurgien suite à une méningite foudroyante à E-coli qui aurait dû le laisser mort au mieux, ou totalement 'légumisé' au pire. Il est parfaitement rétabli, n'a perdu aucune de ses capacités et à vécu une NDE qui a transformé sa compréhension de la nature du réel. Outre le récit qui est captivant, l'intérêt majeur, il me semble, réside dans le fait qu'Eben Alexander était un neurochirurgien matérialiste et sceptique par principe. Cette expérience ainsi que ses solides connaissances scientifiques lui permettent de réfuter un à un les arguments des scientistes pseudo-scientifiques et contribue grandement à une recherche sérieuse et approfondie de l'esprit et de sa non localité. Je souhaite que ce livre soit rapidement traduit en Français pour atteindre un public encore plus grand.

Interessantissimo libro da leggere, che consiglio vivamente. L'originale in inglese è sicuramente preferibile, per chi conosce bene la lingua, alla versione in italiano, che, come tutte le traduzioni, non riesce a rendere a pieno il contenuto. La storia esperenziale del Dott. Eben Alexander è, nell'ambito della bibliografia sulle EPM, sui generis. Si tratta del racconto di quanto accadutogli durante un coma di 7 giorni, descritto con l'essenzialita' e la sobrietà tipica dello scienziato che, per natura, vuole descrivere i fatti... Un bel libro da rileggere di tanto in tanto. Lo consiglio a gutti.

Great book - but lots of questions! If true, this is perhaps the most astounding, important, enlightening and uplifting story ever told. It complements, supplements and/or trumps all spiritual revelations and materialist musings up to this point in human history. If people think about this correctly (and I have little hope that the majority will), and if it can be confirmed, we would all come together and live happily ever after; this is the stuff of fairy tale; in the good sense. Is it real? Certainly for all intents and purposes, Dr. Alexander is highly credible. So either: 1) it is true, or 2) he is somehow misinterpreting a really strange hallucination caused by brain damage as reality or 3) he is making it all up. Personally I discount this last option. Is it possible that this was a strange hallucination caused by brain damage? Dr. Alexander is sure that it is not. The fact that he received validation with the photo of his sister at the end is really stunning! But I suppose it is possible that his mind (or brain) may have been playing tricks on him. A critical question for me is whether or not this journey actually did occur when his neo-cortex was non-functional as he says as oppose to being in a degraded state. He says he has time anchors which demonstrate that the majority of the really sublime experience did in fact occur when his neo-cortex was non-functional. If this journey really did occur when his neo-cortex was non-functional, then clearly, it would seem, consciousness is not reducible to material causation as materialism requires. However, even if there is some doubt about when the most exquisite elements of his journey occurred, the following very difficult question remains for those who adopt a materialist line of thinking: How can it be imagined that such advanced concepts discloses in the book which rang very true to me (there are more that are difficult to articulate) could be evoked out of a severely compromised brain? If this is real then virtually everything that nearly all the scientists in all the universities of all the world have been saying for decades about evolution, the brain and mind is spectacularly wrong! If there is a conscious mind apart from the brain then it must have been bestowed by some pre-existent intelligent entity--probably some divine entity. But materialist scientists are not going to like the idea that they themselves and the scientific paradigm itself could be regarded as fallible any more than the authority of the leaders of the church was challenged a few centuries ago. If this story gets traction, materialist scientists are going to wage war on Dr. Alexander. A few thoughts about the phenomenon of consciousness related to Dr. Alexander's experience. I have never understood how intelligent people--including Dr. Alexander until his NDE--could dismiss consciousness as a phenomenon of the physical brain. I have never accepted that for a wide variety of reason only one of which I will mention: If human consciousness were reducible to physical phenomenon then what accounts for the immutability of one's sense of self? How can it be imagined that, in Dr. Alexander's case, after the brain damage he incurred and once his neo-cortex was restored (miraculously), that his sense of self--that he is the same Eben Alexander he was before--be perfectly reconstituted? How can a physical algorithm--organic computer--account for that especially in light of the fact that his brain structure must have undergone catastrophic change? Personhood--self, identity whatever you want to call it--is constant despite radical changes in the underlying physical structure. In fact, how can trillions of firing neurons account for consciousness at all? When the best explanation offered by materialist to explain consciousness--the most real thing about us--is that it is an illusion, you know they are really grasping at straws. I am anxious to read more about Dr. Alexander's experience. He has written 20,000 words about it.

I asked someone, who was of the Faith, do you believe in people coming back from the dead, of the dead being raised? And he said a loud "NO. Well, only one in a million." I unfortunately replied, "I'm shocked, you are a doubting Thomas"....after all, we had just discussed that Jesus was alive and dead at the same time. It's easy to understand why, when reading this book. Doctors have all been told, it's not possible, yet Acts 26:8 Says that God will raise the dead, it does not give an answer of how many, it says it is not a thing that is incredible. The Bible is from God, written long ago, so the number now is incalculable, how many, or will be, it happens every day. The author himself exposes this and the adage "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." ....you'll love this book!