After reading many books by several empowering authors such as Betty Eadie, John Edward, Sylvia Browne, and Tiffany Snow,- that I am still reading, my life has opened up to me in such a compelling and wonderful way. This new book is well written, and thought provoking. There are great transforming authors, who shift the consciousness of humankind in a way never known before, and have the courage to reveal their paranormal experiences. Snow does it by bridging religion and spirituality after a personal lightning strike NDE, and "Religion, Spirituality" does it from a combination of others.
Not everyone who is resuscitated after reaching a point where they would be pronounced clinically "dead" has what has come to be called an "NDE"; but an awfully significant proportion do have such an experience - extraordinary both subjectively and objectively, as can be seen by the research reports.
The phenomenon refuses to be explained away in any simple or straight forward way. The thousands of cases analyzed to date offer scientists a lot of evidence to weigh, present theologians with challenges to long-established scriptural interpretations, and give any inquisitive mind a pause to re-ask fundamental questions about human consciousness and spirituality.
Mark Fox has done a fine job of pulling together the most current studies and the persisting issues surrounding the NDE phenomenon. He is level-headed and fair and writes with a pleasant, reader-respecting style (unlike some other strident volumes which are bent on sharpening some particular ideological or social axe).
The fundamental crux in resolving what to do with the NDE phenomenon seems to be: Why does a moment when PHYSICAL functioning is at its worst provide (more often than not) a CONSCIOUSNESS that is functioning peacefully, joyfully, and even with greater accuracy and more information than ordinarily?
If you read Fox's documentation of this phenomenon, I think you'll find the search for satisfactory answers to this mystery well worth your consideration.
