Foreword

With the publication of Life After Life more than a decade ago, I issued a challenge to the people in the medical profession to continue researching the marvelous phenomenon of the near-death experience.

Many physicians and researchers accepted that challenge. They began looking at this amazing spiritual experience in a variety of ways with the multitude of tools and methods available in medicine. Their work has spawned a vast new area of research known as near-death studies.

Of all the researchers to enter this brave new world of spiritual studies, the most interesting and arresting work has been done by Melvin Morse.

Dr. Morse is a compassionate pediatrician who was introduced to the near-death experience through the near drowning of one of his young patients, a shy and lovely girl named Katie. She had hovered on the brink of death for three days. She was in such a deep coma that machines were required to keep her breathing. No one, including Dr. Morse, expected her to live.

At the end of the third day, she simply awoke as if she had been in a deep sleep. Within twenty-four hours, this sleeping beauty was up and around, talking to her family, and showing no signs of brain damage.

It was a miracle indeed, but it wasn't until a few days after she awoke that Dr. Morse discovered the real miracle. He was curious to know what had caused her accident. Had someone pushed her underwater? Had a seizure caused her to lose consciousness while swimming? These are the usual kinds of questions asked by physicians so they can provide adequate treatment. The answers Dr. Morse received were really quite unusual.

When he asked her what happened in the pool, Katie said, "You mean when I saw the Heavenly Father?" She then went on to describe this marvelous spiritual journey through "heaven" that left Dr. Morse spellbound. She told him of seeing "God," a man of bright light who filled her with his love and kindness. She told of being guided by a guardian angel named Elizabeth who showed her heaven and even let her return home once to see her family. She then told of God's offer to let her stay or return to her mother. She chose to return, she said, which was why she was here now.

Katie's story stayed with Dr. Morse. Rather than dismiss it as a dream or as an example of "a few wires getting crossed," he decided to undertake some research projects that would look at this phenomenon scientifically. With the help of a major hospital in Seattle, Dr. Morse was able to pick up where I had left off in answering humanity's most nagging question: What happens when we die?

Here are just some of the marvelous discoveries of Dr. Morse and his research team:

They have proven that a person actually needs to be near death to have a near-death experience. This finding silenced many skeptics who had said that these events were just hallucinations that any seriously ill patient could have. By scientifically comparing the experiences of seriously ill patients with those who had been on the brink of death, the team was able to determine that one does need to cross that threshold before glimpsing the other side.

They have been able to isolate the area in the brain where near-death experiences occur. This area, close to the right temporal lobe, is genetically coded for near-death experiences. Dr. Morse and his researchers explored whether this could be the "seat of the soul," the area that holds the vital essence that makes us what we are.

Dr. Morse has also drawn on the works of the world's great neuroscientists to support his belief that the same "something" that makes us live (many of us call it the "soul") survives bodily death. As you'll see in reading this book, even such hard-core scientists as brain surgeons have grappled with that amorphous issue of the human soul.
Dr. Morse's book is filled with the courage it takes to act with compassion.

For instance, where other doctors reject pre-death visions as being caused by fever or fear, Dr. Morse accepts them as help for the dying and uses them to create a soothing environment for patients. From this compassion has risen some intriguing psychic phenomena. As you'll see, there are many cases in which children who are near death have been able to summon distant relatives to their bedside. Some of these children have even been able to communicate with dead friends and relatives, reporting things that they could never have known without actual contact with the dead.

Most doctors have been trained to use tranquillizers, not their ears, to deal with the visions of the dying. It takes courage to go against training. Yet in doing so, Dr. Morse has made some startling discoveries that could easily redefine the way the dying are dealt with.

In his quest to look at all aspects of the near-death experience, Dr. Morse has painstakingly tracked down adults who had almost died as children. His goal was to examine the long-term effects of these experiences, to see if they gave life new meaning. After listening to dozens of stories (many of which you will read here), Dr. Morse discovered that these "experiences of light" brighten a person's life forever.

As a physician, it takes wisdom to listen and learn and admit that everything about the human body and mind can't be taught in medical school. Dr. Morse has bravely stepped out of traditional parameters to take a scientific look at near-death experiences, psychic phenomena, and the existence of the soul.

His explorations have paid off for him in a rewarding life and for us in an intriguing and useful book.

—Raymond A. Moody, M.D.