Nothing Better Than Death Insights from Sixty-two Profound Near-Death Experiences By Kevin R. Williams Webmaster of www.near-death.com Nothing Better Than Death: Insights from Sixty-Two Profound Near-Death Experiences Copyright © 2002 by Kevin R. Williams. Library of Congress Card No: 2002092764 ISBN: Hardcover 1-4010-6412-4 Paperback 1-4010-6411-6 E-book yet to file All rights reserved. Feel free to distribute this free ebook as you will. The author requests that the contents not be altered in any way. Printed in the United States of America Edited by Glenn Williams Published by: Xlibris Corporation 436 Walnut St. 11th Floor Philadelphia, PA 19106-9969 www.xlibris.com To order hardcover or paperback copies of this book, visit this website: http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=15695 Or phone: (888) 795-4274; fax: (215) 923-4685 2 To my beloved Mother, Phyllis Scofield, whose tragic death during the writing of this book, taught me a lesson about life and death that I had never known before. Although death brings overwhelming tears of joy to those who cross over, it also brings overwhelming tears of sorrow to surviving family and friends. This is true even for those who have, at the same time, overwhelming tears of joy knowing that there is nothing better on Earth than being dead. 3 Author’s note: Throughout this book, the near-death experience will be referred to as the “NDE.” 4 Table of Contents Forward Preface Acknowledgments Introduction I. Testimonials 1. May Eulitt 2. David Oakford 3. Rene Turner 4. Karen Schaeffer 5. Linda Stewart 6. Ricky Randolph 7. Kerry Kirk 8. Brian Krebs 9. Joni Maggi II. Near-Death Summaries III. Research Conclusions 1. Life Before Birth 2. Life 3. Humanity 4. Religion 5. Spirituality 6. Future 7. Science 8. Death 9. Life After Death 10. God 11. Heaven 12. Hell 13. Reincarnation IV. Questions and Answers 1. Aren't NDEs merely the products of the dying brain? 2. Isn't the only truly compelling "proof" is verified out-of-body experiences? 3. But, isn't self-awareness only a function of the brain? 4. Doesn't the fact that NDEs are different suggest they’re not true? 5. Doesn't science make the existence of God unlikely? 6. Doesn't life outside this physical universe seem unlikely? 7. What are you hoping to learn from researching NDEs? 8. What kinds of NDEs intrigue you the most? 9. How would you describe a typical NDE? 10. What aspects of the NDE catch your attention the most? 11. Did the NDEs you researched take away your fear of death? 12. Did you look at life differently after you first read some of these NDEs? 13. What do you enjoy most about researching NDEs? 14. What do you think is the most important information you learned from researching NDEs? 5 15. What do NDEs tell us about the future? 16. What happens to those who commit suicide? V. NDEs and Religion 1. NDEs are not unscriptural 2. NDEs are not of the devil 3. NDEs and the Bible affirm God is unconditional love 4. NDEs and the Bible affirm universal salvation 5. NDEs and the Bible affirm reincarnation VI. Appendix Life and Death Quotations Notes Bibliography Resources Near-death Support Groups Art Credits About the Author 6 Forward It all begins for us at birth. We are thrust from the womb onto the carousel of life, carried away in a blur of activities from childhood to adulthood and then to old age. Each of us have our dreams, our relationships and we go to school; we work and play, day after day, week after week, year after year. Life is certainly busy. And yet we tend not to think about the fact of our inevitable death. It's kind of scary. It doesn't seem to make any sense that we will no longer exist as we know it. The fact is we will die and there is no way to avoid it. Like the child being born, we have no choice but to yield ourselves to the unknown. Like the seventy billion who have already passed this way through life, we will join their ranks at the rate of 130,000 a day. And in that same day, 400,000 new lives will be born. The cycle of life and death continues at an ever-increasing pace. The fear of death has given rise to a host of speculations about an afterlife. Religions, philosophies and cults have multiplied over the millennia, all trying to answer our need for comfort about this seemingly absurd fate that awaits each of us. And now science has turned its gaze toward the matter of death. Beginning in the mid-1970s, noted researchers such as Raymond Moody, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Kenneth Ring, P.M.H. Atwater, Michael Sabom, and Melvin Morse, have brought the subject of NDEs to the popular front. In 1981 and again in 1991, George Gallup Jr. conducted a poll on close brushes with death. He was astonished to find out that some 8 to 12 million people in the United States have had an NDE. This is a population about the size of New York City. NDE researchers speculate that the figures may even be higher since the experiencer is often reluctant to talk about it. -- NORMAN VAN ROOY from his documentary, Shadows: Perceptions of Near-Death Experiences, Part 1 (1994) Preface Socrates had this to say about death: "To fear death is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not. For it is to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessings of human beings. And yet people fear it as if they knew for certain it is the greatest evil." Thousands of years later, NDEs are showing us that death is indeed the greatest blessing of human beings. According to a great number of people who have had an NDE, there is nothing better than death. One experiencer, Dianne Morrissey said, "If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there's not a single experience on earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing." (1) 7 Such insights into life after death are intriguing to say the least. After years of researching the NDE and gathering various accounts from books and visitors to my website (www.near-death.com), I have collected a few of the most profound of these insights to profile in this book. I first learned of the NDE in the early 1970's after reading the groundbreaking book by Raymond Moody, Life After Life. His findings were a major factor in inspiring my own research into the NDE. Since then, I have read every major work concerning the phenomenon and many of the not so well known ones as well. As a result, I have developed a deep love for things concerning the NDE and the afterlife in general. Because of this deep love for these things, I am committed to bringing to the world the truths I have discovered about life after death. Many of these truths are universal. You will find these truths even speak to your heart and tell your mind of their truthfulness. Because many of these truths are universal, practical and of "common sense", I am confident they are in fact true. Before learning of the NDE, I became a fundamentalist Christian. This brand of Christianity is known for believing the NDE to be “of the devil.” As my knowledge of the NDE grew, I came to realize from what I researched the fact that God is not limited only to just those who profess the Christian faith. The NDE expanded my mind into understanding the vastness of God's love for all people, no matter what their religious or cultural persuasion. Since then, my heart has been burdened to reach Christians all over the world, to show them the truth of the NDE in order to increase their faith as well. The purpose of this book is not to promote religion, but to promote the great truths and spirituality found in the NDE. One of these truths is that God is not limited to any one religion or even religion at all. God cares only about a person's heart, not a person's religious affiliation or church membership. The NDE reveals that the way to heaven is through love because love is God. Love is not limited to only one religion or culture because love is universal. This truth is too immense and profound to be fully understood or embodied in any one religion. I am not the source of these truths. I consider myself a person who has picked the most beautiful flowers from other people's gardens to create one of my own. Neither the gardeners nor I matter much, but it is the flowers themselves that matter most and the life force making them so lovely. Read this book with an open mind and heart. The information in this book has the power to transform your life. You will find you do not need to have an NDE in order to be transformed by the NDE. Within these pages, you will find the truth of the NDE is already within yourself. Acknowledgments I first learned of spiritual concepts at a very early age from my grandparents Walter and Marie Williams, who taught us Sunday school lessons in the Nazarene Church.