PROOF OF HEAVEN : A NEUROSURGEONS JOURNEY INTO THE AFTERLIFE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Dr. Eben Alexander | 208 pages | 27 Mar 2013 | SIMON & SCHUSTER | 9781451695199 | English | New York, United States Proof of Heaven : A Neurosurgeons Journey into the Afterlife PDF Book Very early one morning four years ago, I awoke with an extremely intense headache. My meningitis finally began to subside on that seventh day, as I began the long and arduous process of awakening back to this world. He settled five malpractice suits in Virginia within a period of ten years. The truth is that the more we come to understand the physical workings of the brain, the more we realize it does not create consciousness at all. This is a very important book. What People Are Saying. But what happened to me was, far from being delusional, as real or more real than any event in my life. Transform this Plot Summary into a Study Guide. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going. He talks in detail about what happened to him during this seven-day period. Sheehan Daniel P. Today they are realities. Rather than allowing science to diminish our perspectives to that which is immediately observable or quantifiable, he allows scientific method to reveal horizons of reality that are ultimately more luminous and multidimensional than we previously intuited. Not only is the universe defined by unity, it is also—I now know—defined by love. All I remembered was where I had just been, in an extraordinary odyssey that seemed to last for months or years — although it had all occurred within the seven days I lay unconscious in the hospital. Rabbi Meir Sendor. Account Options Anmelden. New York, NY: Guideposts; From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. The plain fact is that the materialist picture of the body and brain as the producers, rather than the vehicles, of human consciousness is doomed. Alexander is a neurosurgeon who also But it wasn't thought like we experience on earth. That it is, instead, a kind of reducing valve or filter, shifting the larger, nonphysical consciousness that we possess in the non physical worlds down into a more limited capacity for the duration of our mortal lives. As a neurosurgeon, I was taught that the brain creates consciousness. I'm still a doctor, and still a man of science every bit as much as I was before I had my experience. In this amazing book, Eben recalls how he walked the valley of the shadow of death yet survived. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. In retrospect, I believe this extremely foreboding, subterranean existence was the best consciousness my physical brain could muster while my neocortex was being destroyed by aggressive gram-negative bacteria. Eben Alexander, a well-known and respected neurosurgeon, contracted a rare and in most cases fatal disease: E. Before Alexander underwent his journey, he could not reconcile his knowledge of neuroscience with any belief in heaven, God, or the soul. There was a lovely young woman accompanying me on the butterfly wing, one who never spoke a word, but whose thoughts of unconditional love and assurance came straight into my awareness. To those who recoil at the suggestion that the brain does not create consciousness, I would mention two common clinical observations that support this idea: terminal lucidity in which elderly demented patients often have oases of great clarity and insight about their lives, often peaking when they are aware of the souls of departed loved ones there to escort them to the other side , and acquired savant syndromes in which damage to the brain, be it head trauma, stroke, autism, or what have you, reveals a lacune of super-human mental function, such as fantastic capabilities for memory of lists, graphic, artistic or musical abilities, calculational abilities, etc. Just nothing. Alexander begins with a disclaimer that he never used to believe people's claims of the "afterlife" or a "light at the end of a tunnel. Esquire also found what it said were discrepancies with regard to Alexander's version of events in the book. This view is scientific and spiritual in equal measure and will value what the greatest scientists of history themselves always valued above all: truth. Categories : non-fiction books American non-fiction books Books about health Books about near-death experiences Books about spirituality. In fact, reality is too vast, too complex, and too irreducibly mysterious for a full picture of it ever to be absolutely complete. Proof of Heaven : A Neurosurgeons Journey into the Afterlife Writer During those years I also authored or coauthored more than chapters and papers for peer-reviewed medical journals and presented my findings at more than two hundred medical conferences around the world. Moody Raymond A. This site requires JavaScript. He added that while neurosurgeons need to understand its anatomy, they do not need to study how the brain functions, unlike neurologists. This idea is revolutionary, but not new; nineteenth-century luminaries including William James and Frederic W. In fact, I value it more than I ever did before. The verticality gave me increased speed, and the bend allowed my body to add first a little, then a blast of horizontal motion as my body became an efficient wing, sending me zipping past Chuck just in front of his colorful blossoming Para-Commander parachute. To those who recoil at the suggestion that the brain does not create consciousness, I would mention two common clinical observations that support this idea: terminal lucidity in which elderly demented patients often have oases of great clarity and insight about their lives, often peaking when they are aware of the souls of departed loved ones there to escort them to the other side , and acquired savant syndromes in which damage to the brain, be it head trauma, stroke, autism, or what have you, reveals a lacune of super-human mental function, such as fantastic capabilities for memory of lists, graphic, artistic or musical abilities, calculational abilities, etc. This is because the brain is the machine that produces consciousness in the first place. NDEs, he would have been the first to explain, might feel real to the people having them, but in truth they are simply fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress. The identity of the shining orb is revealed to be an "all-loving God. Having survived a near death experience and brought his neurological expertise and background to it, we gain both the insight of the mystics in his poetic words and the reality of the physical world in his scientific explorations. Then the meningitis felled him. New York, NY: Guideposts; I now believe that this might have been what was responsible for the depth and intensity of the near-death experience NDE that I myself underwent during it. I looked over and was relieved to see that the disoriented jumpers were now also tracking away from each other, dispersing the deadly clump. The part of the brain that controls thought and emotion—and in essence makes us human—shut down completely. He knew full well that he was gambling his professional reputation by writing it, but his hope is that his expertise will be enough to persuade skeptics, particularly medical skeptics, as he used to be, to open their minds to an afterworld. Already Dr. In a investigation of Alexander's story and medical background, Esquire magazine reported that before the publication of Proof of Heaven , Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. About The Book. Alexander makes it revolutionary. Alexander relates the details of his experience from the point of view of a neurosurgeon and discusses how this has affected his views on life, philosophy and medicine. Wilder Penfield of Montreal, one of the most prominent neurosurgeons of the 20 th century —who probably still holds the record for number of electrical stimulations of the brain in awake patients during his decades-long career treating epilepsy — wrote a book in summarizing evidence that the mind and free will is not created by the brain. So far he has spoken at the Lynchburg hospital, where he was treated, and said he has been invited to address a group of neurosurgeons at Stanford. May 21, But after consulting the existing literature and talking extensively to other colleagues in the field he decided no scientific explanation existed. Given that speed, I doubt he saw the expression on my face. In a recent interview at the Algonquin Hotel lobby in Manhattan, however, Dr. Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links. February 6, Corresponding author. All of consciousness is. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator. Internet Explorer. Retrieved July 13, Heaven by V. A Christian Rebuttal to Dr. To my surprise, he was coming straight in my direction. It's always fun to read Eben Alexander books. I came to see that unconditional love has the potential to bring infinite healing. Doing so properly has become the chief task of my life. He must not see me. On many counts I was a very lucky man, and I knew it. I can highly recommend this important book that has the potential to break many scientific taboos.