Is the NDE a genuine experience with death or merely a mystical experience with profound consequences?
What many people do not understand is that with an NDE we are not dealing with true death. And, we are certainly not dealing in the realm of scientific confirmation of life after death, despite some proponents claims. Rather, we are encountering personal, mystical/occult experiences that occur in some near-death states. But these same experiences also occur in many occult religions and practices and in various altered states of consciousness wholly unrelated to death per se. For example, in large measure the NDE is merely one form of the occult out-of-body experience (OBE). Both have fundamentally the same impact on the personremoval of the fear of death and dramatic psychological aftereffects.14 But both the NDE and OBE have many other similarities including cross-cultural occurrence, spiritistic contacts, worldview changes and development of psychic powers.15 One of the leading modern NDE researchers is University of Connecticut psychologist Dr. Kenneth Ring. In Heading Toward Omega,
