Lessons From The Light [Paperback]

Even if you never have a near-death experience (NDE) on the surgeon's table, in a car accident or during a heart attack, you can reap the spiritual benefits claimed by NDErs. Through meditation, study and mental exercises, you can tap into the healing energy of the loving, nonjudgmental Being of Light glimpsed by many at death's door. You can simulate a panoramic life-review of your entire existence, catapulting your values away from competitive materialism and toward love, service, cooperation; and you can integrate the insights commonly reported by NDErs into daily practical living. That's the message of this manual that, notwithstanding its aim of reaching out beyond the lucky privileged NDErs to the masses, mostly preaches to the converted. Veteran NDE researcher Ring (The Omega Project), here writing with Swiss NDE investigator Valarino, includes many previously unpublished NDE cases and distills techniques he has taught at workshops and university courses. In a book that reads like a New Age seminar, Ring presents intriguing evidence to support his belief that NDEs represent an authentic, objective experience, not a self-protective hallucination or a neurological artifact of a dying brain. This material includes reports of out-of-body experiences, children's NDEs, blind people gaining sight during NDE episodes, and NDErs whose brush with death apparently unleashed paranormal or healing abilities. Skeptics will relish punching holes in each of these phenomena, and a more rigorous approach would have been welcome for the already overcrowded NDE shelf.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A beautiful melding of research and compassionate, intuitive analysis. An inspirational book filled with both spiritual insight and practical information to help us realize our own personal power. -- Caroline Myss, Ph.D. author of Anatomy of the Spirit

A magnificent achievement! Ring's new book is the best book on NDEs! For while he is indeed one of the leading scholars in the field, he now brings in his heart and shows those of us who haven't had an NDE how to use the inspiration of NDEs to change our lives. -- Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, Davis; author of Altered States of Consciousness and Living the Mindful Life

A major contribution that offers a wealth of fresh case materials together with balanced and insightful commentary. -- Raymond A. Moody, Ph.D., author of Life After Life and Reunions

Arguably, the best book yet on the near-death experience. -- Michael Grosso, Ph.D., author of The Millenium Myth and Soulmaking: Uncommon Paths to Self-Understanding

Lessons from the Light is the best and most complete book on the near-death experience I've ever read, and I believe it will help you overcome your fears of dying. -- Seymour Boorstein, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and author of Clinical Studies in Transpersonal Psychotherapy

Lessons from the Light is the culmination of Kenneth Ring's rich and extensive career as the foremost researcher of the NDE. One of the very best books on the subject to date, it is a must read for anyone interested in life's possibilities. -- Sukie Miller, Ph.D., author of After Death: Mapping the Journey and director of The Institute for the Study of the Afterdeath

Lessons from the Light opens the last door each of us will face in our lifetime. With clarity, wit, and crisp prose, it brings us to the cutting edge of what promises to be the most important discovery ever made in psychobiology-what truly happens after death. -- Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., National Book Award-winning author of Taking the Quantum Leap and The Spiritual Universe

The capstone of Kenneth Ring's career, this book is the distillation of all that death can teach the living. Ring's loving voice turns harrowing and resplendent near-death stories never published before into a practical guide that motivates through its sheer heart-gripping beauty. No reader will ever be able to think of life in the same way again after reading this book. -- Jenny Wade, Ph.D., author of Changes of Mind: A Holononic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness

This is unquestionably the most important book on the subject of near-death experience since Moody's Life After Life. -- Ian Wilson, author of The After Death Experience

While providing many accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from men, women and children of all ages and backgrounds, Lessons from the Light is much more than just an inspiring collection of NDEs. In Lessons from the Light near-death expert Kenneth Ring extracts the pure gold of the NDE and with a beautiful balance of sound research and human insight reveals the practical wisdom held within these experiences.

As Stanley Krippner states, "In this remarkable book, Ring presents evidence that merely learning about the near-death experience has similar positive effects to those reported by people who actually have had near-death experiences. Kenneth Ring is one of the few authors whose gifts include the capacity to transform their readers' lives."

Kenneth Ring, PhD, (Kentfield, California) is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut and co-founder and past president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. Regarded as the "Dean of NDE Researchers," he is the founding editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies and the author of several previous books on NDEs, including Life at Death, Heading Toward Omega and The Omega Project, as well as a monograph, Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and has been actively involved in research into the NDE for many years. She is the author of On the Other Side of Life: Exploring the Phenomenon of the Near-Death Experience, a cross-disciplinary book on the NDE that has been published in many languages.