Dr. Raymond Moody revolutionized the way we think about death with his first book, Life After Life, first-hand accounts from people who clinically died and then returned to life. Their experiences of going through a tunnel and encountering angelic beings confirmed life after death for millions of readers. Since the publication of Life After Life, thousands of people contact Dr. Moody each year to share the unexpected things they felt, saw and heard when they were close to death ... or when someone dear to them passed away.
As a result of this steady stream of material, Dr. Moody uncovered another common thread to what happens when we die. Glimpses of Eternity, his new book, tells us that family and friends are often swept into the firsts moments of their loved one's journey from this life to the next. Dr. Moody calls these "shared death experiences." Glimpses of Eternity is the first book to talk about this beautiful aspect of our spiritual connections with one another. Entire families gathered for a loved one's passing all see a bright light from an unknown source. Some witness a gentle mist rising from an unknown source. Others tell of accompanying a family member halfway to heave. A woman recounts experiencing a film-like review of her spouse's life and learning things she could never have known otherwise.
The stories in Glimpses of Eternity are at once surprising and soothing. They offer comfort and hope, and shed new light on the mysterious journey we take at life's end.
Raymond Moody, M.D., Ph.D. is the bestselling author of eleven books which have sold over 20 million copies. His seminal work, Life After Life, has completely changed the way we view death and dying and has sold over 13 million copies worldwide. His latest book is GLIMPSES OF ETERNITY: Sharing a Loved One's Passage from this Life to the Next.
Dr. Moody is the leading authority on the "near-death experience"--a phrase he coined in the late seventies. He is best known for his ground-breaking work on the near-death experience and what happens when we die. The New York Times calls Dr. Moody "the father of the near-death experience."
Dr. Moody has enlightened and entertained audiences all over the world for over three decades. He lectures on such topics as: Near Death Experiences, Death With Dignity, Life After Loss, Surviving Grief & Finding Hope, Reunions: Visionary Encounters With Departed Loved Ones, The Healing Power of Humor, The Loss of Children, The Logic of Nonsense, and Catastrophic Tragedies & Events causing collective grief response.
In addition to his writing and lecturing, he is in the private practice of philosophical counseling and consulting on dying. Dr. Moody also trains hospice workers, clergy, psychologists, nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals on matters of grief recovery and dying. He helps people to identify systems of support and to cope with their anxiety, grief, and loss through better understanding of mourning and bereavement.
Dr. Moody received his medical degree from the College of Georgia and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Virginia where he also received his M.A. and B.A.
He is the recipient of many awards including the World Humanitarian Award and a bronze medal in the Human Relations category at the New York Film Festival for the movie version of Life After Life.
Dr. Moody is a frequent media guest and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show three times, as well as on hundreds of other local and nationally syndicated programs such as MSNBC: Grief Recovery, Today, ABC's Turning Point, and hundreds more.
This is a very personal topic for me. I came across this book after I had my own Shared Death Experience. I loved that I finally had a name for the metaphysical things that happened to me when my aunt was dying. I SO wanted to like this book, but it fell short on my expectations. I have lots of respect for Raymond Moody and I have liked his other books, but I felt the storytelling here was a bit lazy. Many of the tales started with "I was at a conference and someone came up to me and told me this story...." I wanted something more in depth.
I have heard others talk about this type of phenomenon occurring at the deathbed before, but never really knew what to call it. This must happen more than others think since I personally know someone who has had such an experience happen to them.
My mom was taking a nap when she awoke with a strong urge to go visit her dying friend. When my mom got there she held her friends hand while a family member held the other hand. My mom said she felt a cold chill run through her, and then seen a little puffy cloud that was her friends soul rise from the chest area, and then quickly disappear. My mom said that she felt her friend was the one to wake her up, and wanted her to be there to experience that. She said the family member holding the other hand of her dying friend didn't see this since she had her back to turned to her while talking to someone else in the room. She did however feel the life force leave because she immediately dropped the hand she was holding, and screamed.
I know that the soul lives forever because my grandma came to me once about a year after she passed. By that one visit I learned that we live on, and that we're ok after leaving here.
If you need proof about an afterlife, this may be it. The author chronicles peoples experiences about shared episodes of loved ones trips into the next dimension... heaven. He offers many compelling eye witness accounts. If after reading this you cannot come away without at least considering the idea of an afterlife then you are one committed atheist.
The fact that these are "SHARED" death experiences, however strange that may sound to an "unbeliever", is what makes these experiences more reliable. The argument, often used by scientists, that whatever people tell about their NDE's is merely the result of the changing chemistry of their brain, at a moment of crises, falls apart when there are testimonies of shared NDE's sometimes by several members a one family, or even by members of the family and medical staff at a hospital... It is a book worth reading, inspiring and including Raymond Moody's and his brother's and sister's own experience, by their Mother's deathbed.
Whether you are a believer or not, the stories in this collection are fascinating. The author shares not only his own insights into what he calls shared death experiences but those of countless others. Most people have heard about near death experiences. A shared death experience is similar and truly fascinating. What comes after this life is something people have pondered for ages, the author gives us a glimpse into that place through stories of survivors who were given an amazing glimpse into the hereafter. As an author I write a lot of stories that add this phenomenon into the pages and Raymond Moody has given me a wealth of new material to think about. Whether you believe that a special place awaits when we leave this world or not, you are going to find this book fascinating.
Interesting read about people that have experienced the passing of a loved one, in a spiritual sense, in different ways; some of them actually having out of body experiences and going toward the light with their loved one but then having to turn back, others hearing music, seeing a mist of the spirit rising out of the body at the point of death, others seeing previous loved ones coming to get their loved one that is passing over. The book is a big redundant in wording at times but the actual stories are of interest.
I enjoyed reading this book and it helped me to understand some things. My dad died recently, but before he went he asked if we could see the people at the foot of his bed. We couldn't, but his eyes were focused as though he saw them. He also mentioned that his mom and dad had come over a hill to see him and then went away again. A few days earlier he had almost died from a drug interaction, so I assumed that is when he saw them. This book made me feel much better about the whole death experience.
This is the first book in what is supposed to be 3 in a series but I can’t find any information about book 3. I had already read book 2 so this gave more of the background of the story but it would’ve been nicer to have read it first. Alex is a new pastor and has moved to North Dakota to minister to 2 small churches. He spends the time learning about the area, very different from Chicago where he is from, and meeting people.
...even stronger evidence. Stronger, because during these shared death experiences, the geometric surroundings during the event coincide with the quantum theories of the true nature of reality.
Title: GLIMPSES OF ETERNITY Author: Raymond Moody, MD with Paul Perry Publisher: Guideposts October 2010 ISBN: 978-0-8249-4813-3 Genre: Inspirational/nonfiction/body, soul & spirit/unexplained phenomenon
Is it possible to share a loved one’s passing from this world to the next?
Dr. Moody has collected several stories of passings, when the dying person’s loved ones who are gathered around them accompanied their loved one part way on their trip to glory. Or their loved one shared the experience in some fashion, such as seeing their loved one’s life passing—even things they didn’t know about. He shared about how sometimes the spirit lingers and things said might hurt them. And he mentioned how deceased loved ones sometimes came back to accompany them through a ‘tunnel’.
I was of the opinion that these things (at least most of them) happened anyway, because when my mother died, she saw my father quite clearly, and he’d died many years before. She told me—even though she’d lost her speech due to a stroke—quite clearly that Allan was there. I looked around and didn’t see him, but I have no doubt Dad was present. I also know that Mom’s spirit passed through my house on the way to Heaven, because I knew a full ten minutes before I was called that Mom was gone. I wished I’d stayed at the nursing home with her. But her death was unexpected.
GLIMPSES OF ETERNITY is a book that completely validated my experience with a loved one’s passing, and gave me glimpses into other peoples’ experiences. If you have a loved one dying, or shared an experience similar and wondered if it was unusual, or just wondered about the afterlife, near death experiences, or what it’s like to die, then GLIMPSES OF ETERNITY is a good book to pick up. Good for hospice workers and other medical workers, and church libraries. $19.99 hardcover. 183 pages.
The best & newest stuff is by the patriarch of the NDE studies, Raymond Moody. It has nothing to do with the trauma, closeness to death & anything similar. It involves perfectly healthy witnesses.
These are witnesses staying beside their dying loving ones & experiencing the fundamental transformation of consciousness. This is much more spectacular than by now boring usual NDEs involving heart attacks, car crashes, loss of consciousness, CPR etc. Historically, similar cases were written down before & after WW1 (Myers, Gurney, Carrington and Muldoon).
There are two approaches.
1. Moody is, actually, making this up & this is a fiction, like Tolkien
2. he's telling the truth, but his witnesses are only partially reliable & it is impossible to tell anything more precise
Be as it may, for those who have seriously read into mystical experiences throughout ages, these accounts are very similar to what high-level meditative "professionals" have recorded in the past 2000 years.
What I find truly puzzling is the following: hardly any reviewer commented on the extremely strange nature of these experiences. These are not your classical NDEs. Here, it is useless to squabble whether the brain was oxygen-deprived, or some neural circuits were firing off giving projections etc. etc. Because virtually all testimonies are from healthy people, not from those in the coma or pronounced dead or anything similar.
That's what makes these stories completely different from Moody's earlier work- and this is something barely anyone has mentioned.
I will start by saying this is not an overtly religious book. While reading the book you can not really tell this is supposed to be a Christian book at all. The general idea of the book is telling you stories of people’s experiences around others that are dying.
Dr. Raymond Moody spends the majority of this book talking about people who have been around someone dying and going a little bit into death with them. He describes it as a shared death experience. He sites numerous people who say they have watched as the soon to be deceased crosses over into death. They describe what they saw with detail. These experiences are different then near death experiences because the person experiencing them is not the person dying.
What is fascinating about each experience shared is that they all have certain characteristics that are alike. They all see the light and what they perceive to be as angels. Although you may not agree with the findings of Dr. Moody this book will open your eyes to a new viewpoint on death.
I so enjoyed the characters in this book, made me wish I lived there! A perfect Rural Town America, and most everyone was looking out for another. When Alex Armstrong arrived in North Dakota, the people of Hilltop Township, did not expect the new Minister to stay. Love all the food arriving, and it warmed my Heart with the arrival of Tripod! You can see God's Hand in his calling Alex here, and he warms up to Country life real fast. From the beginning you wonder if the two churches involved in sharing this Minister will ever be brought back together. There are hurts that have lasted decades, and some hands that held out are left hanging. You will adore the Character Will, and his Hoomain Society. He sounds so cute, and full of mischief...I for one cannot wait to read the next book to find out how things come along, and renew old friendships!
I received this book from the Publisher Guideposts, and was not required to give a positive review.
Raymond Moody has done it again! Having coined the term Near-Death Experience, he went on thirty-five years later to coin the term Shared Deathbed Experience. His research indicates that some of those sitting at the bedsides of the dying will see the visions of loved ones and even of the next levels of reality that the dying typically see, and some even leave their bodies and join the departing spirit on the first part of its journey. As with everything that Raymond Moody and Paul Perry write together, this book is an easy and enjoyable read.
By the celebrated author Raymond Moody MD who brought us the first popular book on the subject of NDEs in the 1970s, "Life After Life". A new type of experience regarding NDEs, chronicled by Dr. Moody.
They entail abbreviated visits to the other side of the veil as a living person "accompanies" a departing loved one on part of their journey to the other side. Essentially OBEs
I have not read his classic book called Life After Life(1975), but its on my reading list. I just want to first say this book was very interesting. I just felt that some of the experiences sounded the same but maybe thats the whole point to show case studies that have reliabilty. Everytime I read books like this, I think of Stephen in the Bible, who got stoned and saw parts of heaven and then died.
A collection of amazing shared death expierances that all but prove the existence of a world after this one. What I found most interesting was the identification of seven key principles that every experience shares despite of religion or location. I feel like this is the start of proving that there's another life be on this one.
Definitely a great read, highly suggest it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I have heard stories from others, and have had my own experiences, but did not have a framework for these "extra-ordinary" events. Now I do: Shared Death Experiences. I very much enjoyed reading stories about other people's similar experiences. This book provides all kinds of eye-opening accounts, and ties them together. Thanks, Raymond, for writing this book.
This is a scientific look into the "Shared" Death Experience or near death experience. I enjoyed the stories people told and the comprehensive look at each story and how each was similar. Worth the read if you just want to hear a little about the "here after" from a scientific approach.
Fascinating book. Thanks to C. for sharing her experience at her mother's deathbed and for encouraging me to check out this book. It sure gives me new ideas to ponder!
For the kind of book that it was, it was well done. Nothing unexpected- just the data that Raymond Moody has collected, and his speculations. A good match to go with "Proof of Heaven".