Penny Sartori, an intensive care nurse in the UK, has just published an academic study of near-death experiences (NDEs), titled Near Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients, a Five Year Clinical Study.
Ms Sartori decided to launch her formal study in 1998 after working closely with critically-ill patients throughout the 1990s and discovering there was very little reference data available for nurses and other healthcare workers.
She spent five years compiling the study, three years writing it up and two years preparing it for publication.
Worth noting is Sartori’s conclusion that some reports suggested something beyond a materialistic explanation – from ‘secret’ information passed on by a dead relative during the NDE, to a cerebal palsy patient being ‘healed’ by the experience:
All the current sceptical arguments against near-death experiences were not supported by the research. I don’t think it’s quite as simple as life after death… It’s what consciousness is and how we define it. We are entering an exciting time researching consciousness.
Current science says it is a by-product of the brain. But it may be that consciousness is around us and the brain might be a mediator, an antenna, instead of controlling consciousness.
Sounds very much like another suggestion of ‘T-Theory’ (‘Transmission Theory’, where the brain is more a receiver picking up a transmission). Being an academic book, the price to purchase is £85 – a small mortgage in Australia dollars – so don’t think I’ll be ordering it right now. Would definitely be worth perusing though, sounds like a good one. Thanks for the heads-up Baldrick.
