Chapter 13: The Being of Light

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world.’” — John 8:12 (ESV)

A. The Question on the Table

A woman lies on a table in the emergency room. Her heart has stopped. The monitors show flat lines. A team of doctors and nurses works over her body. And then she is somewhere else.

She is not in pain. She is not afraid. She is standing in a place she has never seen, and in front of her is a light. It is brighter than anything she has ever looked at, but it does not hurt her eyes. It fills the space around her. And it is not just a glow. It feels alive. It knows her. It loves her. She feels, in that moment, more known and more loved than she has ever felt in her life.

Of all the things people report during a near-death experience, this is the one that stays with them the longest. Not the tunnel. Not the feeling of peace. Not even the sight of deceased relatives. It is the light. Something bright and personal and warm greets them at the deepest point of the experience, and they come back forever changed.

Raymond Moody, who first brought NDEs to the public in 1975, called it "the most incredible common element" of the experience. He said it "has the most profound effect upon the individual."¹ Jeffrey Long, whose database at the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) holds more than four thousand cases, found that an awareness of God during the NDE was reported more often than any other single element.² Bruce Greyson, who has studied NDEs for over four decades at the University of Virginia, reports that almost ninety percent of experiencers who meet another person in their NDE say they encountered some kind of divine or godlike being.³

So the being of light is not a rare feature. It is close to the center of the whole experience. And that raises a question this chapter must face head-on: who is it?

The answer matters more than you might think. If the light is God, then NDEs are not just evidence that the soul survives death. They are evidence that the soul survives death into the arms of a personal, loving Creator. That changes everything. But if the light can sometimes be something else, if there is any chance that a glowing figure could mislead or deceive, then we need a way to tell the difference. This chapter will give you both sides. I want to show you what the research says about this being. Then I want to show you what the Bible says. And I want to plant the first seeds of a test you can use to weigh what you hear.

B. The Evidence in Front of Us

When near-death experiencers describe the light, a handful of features come up again and again, across decades, across cultures, and across every kind of religious background.

First, it is bright beyond anything on earth. People reach for comparisons. One person described a light "brighter than a million suns" that still did not hurt her eyes.⁴ Another said, "I was blinded by the light, unable to see anything, but the light didn't hurt my eyes. It was like looking into the sun a million times over, a pure white light."⁵ This detail is striking. You would expect a painfully bright light to make people squint or turn away. Instead, they are drawn toward it.

Second, it is personal. Moody put this simply: "Not one person has expressed any doubt whatsoever that it was a being, a being of light. Not only that, it is a personal being. It has a very definite personality."⁶ It communicates. It asks questions. It responds. People do not describe a force or a phenomenon. They describe someone.

Third, it radiates love. And not a mild or general love. Experiencers consistently say they have never felt anything like it before or since. "No human can ever love with the love I felt in that light," one experiencer told the NDERF survey. "It is all-consuming, all-forgiving. Nothing matches it."⁷ Another said, "I was in the presence of pure, unconditional love."⁸

Fourth, it seems to know everything about the person. Moody noted that "it is often obvious that the being can see the individual's whole life."⁹ The life review, which we will look at in Chapter 16, often happens in the presence of this being. The person feels fully seen and fully known, yet not condemned.

These four features (brightness without pain, personal presence, overwhelming love, complete knowledge) are reported so often and so consistently that they have become one of the best-documented aspects of the entire NDE. The NDERF survey asked, "Did you see a light?" In response, 64.8 percent of experiencers said yes.¹⁰ And the question about an awareness of God was answered positively by 45.5 percent, higher than the percentage who reported a tunnel, a life review, or meeting deceased loved ones.¹¹

So the being of light is common, well-documented, and deeply consistent across thousands of accounts. The question is not whether people meet it. The question is who they are meeting.

C. The Heart of the Case

1. The Light Almost Everyone Describes

When I read through hundreds of NDE accounts during my doctoral research, the descriptions of the light were among the most consistent things I found. They cut across every kind of background.

A fifteen-year-old who overdosed on antidepressants during a suicide attempt described meeting a figure in a white robe: "A blinding, bright white light shone behind Him. . . . He told me that I had to go back, it wasn't my time yet. . . . I felt the most intense love that I've never felt before or since."¹² A woman who nearly bled to death after an ectopic pregnancy said, "A heavenly, all-encompassing light was everywhere. . . . I was in the presence of Jesus. I didn't see Him, but He was in the light and spoke to me telepathically. I felt the overflowing love of God."¹³

An agnostic woman who crashed into a tow truck on black ice described "an indescribably warm and loving Omnipresence of Light." She said, "The serenity and unconditional love emanating from it through me is beyond verbal description."¹⁴ A man who suffered a massive brain injury in a car rollover said, "As I came closer to the Light, it became brighter, pure white. . . . Peace, tranquility, harmony, oneness, well-being, unconditional Love, and acceptance is everything I had thought God is and so much more."¹⁵

A woman who gave birth and began bleeding uncontrollably left her body, then found herself surrounded by "the most amazing bright light." She said, "I felt calmer than I've ever felt; I've never felt so peaceful or happy."⁴² Another woman described the light as a boundary she passed through: "I was blinded by the light, unable to see anything, but the light didn't hurt my eyes. . . . I felt warm, safe, and peaceful and in the presence of pure, unconditional love."⁴³

Notice what stays the same in these accounts. A suicidal teenager. A young mother. An agnostic. A man with a brain injury. A woman in childbirth. Different ages, different backgrounds, different crises. And every one of them describes the same kind of light: bright, personal, loving, all-knowing. This is not a single anecdote. It is a pattern, and it has held for decades.

2. The Love and Knowledge It Radiates

The most common words near-death experiencers use when they talk about the light are love and peace. The NDERF survey found that 77.7 percent of experiencers selected "incredible peace or pleasantness" when asked about their feelings during the NDE. Another 54 percent described "incredible joy."¹⁶

But it is the kind of love that sets the being of light apart from anything in ordinary life. This love is not earned. It is not partial. It seems to know the worst about a person and love them anyway. Moody described the experience this way: "The love and the warmth which emanate from this being to the dying person are utterly beyond words, and he feels completely surrounded by it and taken up in it, completely at ease and accepted in the presence of this being."¹⁷

This love often goes hand in hand with a sense of being completely known. You cannot hide from the being of light. It already sees everything. One experiencer said it felt like "the day you looked into the eyes of your child for the first time magnified a million times."¹⁸ Another said, "The entire encounter was about God, the ultimate power of God, and God's forgiveness. The message was, 'Love is the greatest power in the universe.'"¹⁹

For a Christian reader, this pairing of total knowledge and total love should sound familiar. The God of the Bible knows us inside and out. "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Luke 12:7, ESV). And yet His response to sinners, in the Gospels above all, is not rage but welcome. We will return to this in Chapter 14. For now, I simply want you to notice the pattern: the being of light acts like someone who knows everything and loves anyway.

3. Who Do People Say It Is?

Here is where the data get interesting, and where I need to share what I found in my own research.

When experiencers meet the being of light, they do not all give it the same name. Greyson reports that among all the experiencers in his research who described meeting a divine or godlike being, about one-third identified it as an entity consistent with their religious beliefs. The other two-thirds said they could not identify it at all.²⁰ Some called it "God." Some called it "the Light." Some used the word "Source" or "Love." Eben Alexander, the neurosurgeon who wrote about his NDE, said the word "God" seemed "too puny."²¹ Kim Clark Sharp, who had an NDE at age seventeen, said "even the word 'God' seemed too small to describe the magnificence of that presence."²²

But here is the finding that caught my attention and that I think should catch yours.

J. Steve Miller, who conducted his own careful analysis of the NDERF database, confirmed this finding. He reported that about 18 percent of experiencers claimed to have seen Jesus. By contrast, only three out of over five thousand cases reported seeing Krishna. Only two reported seeing Buddha. And among eighty self-identified Muslims in the database, not a single one claimed to have seen Muhammad.²³ Miller challenged his readers to go to the NDERF website and read 100 consecutive NDE accounts. How many mention figures from non-Christian religions? The answer, he found, was almost none. He found more reports of seeing aliens in NDEs than reports of any non-Christian deity.²⁴ And notably, the three people who reported seeing Krishna also reported seeing Jesus in the same experience.

This pattern is not what most people expect. The common assumption is that each religion sees its own figure: Christians see Jesus, Hindus see Krishna, Muslims see Muhammad. But the data do not support this. Jesus appears far more often than any other named religious figure. And most of the remaining experiencers describe an unnamed light of love, not their tradition's deity.

I want to be clear about what this does and does not prove. It does not prove that every light is Jesus. It does not prove that Christianity is true (that requires a fuller case than any single line of evidence can provide). But it does tell us something we should pay attention to: in the world's largest database of near-death experiences, Jesus shows up more than anyone else, and other deities barely show up at all.

Jeffrey Long, whose NDERF database supplied much of this data, confirmed the pattern from his own research. He noted that he could not recall any NDEs in which Muhammad appeared as a central figure. He also published a study of over twenty Muslim NDEs from Iran and found their content to be strikingly similar to typical Western NDEs, with no appearances of Muhammad.²⁵

And the identification is not vague. Miller found that in many cases, experiencers did not describe a generic being of light and then guess it might be Jesus. Rather, they described a distinct being they recognized as Jesus with certainty. Some saw Him in a form matching common descriptions. Others simply knew, without being told, who He was. As Miller put it, the experiencers claimed to know it was Him the way they would know a relative: not because the person introduced himself, but because the knowledge was immediate and certain.²⁶

Michael Sabom, the cardiologist whose Atlanta Study examined NDE reports from cardiac-arrest patients, found the same kind of intuitive recognition. One experiencer said of the figure she met: "I immediately knew it was Jesus. There was never any doubt who it was." Another, George Ritchie, described encountering "a man made out of light" and said, "The instant I perceived Him . . . [I received] the stupendous certainty: 'You are in the presence of the Son of God.'"²⁷

4. The Crucial Caution

Now I need to say something that some readers will not want to hear. Something that is just as true as everything I have said so far, and just as important.

Not every light that appears to a dying person comes from God. The Bible says this plainly. Paul warns the church in Corinth:

That verse is not about NDEs specifically. Paul was warning about false teachers in the church. But the principle is clear: the enemy can look bright, warm, and comforting when he wants to. A beautiful appearance, by itself, does not prove the source is God.

I am not saying this to frighten you. Most NDEs are genuine, and most of them line up well with what the Bible teaches. In my doctoral research, about 87 percent of the scholarly cases showed high or moderate compatibility with a biblical framework.²⁸ So the majority are not deceptions. But a healthy minority carry content that contradicts Scripture. Some teach that there is no sin. Some teach that all religions lead to the same God. Some promote reincarnation. And at least some of those cases involve a being of light who delivers those very messages.

Shaun Tabatt, whose careful study of deceptive NDEs I will draw on in Chapter 20, warns that the enemy does not create from nothing. Instead, he takes something real and twists it. God's plan for NDEs, Tabatt argues, is to reveal Himself to people. But Satan is working to hijack these encounters and lead people toward "anything and everything other than the God revealed in the Bible." Sometimes the deception is obvious, as when a false welcoming committee collapses into demonic forms. But other times it is far more subtle. Tabatt notes a whole body of NDEs where people encounter what they believe to be God as "a nondescript blob of light" in whose presence they feel love. The being comes across as "vague and nondescript," in stark contrast to the NDEs where people clearly encounter Christ.²⁹ That distinction between the experience itself and the conclusions people draw from it is one of the most important ideas in this book. We will develop it fully in Chapter 21.

For now, the caution is simple: take the being of light seriously, but do not stop thinking when it appears. Ask the next question.

5. How to Tell: The Seed of a Test

If not every light is Christ, how do we know when it is? I will develop the full answer in later chapters, but here are the first markers to look for.

First, does the being point to Jesus? The Holy Spirit's job, Jesus said, is to glorify Him (John 16:14). A genuine encounter with God will point toward Christ, not away from Him. If the being teaches that Jesus is one path among many, or that He does not matter, that is a red flag.

Second, does the being honor Scripture? God does not contradict His own Word. If the being's message clashes with the Bible's clear teaching, the message is not from God, no matter how warm the feeling.

Third, does the being call sin what it is? The God of the Bible is loving, yes. But He is also holy. He does not tell people that nothing they do matters or that guilt is an illusion. A being who says "there is nothing you can do wrong" is not speaking for the God who sent His Son to the cross.³⁰

Fourth, what fruit does the encounter produce? Jesus said, "You will recognize them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16, ESV). A genuine encounter with God tends to produce repentance, humility, love for others, a hunger for Scripture, and a deeper walk with Christ. If an encounter leads a person toward New Age thinking, away from the church, or into spiritual pride, that fruit should concern us.

I believe many encounters with the being of light are genuine encounters with God. The pattern of the data supports this. The match with biblical descriptions of God's character supports it. The fruit in changed lives supports it. But I also believe we dishonor God and endanger the reader when we skip the testing step. Light deserves to be examined. The real light will pass the test.

D. What the Researchers and Scholars Say

The researchers who have studied NDEs most carefully are not of one mind about the being of light. But they agree on the basic facts.

Jeffrey Long, in God and the Afterlife, presents the most direct case. His God Study reviewed 420 near-death experiences from the NDERF database. He found that 45.5 percent of experiencers reported an awareness of God during their NDE. Only 14.8 percent were uncertain. And essentially all of those who said yes described encountering information that God does exist. None described encountering information that God does not exist.³¹

Long also found that this encounter had lasting effects. Among those who reported encountering God, the percentage who said their religious or spiritual life was "greatly important" jumped from about 22 percent before the NDE to about 83 percent afterward. This was a dramatic and long-lasting shift, measured on average twenty-two years after the experience.³²

Raymond Moody, who started the modern study of NDEs, described the being of light as the central feature of the experience. He noted the complete consistency of the emotional response: "He senses an irresistible magnetic attraction to this light. He is ineluctably drawn to it." And he added that "while the above description of the being of light is utterly invariable, the identification of the being varies from individual to individual."³³ Christians tended to identify it as Christ. A Jewish man and woman called it an angel. But the experience itself stayed the same.

Bruce Greyson, in After, approached the question as a scientist and a self-described skeptic. He noted that he was "uncomfortable with the overwhelming numbers of experiencers who described meeting some kind of godlike being." But he followed the data anyway. He found that experiencers who met a divine being consistently described feeling peaceful, calm, "at home," and above all, loved. The label varied. The experience did not.³⁴

Greyson also made an honest admission that I find admirable. "Scientists can't pick and choose which evidence is worth pursuing and which can be ignored," he wrote. He had been raised without a strong sense of the divine. The encounter with God was not part of his own background. But the data demanded his attention, and he gave it.⁴⁴

Sabom, a cardiologist and a devout Christian, came at it from the other direction. He took the biblical warnings seriously. He noted that God told Moses, "No one may see me and live" (Exodus 33:20), and that Paul wrote that God "lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:16). Could NDErs really be seeing God directly? Sabom suggested that many of them were likely encountering a general revelation of God, a disclosure of His character and presence, rather than seeing God face to face. The experience was real, but its precise nature required careful thought.⁴⁵ That kind of careful thinking is exactly what I am asking you to do in this chapter.

Sabom also raised a question that I think every reader needs to hear. In his analysis of George Ritchie's and Betty Eadie's encounters with "Jesus," Sabom found that the descriptions of the figure and the feelings it produced were strikingly similar. Yet when he compared the teachings those figures delivered to what the Bible says, the picture changed. Ritchie's "Jesus" told him that the Christian belief in fallen humanity was an error. Eadie's "Jesus" told her that all churches are equally valid and that humans chose their own missions before birth. Sabom pointed out that since these teachings contradict Scripture, something the biblical Christ never did, the "Jesus" in those cases could not be the historical Jesus of the Bible. He then cited the warning of Matthew 24:24: "False Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect." The real identity of such a being, Sabom concluded, can only be determined by testing what it teaches against Scripture, not by the feelings it produces.^45b

Miller and Tabatt, whose work I will draw on more fully in the coming chapters, add the evaluative voice. Miller's data from the NDERF database provides the statistical backbone. He argued that since reports of Krishna, Buddha, and Muhammad were so rare as to fall into the same anomalous category as reports of seeing aliens, the common claim that each religion sees its own deity simply does not hold. Miller concluded that for those who believe the core NDE elements reflect real encounters with the other side, "we have evidence that Jesus is alive and well on the other side."³⁵

Tabatt adds a different but equally needed voice. He offers six practical questions for readers evaluating any NDE account: Does it fit with what the Bible says about heaven, hell, and the afterlife? Does it match historic Christian teaching? Does it point to Jesus, or does it make the experiencer famous? Does it fit a recognized NDE framework? Does something about it grieve your spirit? And what fruit do you see in the experiencer's life?^35b These are the right questions. We will return to them, along with Tabatt's more detailed nine-point framework, in Chapter 23.

E. Counter-Objections

Objection 1: The Light Is Just an Oxygen-Starved Brain

Some researchers argue that the being of light is nothing more than the brain's response to oxygen loss or the narrowing of blood flow in the visual cortex, producing a "tunnel and light" effect. This is a serious suggestion, and we should not dismiss it.

But I will point out the obvious problem here: a dying retina does not have a personality. It does not ask questions. It does not prompt a life review. And people who have experienced both ordinary fainting and an NDE will tell you the two feel nothing alike.³⁶ The full case against the naturalistic explanations belongs in Chapter 24. I will not repeat it here. But the short version is that oxygen loss cannot explain the personal, relational, and deeply meaningful character of what people describe.

Objection 2: People Just See What They Expect to See

This is the projection objection: people project their own beliefs onto a vague experience. Christians see Jesus because they expect Jesus. Hindus see Krishna because they expect Krishna. And so on.

The data do not support this. As I noted above, Hindus very rarely report seeing Krishna. Muslims do not report seeing Muhammad. And many of the people who identify the being as Jesus are not deeply religious at the time of the NDE. Some are lapsed believers. Some are agnostics. Some are children too young to have strong expectations.³⁷ In Pim van Lommel's Dutch study, 43 percent of the subjects had never even heard of NDEs before having one, and more than half the Dutch population, he noted, believes death is the end of everything.³⁸ These are not people who expected to see a being of light.

Greyson added an important observation. He noted that among the experiencers who met a divine being, about two-thirds said they could not identify the being at all.³⁹ If people were projecting their beliefs, you would expect most of them to confidently label the being. Instead, most say they do not know what to call it. That is not projection. That is awe.

Objection 3: If Only Twenty Percent See Jesus, Does That Undercut Christianity?

Some people hear the statistic and react the opposite way. If Jesus appears in only twenty percent of cases, does that mean He is not really there? Does it mean Christianity has no special claim?

I think the right response is to look at the whole picture. Twenty percent is a large number when you consider that the database includes people from every religion on earth, plus atheists and agnostics. No other named figure comes close. Less than one percent of NDEs mention any other specific deity. The question is not "why is twenty percent so low?" The question is "why is twenty percent so much higher than everyone else?" The surprising thing is how often Jesus shows up, not how often He does not.

And the eighty percent who do not name Jesus are not seeing rival gods. They are seeing an unnamed light of love. Most describe the same attributes: personal, all-knowing, overwhelmingly loving. This is consistent with people encountering the same God and interpreting the encounter differently. The experience stays the same. The label changes.⁴⁰

There is also a practical reason why many people do not identify the being. Greyson's finding is helpful here. Most experiencers simply do not have words for what they met. The encounter goes beyond any category they have ever used. So they reach for the closest label they know. Some say "God." Some say "the Light." Some say nothing at all. The silence is not a contradiction of the twenty percent who say "Jesus." It is the honest response of people who met something bigger than their vocabulary.⁴⁶

I will develop the distinction between experience and interpretation more fully in Chapter 21.

Objection 4: A Being of Pure Love Cannot Be a Deceiver

Some writers argue that the very quality of the love proves the being is good. A being that radiates such overwhelming, life-changing love cannot be the enemy.

I understand the appeal of this argument. In most cases, I agree with the conclusion. But the reasoning is not safe on its own. Paul's warning about Satan disguising himself as an angel of light is a warning about appearances. The enemy does not show up in horns. He shows up in beauty. That is what makes deception dangerous.⁴¹ Again, I am not saying most NDEs are deceptions. The evidence suggests the opposite. But a Christian cannot simply say, "It felt loving, so it must be God," and stop there. We have to go further. We have to ask the questions: What did the being teach? What did it say about Jesus? What fruit did it produce? Those are the real tests.

F. Conclusion and Pastoral Application

The being of light is one of the most powerful and consistent elements of the near-death experience. People from every background, every age, and every level of belief describe the same encounter: a personal, living light that knows them completely and loves them without condition. It is brighter than anything on earth, yet it does not hurt. It communicates directly. It leaves people forever changed.

The data tell us something we should take seriously: in the world's largest NDE database, about one in five experiencers identify this being as Jesus. Fewer than one in a hundred name any other deity. The rest describe the light in terms that match, point for point, what the Bible says about the character of God: personal, all-knowing, overwhelmingly loving, and drawing people toward Himself.

But this chapter is not just about comfort. It is about careful thinking. The Bible tells us that not every spirit is from God. Not every bright light leads to truth. Some NDEs carry messages that contradict Scripture. And the enemy knows how to look beautiful. So we hold two things together: deep gratitude for the evidence that a personal, loving God meets the dying, and honest caution about experiences that must be tested before they are trusted.

The Apostle John wrote, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5, ESV). Jesus said, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12, ESV). If these statements are true, then we should not be surprised that the dying often meet a light of extraordinary love. We should expect it. The question is not whether the light is real. The question is whether, in any given case, it is His light.

In the next chapter, I will make the positive case for Jesus in NDEs. I will look at the marks that identify a genuine encounter with Christ. And I will ask why His welcome is so consistently loving, even toward people who do not yet believe. But always, the comfort and the caution travel together. That is how this book works. That is how Scripture works. And that is how a careful Christian engages the being of light.

If you have lost someone you love, or if you are facing death yourself, I want you to hear this: the evidence is strong that a personal, loving God stands at the other side of death. Thousands of people have met Him there and come back to tell us. The light they describe matches, point for point, what Scripture tells us about the character of God. He is personal. He knows us completely. He loves us beyond anything we have ever felt on earth.

But I also want you to be wise. Not every light is from God. Not every warm feeling guarantees truth. The Bible calls us to test, and testing is not a sign of weak faith. It is a sign of mature faith. Hold onto what is good. Throw out what fails the test. And trust the God whose real light can stand up to any question you bring to it.

The psalmist wrote, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" (Psalm 27:1, ESV). That is the confidence I want you to carry into the next chapter. Not a confidence built on every NDE story you have heard, but a confidence built on the character of the God behind the light. He is real. He is personal. He is love. And He is not afraid of your questions.

Notes

↑ 1. Raymond Moody, Life After Life: The Bestselling Original Investigation That Revealed Near-Death Experiences (New York: HarperOne, 2015), chapter on "The Being of Light." Moody's language about the "most incredible common element" and its "profound effect" comes from his original description of the core elements.

↑ 2. Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry, God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperOne, 2016), chapter 1. Long notes that awareness of God was more frequent than tunnel, life review, or meeting deceased loved ones.

↑ 3. Bruce Greyson, After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond (New York: St. Martin's Essentials, 2021), chapter 14. Greyson reports that among experiencers who encountered other persons, almost 90 percent described a divine or godlike being.

↑ 4. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE shared via the NDERF survey, due to complication of sleep apnea.

↑ 5. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE shared via NDERF survey (Lloyd, severe allergic reaction to medication).

↑ 6. Moody, Life After Life, chapter on "The Being of Light." The full passage describes the being's warmth, love, and "very definite personality."

↑ 7. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter 2. NDERF narrative response on the love encountered.

↑ 8. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDERF narrative response (Lloyd).

↑ 9. Moody, Life After Life, chapter on "The Being of Light."

↑ 10. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter on the twelve NDE elements. The NDERF survey question "Did you see a light?" yielded 64.8 percent affirmative.

↑ 11. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter 1. The 45.5 percent figure comes from the God Study question: "During your experience, did you encounter any specific information/awareness that God or a supreme being either does (or does not) exist?"

↑ 12. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE due to antidepressant overdose in a suicide attempt at age fifteen, shared via the NDERF survey.

↑ 13. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE due to internal bleeding from an ectopic pregnancy, shared via the NDERF survey.

↑ 14. Greyson, After, chapter 14. Tracy, age twenty-seven, NDE after a car accident on black ice.

↑ 15. Greyson, After, chapter 14. Rudy, age twenty-six, NDE after a car rollover with massive brain injury.

↑ 16. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE element descriptions. NDERF survey responses on peace and joy.

↑ 17. Moody, Life After Life, chapter on "The Being of Light."

↑ 18. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter 2, NDERF narrative response on love.

↑ 19. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter 2, NDERF narrative response.

↑ 20. Greyson, After, chapter 14. Greyson reports that one-third identified the being in terms of their religious beliefs, while two-thirds could not identify the godlike being.

↑ 21. Greyson, After, chapter 14, quoting Eben Alexander.

↑ 22. Greyson, After, chapter 14, quoting Kim Clark Sharp.

↑ 23. J. Steve Miller, Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings (Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2023), appendices 1–3 and chapter 7. Miller searched the NDERF database (which at the time held over 5,000 reported experiences) and found that 18 percent claimed to have seen Jesus. Of the same total, only three reported seeing Krishna, only two said they saw Buddha, and among eighty self-identified Muslims, none reported seeing Muhammad. Miller challenged readers to read 100 consecutive NDE accounts on the NDERF site and see for themselves how few report figures from non-Christian religions. He concluded that the common claim that each religion’s adherents typically see their own deity is not supported by the data.

↑ 24. Miller, Is Christianity Compatible, appendix 3 and chapter 7. Miller searched the NDERF database for alien reports and estimated that approximately six per thousand (0.6 percent) of experiencers claimed to have seen or learned about aliens. As he put it: “Since I found even less reports of Buddha, Krishna or Muhammad, surely we should put them in the same anomalous category with aliens.” He was not arguing that any of these were fictitious, only that their numbers were far too small to be treated as part of the core NDE experience.

↑ 25. Jeffrey Long, quoted in Miller, Is Christianity Compatible, chapter 6, note 50. Long stated: “I cannot recall any NDEs with Muhammad as a central figure. I recently published a paper on over 20 Muslim NDEs from Iran [In Journal of Near-Death Studies 33(1) Fall 2014]. We found the content of these NDEs to be strikingly similar to typical Western NDEs. In dialoguing with the Iranian co-author I asked about Muhammad in Muslim NDEs. He said that Muslims have a cultural taboo against sharing encounters with Muhammad, and thus even if they encountered Muhammad in their NDEs, they would likely be very reluctant to share that.” (Jeffrey Long, answering a question on the NHNE Near-Death Experience Network, May 10, 2017.)

↑ 26. Miller, Is Christianity Compatible, chapter 6. Miller noted that experiencers did not describe a generic being of light and then guess it might be Jesus. Rather, they described a distinct being they recognized with certainty. Miller also observed that the common assumption—that Christians see Jesus, Hindus see Krishna, and Muslims see Muhammad—does not hold. The NDERF data showed that even the three people who reported seeing Krishna also reported seeing Jesus. Miller concluded that “the data I found did not support the common contention that when people see the Being of Light, Christians merely assume that it’s Jesus and report him as such, whereas devotees of other religions typically assume that it’s one of their unique prophets or gods.”

↑ 27. Michael Sabom, Light and Death: One Doctor’s Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), section on the spiritual content of NDEs. Sabom discusses the intuitive identification of “Jesus” across multiple cases. Bobby Jean in The Atlanta Study said she “immediately knew [it] was Jesus. There was never any doubt who it was.” George Ritchie described encountering “a man made out of light” and wrote: “The instant I perceived Him . . . [I received] the stupendous certainty: ‘You are in the presence of the Son of God.’” See George G. Ritchie Jr., Return from Tomorrow (Fairfax: Chosen Books, 1978), 49. Sabom noted that in each case, the intuitive identification, the descriptions, and the feelings in the figure’s presence were “virtually identical.”

↑ 28. Author's Th.D. dissertation (Trinity Theological Seminary). In my analysis of 5,278 near-death experiences, about 87 percent of the scholarly cases showed high or moderate compatibility with a biblical framework; overall, about 71 percent lined up well with Scripture.

↑ 29. Shaun Tabatt, The NDE Conspiracy (independently published, 2024), chapters 1–2 and the concluding chapter. Tabatt argues that “God has given us near-death experiences to reveal Himself to all of humanity,” but that Satan is “attempting to hijack many of these near-death experiences and related accounts to deceive people and lead them toward anything and everything other than the God revealed in the Bible.” Tabatt sees cases where Satan’s influence is explicit (such as Bryan Melvin’s counterfeit welcoming committee) and others “where the work of satan’s hand is much more subtle, influencing experiencers’ afterlife encounters with an image of ‘God’ that while seemingly radiating light and love, is also vague, nondescript, and unknowable.”

↑ 30. The message “there is nothing you can do wrong” is from Eben Alexander’s NDE account in Proof of Heaven (non-resident, claim level). Tabatt discusses Alexander’s account as an example where a moving, dramatic experience carried teachings that “simply does not square with the teaching of the Bible at too many crucial points.” As one critical reviewer quoted by Tabatt concluded: “Despite the book’s use of some biblical language about God as Creator, about divine love, heaven, angels, etc., it simply does not square with the teaching of the Bible.” See Tabatt, The NDE Conspiracy, chapter on Alexander. Sabom’s testing framework (footnote 45b above) applies directly to cases like this.

↑ 31. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter 1. The God Study reviewed 420 sequentially shared NDEs. The 45.5 percent, 14.8 percent, and 39.8 percent breakdown is from the responses to the direct question about awareness of God.

↑ 32. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, chapter 4. The survey asked NDErs to compare the importance of their religious/spiritual life before the NDE to its importance at the time they shared their experience. Among those who encountered God, 110 out of 133 said it was now "greatly important," compared to 29 before the NDE.

↑ 33. Moody, Life After Life, chapter on "The Being of Light." Moody's observation that the description is "utterly invariable" while the identification varies appears in his original treatment of this element.

↑ 34. Greyson, After, chapter 14. Greyson acknowledges his discomfort with the data and his decision to follow it anyway. He notes the consistency of feeling peaceful, calm, "at home," and above all loved.

↑ 35. Miller, Is Christianity Compatible, concluding discussion in chapter 7. Miller writes: “If my research was accurate, and continues to be confirmed by future research, then Jesus is reported in numbers great enough to be considered part of the core NDE experience. For those of us who believe that the core elements are typically authentic experiences with the other side, then we have evidence that Jesus is alive and well on the other side.” Miller’s and Tabatt’s specific arguments about Jesus appearances and discernment criteria are developed fully in Chapter 14 (Miller), Chapter 20 (Tabatt), and Chapter 23 (both).

↑ 35b. Tabatt, The NDE Conspiracy, concluding chapter. Tabatt frames these six questions as practical tools for readers engaging with the “wide world of near-death experiences.” He writes: “My whole intention with this book was to prepare you with the tools and background you need to discern what is good and bad in the afterlife encounters you come across. You need to, as they say, ‘Read to keep the meat, and spit out the bones.’”

↑ 36. Several NDE researchers have noted that experiencers who have also fainted or experienced oxygen deprivation in other contexts describe the two experiences as entirely different. See the discussion in Chapter 24 and Appendix B.

↑ 37. On children's NDEs and the lack of prior expectations, see Chapter 11. On Greyson's finding that two-thirds could not identify the being, see note 20 above.

↑ 38. Miller, Is Christianity Compatible, discussing the van Lommel study. Miller notes that 43 percent of van Lommel’s Dutch subjects had not heard of NDEs before having one, and that more than half the Dutch population believes death is final. This is significant for the projection objection: these were not people who expected to see a being of light, yet many described the same encounter as those from religious backgrounds.

↑ 39. Greyson, After, chapter 14. See note 20.

↑ 40. The distinction between the experience and its interpretation is developed fully in Chapter 21. It is one of the most important analytical tools in this book.

↑ 41. 2 Corinthians 11:13–15 (ESV). Paul's full warning is that "such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness."

↑ 42. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE due to respiratory arrest, shared via the NDERF survey.

↑ 43. Long and Perry, God and the Afterlife, NDE shared via the NDERF survey (Lloyd, severe allergic reaction). This is the same account as note 5 but quoted at a different point in the experiencer's narrative.

↑ 44. Greyson, After, chapter 14. Greyson writes, "Having been raised in a scientific household without a strong sense of the divine, I was uncomfortable with the overwhelming numbers of experiencers who described meeting some kind of godlike being." But he adds that scientists "can't reject the observations that contradict our worldview and accept those that agree with our views, without looking at the data."

↑ 45. Sabom, Light and Death, section on the revelation of God. Sabom discusses the biblical principle that "no one may see me and live" (Exodus 33:20) and Paul's statement that God "lives in unapproachable light" (1 Timothy 6:16). He suggests that the NDE encounter is a form of general revelation rather than a direct face-to-face meeting with God.

↑ 45b. Sabom, Light and Death, section on the spiritual content of NDEs and the analysis of “Jesus” encounters. Sabom compared the teachings attributed to “Jesus” in the NDEs of George Ritchie and Betty Eadie against Scripture. Ritchie’s “Jesus” allegedly told him that “Religion separated from the leadership of God confirms our own negative thinking by telling us we are naked, or inadequate, and fallen sinners” (Ritchie, My Life After Dying, 139). Eadie’s “Jesus” told her that “We have no right to criticize any church or religion in any way” and that “All persons as spirits in the pre-mortal world took part in the creation of the earth” (Eadie, Embraced by the Light, 44, 46, 47, 48, 53). Sabom concluded: “Since these teachings of ‘Jesus’ encountered by Ritchie and Eadie contradict Scripture—something the biblical Christ never did—their ‘Jesus’ is clearly not the same as the historical Jesus of Scripture.” He cited Matthew 24:24 and 1 John 4:1, and stated that “an uncritical acceptance of the identity of godlike figures in an NDE can readily lead to attributing falsehood to God; a more objective measure is needed.”

↑ 46. Greyson, After, chapter 14. Greyson notes that experiencers use many labels including "God, Buddha, Brahman, Krishna, Allah, Source, All That Is," and that many acknowledge the label is inadequate. See also Eben Alexander and Kim Clark Sharp (notes 21–22 above).