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Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon — Survival of Bodily Death

Moody, Raymond A. (1975)

Published
Jan 1, 1975

At a GlanceAI

The book that coined the term "near-death experience" and described its typical features from collected accounts.

SummaryAI

Moody gathered first-person accounts from people who had come close to death and described the recurring elements of these experiences. The book introduced the term "near-death experience" and set the agenda for the research that followed. It is a collection of cases rather than a study with a method, so it describes the phenomenon without testing anything about it.

Method SnapshotAI

Collection and thematic description of case accounts.

BackgroundAI

None.

In Collections

Psychology28 papers

Near-death experiences: reports, measurement and explanations

Some people who come close to death later report leaving their body, a tunnel, a bright light, meeting deceased relatives or a review of their life. This collection follows how psychology and medicine have studied these reports: from the first case collections (Moody, Ring) and the Greyson NDE Scale, through prospective studies of cardiac arrest survivors, to neurobiological, psychological and cultural explanations, distressing NDEs, and what changes in people's lives afterwards. What NDEs are is still debated, and the verdicts here are ours. Terms: * NDE: near-death experience * OBE: out-of-body experience * WCEI: Ring's Weighted Core Experience Index, an early measure of NDE depth

ES
Evgeny Smirnov

The key book where it all started. Beautiful phenomenology, even if less scientific. Recommended.

— ES