AWAKENING
HEALTH
REVIEW & INTERVIEW
God and
the Afterlife
by Perry Long, MD
I
I just love it when science and mystery
converge, and Jeffrey Long’s new book is the
ultimate example. It deals with the two most
profound questions of mankind – “is there a
God?” and “is there life after death?”
U
sing a combination of questionnaires and statistical analysis,
Dr. Long has been gathering
data for over 15 years, studying
over 4000 near-death experiences – the largest scientific
study of its kind ever published.
His previous book dealt with the reality of the neardeath experience, while this new book drills down
into the experience of the divine, and does indeed
provide persuasive “new evidence for God and
near-death experience,” as the tagline to his book
suggests.
Reports of seeing a tunnel, going to the light, meeting deceased relatives and having a life review are
well-known, but, interestingly, this present study
reports that awareness of the existence of God
happens more often than any other element of the
near-death experience. The way people experience
God seems to be influenced by their cultural expectation, but culture and religion are not correlated with the frequency of the experience, and the
essence of the underlying experience is similar for
all.
13 | NEW CONSCIOUSNESS REVIEW