Validation by NDE

Near Death Experiences Validate the

Neurophoton Consciousness Theory

Dan R. Hankins, M.A.

In 1992 a Gallup Poll was conducted from which the conclusion was reached that 13 million Americans had experienced some aspects of a Near Death Experience (NDE).[i][i] This is an estimate for America alone and it is reasonable from other data to conclude that this number is equal or higher in every country and among every culture of the world. NDE’s occur across all economic lines and among people of every religion and those who have no religion including atheists and agnostics. NDE’s reach back into history almost as far back as the events of human experience have been recorded.

Science has not reached a definitive conclusion as to the ultimate cause of these experiences; however, a number of serious researchers have concluded that they can best be explained by accepting that some form of consciousness survival beyond the point of physical death is possible. The modus operandi of science is to accept the obvious until proven otherwise. If we accept this conclusion, we must admit that our conclusion does not imply (simply by default) the existence of any God or gods; the validity of any single world religion, nor does it admit to the perpetual continuity of the individual consciousness. Nevertheless, given the data available on deep NDE’s, reported by reputable doctors and nurses, as well as the people who experience them, it is difficult to arrive at any conclusion outside some idea of the survival of consciousness beyond death.

For the purposes of this paper, a Near Death Experience is defined as a remembered experience that occurred to a subject at a time of unconsciousness due to heart or respiratory failure and which contains any number of the following phenomena:

Awareness of being dead
Feelings of positive emotion or elation
An out of body experience
Feeling of moving through a tunnel
Communication with light or one or more “Beings of Light”
Observation of colors
Hearing a sound of some kind; buzzing, music, vocals, etc.
Observation of a beautiful land or horizon
Meeting with deceased loved ones
Some type of life review
Acquisition of new memories or knowledge while unconscious due to heart or respiratory failure.
The presence of a border or boundary beyond which return to the physical body seemed impossible.

The above criteria follow closely the guidelines of most serious researchers in this field. It should be noted that the more of the above criteria that the subject experiences, the deeper the life transformation seems to be. Life transformation after experiencing a Near Death Experience has been scientifically studied and analyzed.[ii][ii]

We must concede that a number of researchers, particularly Dr. Susan Blackmore,[iii][iii] have replicated a number of the NDE phenomena among research subjects in the laboratory. However, as far as I can determine, no such research has produced a case where the consciousness of any research subject was able to acquire new data while in a state of unconsciousness, precluding every way that can be explained by our present understanding of human consciousness and learning. We will cite specific examples. The other phenomenon lacking in research subjects is the depth of life transformation that often occurs in patients who have an NDE and remember it when compared to patients who do not have an NDE or do not recall having one.

Probably the most profound NDE life transformation case that I am aware of belongs to Dr. George Rodonaia. George Rodonaia held an M.D. and a Ph.D. in neuropathology. He delivered the keynote address to the United Nations on the "Emerging Global Spirituality." Before immigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1989, he worked as a research psychiatrist at the University of Moscow. He was also an avowed atheist. Yet, after the NDE experience, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of spirituality, earning a second doctorate in the psychology of religion. He then became an ordained minister in the Eastern Orthodox Church. After immigrating to the United States, he served as a minister in the United Methodist Church.

His account follows:

"My mother was born in London. My father was born in Soviet Georgia. It would be a great understatement to say that my parents were not looked upon very kindly by the Communist government, because they believed strongly in human freedom and vigorously fought for it. They were courageous people, perhaps too courageous, because the KGB banished them to the gulag in the late 1940s for openly expressing their opposition to totalitarian government. So they spent many years in that horrid detention system made so famous by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his masterful book, The Gulag Archipelago.

"Sometime around 1948 my parents were ordered by the Soviet government to work on the Tran-Siberian Railroad. Many other dissidents were also forced to assist in this massive construction project. My parents worked on the railroad for about six years before I was born, in 1956, in Shanghai, China. Unfortunately, Khrushchev came to power shortly after that and operatives from his government charged my parents with spying. They were then murdered by the KGB. I was just seven months old.

"I was then adopted by a family from Soviet Georgia. I was fortunate, because my adoptive parents showered me with love and wonderful care and took pains to educate me properly. They were not especially religious, not in an organized or outward way, but they were fantastic caring people. Unfortunately, my adopted father died of lung cancer when I was nine. Then my adopted mother died of pancreatic cancer when I was twelve.

"At twelve I was living alone in thehome left to me by my adoptive parents in Soviet Georgia. A few neighbors stepped in to feed me, to give me a hand, but I had to grow up quickly. I realized that the only way I would ever survive was to become strong and bright and able, so I applied myself to my studies very hard. I did a great deal of writing, too. I even wrote an essay which was published in the University of Moscow newspaper. The president of the university liked my essay very much; he liked it so much, in fact, that he invited me to attend the university at the age of fourteen. So I moved to Moscow.

"At the University of Moscow I developed a great love for the physical sciences and medicine. My research specialty was concerned with adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which is sort of an energizer for the brain. I was very much a typical young research scientist and a pretty skeptical one, too. I was not religious at all. I was an atheist. I had basically accepted the materialistic perspective of the hard sciences that everything can and should be reduced to a material cause. There was no room for spirituality for me at all; out of the question, totally out of the question.

"Life became complicated for me at the age of eighteen, when I was invited to pursue advanced research at Yale University in 1974. The thought of studying at Yale and living in the United States thrilled me, but since I didn't have a wife or family members in the Soviet Union to discourage me from seeking asylum in the US, the KGB wouldn't let me go. By 1976, however, I was married and had a little son, so the Soviet government reluctantly agreed to allow me to go to the United States. Many people got involved to see that this occurred, among them Millicent Canter, a friend from Longview, Texas, who for many years sought to bring me to the United States. She even got Henry Kissinger involved in my case, because he sent a letter on my behalf from the US government to support my invitation. Unfortunately, as I would soon find out, the KGB had no intention of letting me go.

"On the day of my scheduled departure for the United States, the KGB tried to kill me. I was waiting for a cab on a sidewalk in Tbilisi when I saw a car jump up on the sidewalk, avoid a few trees, and then head directly for me. It all happened in an instant. First I saw the car coming toward me, then I felt it hit me head-on. I estimate I flew about ten meters, landed facedown, and then the car ran over me again. From that time on, I must have been unconscious, because I can't remember anything else about the crash or the crash scene.

"The first thing I remember about my NDE is that I discovered myself in a realm of total darkness. I had no physical pain, I was still somehow aware of my existence as George, and all about me there was darkness, utter and complete darkness - the greatest darkness ever, darker than any dark, blacker than any black. This was what surrounded me and pressed upon me. I was horrified. I wasn't prepared for this at all. I was shocked to find that I still existed, but I didn't know where I was. The one thought that kept rolling through my mind was, "How can I be when I'm not?" That is what troubled me.

"Slowly I got a grip on myself and began to think about what had happened, what was going on. But nothing refreshing or relaxing came to me. Why am I in this darkness? What am I to do? Then I remembered Descartes' famous line: "I think, therefore I am." And that took a huge burden off me, for it was then I knew for certain I was still alive, although obviously in a very different dimension. Then I thought, If I am, why shouldn't I be positive? That is what came to me. I am George and I'm in darkness, but I know I am. I am what I am. I must not be negative.

"Then I thought, How can I define what is positive in darkness? Well, positive is light. Then, suddenly, I was in light; bright white, shiny and strong; a very bright light. I was like the flash of a camera, but not flickering – that bright. Constant brightness. At first I found the brilliance of the light painful, I couldn't look directly at it. But little by little I began to relax. I began to feel warm, comforted, and everything suddenly seemed fine.

"The next thing that happened was that I saw all these molecules flying around, atoms, protons, neutrons, just flying everywhere. On the one hand, it was totally chaotic, yet what brought me such great joy was that this chaos also had its own symmetry. This symmetry was beautiful and unified and whole, and it flooded me with tremendous joy. I saw the universal form of life and nature laid out before my eyes. It was at this point that any concern I had for my body just slipped away, because it was clear to me that I didn't need it anymore, that it was actually a limitation.

"Everything in this experience merged together, so it is difficult for me to put an exact sequence to events. Time as I had known it came to a halt; past, present, and future were somehow fused together for me in the timeless unity of life.

"At some point I underwent what has been called the life-review process, for I saw my life from beginning to end all at once. I participated in the real life dramas of my life, almost like a holographic image of my life going on before me – no sense of past, present, or future, just now and the reality of my life. It wasn't as though it started with birth and ran along to my life at the University of Moscow. It all appeared at once. There I was. This was my life. I didn't experience any sense of guilt or remorse for things I'd done. I didn't feel one way or another about my failures, faults, or achievements. All I felt was my life for what it is. And I was content with that. I accepted my life for what it is.

"During this time the light just radiated a sense of peace and joy to me. It was very positive. I was so happy to be in the light. And I understood what the light meant. I learned that all the physical rules for human life were nothing when compared to this unitive reality. I also came to see that a black hole is only another part of that infinity which is light. I came to see that reality is everywhere. That it is not simply the earthly life but the infinite life. Everything is not only connected together, everything is also one. So I felt a wholeness with the light, a sense that all is right with me and the universe.

"So there I was, flooded with all these good things and this wonderful experience, when someone begins to cut into my stomach. Can you imagine? What had happened was that I was taken to the morgue. I was pronounced dead and left there for three days. An investigation into the cause of my death was set up, so they sent someone out to do an autopsy on me. As they began to cut into my stomach, I felt as though some great power took hold of my neck and pushed me down. And it was so powerful that I opened my eyes and had this huge sense of pain. My body was cold and I began to shiver. They immediately stopped the autopsy and took me to the hospital, where I remained for the following nine months, most of which I spent under a respirator.

"Slowly I regained my health. But I would never be the same again, because all I wanted to do for the rest of my life was study wisdom. This new interest led me to attend the University of Georgia, where I took my second PhD, in the psychology of religion. Then I became a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Eventually, in 1989, we came to America, and I am now working as an associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church in Nederland, Texas.

"Many people have asked me what I believe in, how my NDE changed my life. All I can say is that I now believe in the God of the universe. Unlike many other people, however, I have never called God the light, because God is beyond our comprehension. God, I believe, is even more than the light, because God is also darkness. God is everything that exists, everything – and that is beyond our ability to comprehend at all. So I don't believe in the God of the Jews, or the Christians, or the Hindus, or in any one religion's idea of what God is or is not. It is all the same God, and that God showed me that the universe in which we live is a beautiful and marvelous mystery that is connected together forever and for always.

"Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is. To serve God's creation with a warm and loving hand of generosity and compassion – that is the only meaningful existence.

"Many people turn to those who have had NDEs because they sense we have the answers. But I know this is not true, at least not entirely. None of us will fully fathom the great truths of life until we finally unite with eternity at death. But occasionally we get glimpses of the answer here on earth, and that alone is enough for me. I love to ask questions and to seek answers, but I know in the end I must live the questions and the answers. But that is okay, isn't it? So long as we love, love with all our heart and passion, it doesn't matter, does it? Perhaps the best way for me to convey what I am trying to say is to share with you something the poet Rilke once wrote in a letter to a friend. I saw this letter, the original handwritten letter, in the library at Dresden University in Germany. (He quotes from memory, as follows:)

"Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given. For you wouldn't be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything, live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along some day into the answers.

"I place my faith in that. Live the questions, and the universe will open up its eyes to you."[iv][iv]

More information concerning George's NDE account is described in Dr. Melvin Morse and Paul Perry's book entitled Transformed by the Light. Dr. Morse refers to George by his Russian name "Yuri". The following is an excerpt from Transformed by the Light that describes George's observation of an infant while George is out of his body.

[During Yuri's NDE, he] could go visit his family. He saw his grieving wife and their two sons, both too small to understand that their father had been killed.

Then he visited his next-door neighbor. They had a new child, born a couple of days before Yuri's "death." Yuri could tell that they were upset by what happened to him. But they were especially distressed by the fact that their child would not stop crying.

No matter what they did he continued to cry. When he slept it was short and fitful and then he would awaken, crying again. They had taken him back to the doctors but they were stumped. All the usual things such as colic were ruled out and they sent them home hoping the baby would eventually settle down.

While there in this disembodied state, Yuri discovered something:

"l could talk to the baby. It was amazing. I could not talk to the parents - my friends - but I could talk to the little boy who had just been born. I asked him what was wrong. No words were exchanged, but I asked him maybe through telepathy what was wrong. He told me that his arm hurt. And when he told me that, I was able to see that the bone was twisted and broken."

The baby had a greenstick fracture, a break in the bone in his arm probably cause by having been twisted during childbirth. Now Yuri and the baby knew what was wrong, but neither had the ability to communicate the problem to the parents.

After Yuri’s survival of his NDE, he relates the following.

Yuri told his family about being "dead." No one believed him until he began to provide details about what he saw during his travels out of body. Then they became less skeptical. His diagnosis on the baby next door did the trick. He told of visiting them that night and of their concern over their new child. He told them that he had talked to the baby and discovered that he had a greenstick fracture of his arm. The parents took the child to a doctor and he x-rayed the arm only to discover that Yuri's very long-distance diagnosis was right.

Note: George Rodonaia died on October 12, 2004 or heart failure.

Cases like this perplex the mind of rational people and many scientists dismiss them out of hand. Given the fact that we are in the infancy stage of consciousness research, that is quite unfortunate. When one considers that Albert Einstein, an unknown 26 year old patent clerk in Berne, Switzerland wrote his Theory of Relativity only 100 years ago, (a picosecond in galactic time), there is absolutely no room for arrogance or undue self-confidence in the scientific community. We are mere infants in the crib, filled with newfound wonder, who have not yet even learned to roll over onto our bellies, so to speak. Humility ought to be the order of the day.

Probably the most closely scrutinized case of a Near Death Experience from a scientific perspective was in the case that occurred in Pam Reynolds. The following information is from Kevin Williams’ website Near Death Experiences and the Afterlife http://www.near-death.com.

Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist whose latest book, Light and Death, includes a detailed medical and scientific analysis of an amazing near-death experience of Pam Reynolds. She underwent a rare operation to remove a giant basilar artery aneurysm[v][v] in her brain that threatened her life. The size and location of the aneurysm, however, precluded its safe removal using the standard neuro-surgical techniques. She was referred to a doctor, Dr. Robert Solomon, M.D[vi][vi]., who had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest.[vii][vii] It allowed Pam's aneurysm to be excised with a reasonable chance of success. This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death. After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life. During the time that Pam was in standstill, she experienced a NDE. Her remarkably detailed veridical out-of-body observations during her surgery were later verified to be very accurate. This case is considered to be one of the strongest cases of veridical evidence in NDE research because of her ability to describe the unique surgical instruments and procedures used and her ability to describe in detail these events while she was clinically and brain dead.

When all of Pam's vital signs were stopped, the doctor turned on a surgical saw and began to cut through Pam's skull. While this was going on, Pam reported that she felt herself "pop" outside her body and hover above the operating table. Then she watched the doctors working on her lifeless body for awhile. From her out-of-body position, she observed the doctor sawing into her skull with what looked to her like an electric toothbrush. Pam heard and reported later what the nurses in the operating room had said and exactly what was happening during the operation. At this time, every monitor attached to Pam's body registered "no life" whatsoever. At some point, Pam's consciousness floated out of the operating room and traveled down a tunnel which had a light at the end of it where her deceased relatives and friends were waiting including her long-dead grandmother. Pam's NDE ended when her deceased uncle led her back to her body for her to reentered it. Pam compared the feeling of reentering her dead body to "plunging into a pool of ice." The following is Pam Reynolds' account of her NDE in her own words.

The next thing I recall was the sound: It was a Natural "D." As I listened to the sound, I felt it was pulling me out of the top of my head. The further out of my body I got, the more clear the tone became. I had the impression it was like a road, a frequency that you go on ... I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down. It was the most aware that I think that I have ever been in my entire life ...I was metaphorically sitting on [the doctor's] shoulder. It was not like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision ... There was so much in the operating room that I didn't recognize, and so many people.

I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not ...

The saw-thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't ... And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case ... I heard the saw crank up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch and then all of a sudden it went Brrrrrrrrr! like that.

Someone said something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray, but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that ... I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn't like the respirator ... I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not readily recognize.

There was a sensation like being pulled, but not against your will. I was going on my own accord because I wanted to go. I have different metaphors to try to explain this. It was like the Wizard of Oz - being taken up in a tornado vortex, only you're not spinning around like you've got vertigo. You're very focused and you have a place to go. The feeling was like going up in an elevator real fast. And there was a sensation, but it wasn't a bodily, physical sensation. It was like a tunnel but it wasn't a tunnel.

At some point very early in the tunnel vortex I became aware of my grandmother calling me. But I didn't hear her call me with my ears ... It was a clearer hearing than with my ears. I trust that sense more than I trust my own ears.

The feeling was that she wanted me to come to her, so I continued with no fear down the shaft. It's a dark shaft that I went through, and at the very end there was this very little tiny pinpoint of light that kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a light bulb. It was so bright that I put my hands in front of my face fully expecting to see them and I could not. But I knew they were there. Not from a sense of touch. Again, it's terribly hard to explain, but I knew they were there ...

I noticed that as I began to discern different figures in the light - and they were all covered with light, they were light, and had light permeating all around them - they began to form shapes I could recognize and understand. I could see that one of them was my grandmother. I don't know if it was reality or a projection, but I would know my grandmother, the sound of her, anytime, anywhere.

Everyone I saw, looking back on it, fit perfectly into my understanding of what that person looked like at their best during their lives.

I recognized a lot of people. My uncle Gene was there. So was my great-great-Aunt Maggie, who was really a cousin. On Papa's side of the family, my grandfather was there ... They were specifically taking care of me, looking after me.

They would not permit me to go further ... It was communicated to me - that's the best way I know how to say it, because they didn't speak like I'm speaking - that if I went all the way into the light something would happen to me physically. They would be unable to put this me back into the body me, like I had gone too far and they couldn't reconnect. So they wouldn't let me go anywhere or do anything.

I wanted to go into the light, but I also wanted to come back. I had children to be reared. It was like watching a movie on fast-forward on your VCR: You get the general idea, but the individual freeze-frames are not slow enough to get detail.

Then they [deceased relatives] were feeding me. They were not doing this through my mouth, like with food, but they were nourishing me with something. The only way I know how to put it is something sparkly. Sparkles is the image that I get. I definitely recall the sensation of being nurtured and being fed and being made strong. I know it sounds funny, because obviously it wasn't a physical thing, but inside the experience I felt physically strong, ready for whatever.

My grandmother didn't take me back through the tunnel, or even send me back or ask me to go. She just looked up at me. I expected to go with her, but it was communicated to me that she just didn't think she would do that. My uncle said he would do it. He's the one who took me back through the end of the tunnel. Everything was fine. I did want to go.

But then I got to the end of it and saw the thing, my body. I didn't want to get into it ... It looked terrible, like a train wreck. It looked like what it was: dead. I believe it was covered. It scared me and I didn't want to look at it.

It was communicated to me that it was like jumping into a swimming pool. No problem, just jump right into the swimming pool. I didn't want to, but I guess I was late or something because he [the uncle] pushed me. I felt a definite repelling and at the same time a pulling from the body. The body was pulling and the tunnel was pushing ... It was like diving into a pool of ice water ... It hurt!

When I came back, they were playing Hotel California and the line was "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." I mentioned [later] to Dr. Brown that that was incredibly insensitive and he told me that I needed to sleep more. [laughter] When I regained consciousness, I was still on the respirator.

For practical purposes outside the world of academic debate, three clinical tests commonly determine brain death. First, a standard electroencephalogram, or EEG, measures brain-wave activity. A "flat" EEG denotes non-function of the cerebral cortex - the outer shell of the cerebrum. Second, auditory evoked potentials, similar to those [clicks] elicited by the ear speakers in Pam's surgery, measure brain-stem viability. Absence of these potentials indicates non-function of the brain stem. And third, documentation of no blood flow to the brain is a marker for a generalized absence of brain function.

But during "standstill", Pam's brain was found "dead" by all three clinical tests - her electroencephalogram was silent, her brain-stem response was absent, and no blood flowed through her brain. Interestingly, while in this state, she encountered the "deepest" NDE of all Atlanta Study participants.

Some scientists theorize that NDEs are produced by brain chemistry. But, Dr. Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist and the leading authority in Britain concerning NDEs, believes that these theories fall far short of the facts. In the documentary, "Into the Unknown: Strange But True," Dr. Fenwick describes the state of the brain during a NDE:

"The brain isn’t functioning. It’s not there. It’s destroyed. It’s abnormal. But, yet, it can produce these very clear experiences ... an unconscious state is when the brain ceases to function. For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don’t know what’s happening and the brain isn’t working. The memory systems are particularly sensitive to unconsciousness. So, you won’t remember anything. But, yet, after one of these experiences [a NDE], you come out with clear, lucid memories ... This is a real puzzle for science. I have not yet seen any good scientific explanation which can explain that fact."

Another NDE that contains a subject who received information into his consciousness while apparently in an unconscious and comatose state after suffering a heart attack comes from Dr. Pirn Van Lommel’s study, Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands, published in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal The Lancet, Volume 358, Number 9298, 15 December 2001. A nurse who participated in the subject’s resuscitation in the emergency room reported the following incident.

“During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the ‘crash car’. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: ‘Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are’. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: ‘Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.’ I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man.”

All three of these cases contain information about patients who were clinically dead in medical terms, yet were still able to receive, process, and retain data that left them with new memories, later proven to be clearly anchored in reality. Two of these cases were under the close supervision of, and corroborated by medical personnel educated in the field of science.

The Neurophoton Consciousness Theory postulates that human consciousness is built within each individual by the absorption through the senses of neurophotons (and secondary neurophotons) in the electromagnetic spectrum. Neurophoton is a definitive term to include any photon that can be received into human experience through the senses. For a fuller explanation please refer to the Opus Lux Project, http://www.OpusLux.com. In short, at birth, we begin to absorb mass particles with weight (protons and electrons) in our food consumption which builds an ever changing physical body, and we also begin to absorb light particles (neurophotons) through our senses which build an ever changing human consciousness. If the Neurophoton Consciousness Theory is true, then we would expect the Near Death Experience to offer further validation to the foregoing theory, or at the very least not invalidate it.

I have sited the above three cases because, if taken at face value, they represent a priori evidence that individual human consciousness is capable of absorbing and processing data into usable memory without the need of a functioning physical body. If one is unconscious and unable to hear or see and yet they report that they have “seen” and “heard” things, which can be clearly validated later, this represents a tremendous problem for currently accepted scientific thought that has always concluded that consciousness is merely a product of the physical brain. The acceptance of this new discovery by the scientific community would require a rigorous reappraisal of the foundations of both psychology and neurology. Further, if this observation is true, then the postulate of the Neurophoton Consciousness Theory which states that consciousness is not the product of the brain but rather a separate entity from that part of the physical body which is made up of atomic particles of weight mass, and further, that consciousness is not dependent on the body in any way for sustenance or survival. It would logically eliminate many previous assumptions about consciousness and suggest that consciousness is apparently made up of weightless neurophotons that can be acted upon by other neurophotons separate from the physical body. This interpretation of the above Near Death Experiences is the most plausible, analytically logical explanation if the data has been accurately obtained and reported. To assume that it has not been accurately reported is to call into question a large number of reputable, well-respected medical personnel who have witnessed and reported these events.

The ramifications are almost incomprehensible at this stage of human evolution. Does a part of our consciousness exist apart from our physical bodies after all? Further, are we capable of continuing to learn after our consciousness leaves our bodies? Have countless mystics been correct in identifying a part of human beings as “the soul?” If the above cases of NDE hold up under scientific scrutiny, and if more plausible explanations do not emerge, then the answer is obviously yes, regardless of any individual bias we personally hold.

But there are other elements of Near Death Experiences that also lend validation to the Neurophoton Consciousness Theory. This theory holds that consciousness is made up of photons, more precisely, photons within the electromagnetic spectrum that can be comprehended by the human senses. These particular photons are called “neurophotons” to identify their character rather than their frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum. All photons are a form of light at different frequencies and as such, they are weightless with a velocity of light speed. Light plays a vital role of importance in NDE’s. It can be correctly said that light is the foundation of the entire phenomenon. Subjects often see “beings of light” or a single “Being of light.” These beings are often interpreted within the context of the individual’s understanding of spirituality, i.e. God, Jesus, Buddha, etc. This is perfectly understandable. Since we don’t know what Jesus or Buddha actually looked like, when a person of either particular faith faced a loving, benevolent being after having experienced what they believed to be physical death, they would naturally believe that the loving Being they had been told would meet them on the other side actually did so. It appears to be this encounter with Light that brings about such profound life transformations. Some NDE subjects report seeing loved ones who have previously died and they too appear as beings of light. Still others report seeing themselves as beings of light during the NDE. The presence of light in some form or the other is a leading identifier of a Near Death Experience. This aspect of the experience offers further validation of the Neurophoton Consciousness Theory which postulates that consciousness is, in fact, made up of a spectrum of light photons.

Many NDE subjects report traveling effortlessly through a tunnel toward a light. Often during the course of their journey, their speed accelerates dramatically. If, as the Neurophoton Consciousness Theory purports, the consciousness is made up entirely of light neurophotons, it would be expected to quickly accelerate toward the speed of light. At speeds approaching the speed of light, time dramatically slows down due to time dilation. This would account for the time needed by the subject to realize the experience as opposed to the actual stationary real time that has passed as the light photons accelerate to light speed.

Finally, many NDE subjects report reaching a sort of boundary after which they know they will not be able to return to their physical bodies. It would seem sensible that the boundary would exist at light speed. When anything reaches the speed of light, time stops. If time has stopped at light speed then whatever the current state of existence at the precise instant that time stopped would exist perpetually to infinity. There can be no returning to the past. Quantum physicists who speculate about theoretical particles (tachyons) traveling faster than the speed of light acknowledge that if such particles do actually exist, they cannot return to this side of the speed of light. If consciousness is made up of neurophotons with potential light speed velocity, then they have a clear boundary from which there can be no turning back.

There is much study to be done by unbiased researchers in the field of human consciousness potential, but present knowledge of the Near Death Experience does not invalidate the Neurophoton Consciousness Theory, and in fact, adds considerable weight to the validity of the theory.

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