Experiences of Survival of Bodily Death

This study will examine the fifteen different kinds of experiences described by Raymond A. Moody, Jr. in Life After Life: The Investigation of A Phenomenon---Survival of Bodily Death. These experiences are features of the dying experience. Moody's book depends on the accounts of individuals who have "died" and returned from that experience. Therefore, it cannot be seen as a scientific work. Moody admits that a "proof" of these experiences are not "presently possible" (xvi). If the reader is to get anything out of the book, he or she must open his or her heart and mind to the possibility of the near-death experience.

Moody wants to try to answer the question "What is it like to die?" (1). For such an answer, he goes to people who have had, or who claim to have had, an experience in which they have physically "died" and come back to life. They are the only ones who can tell us of such an experience, if anybody can. Moody notes that there are two possibilities---one is that nothing survives death, and the other is that some sort of spiritual consciousness survives. The experiences of the people in his book suggest the latter possibility. There are certain common features to most of the experiences of these people, and Moody has found fifteen such features.

The "common stages or events of the experiences of dying" begin with the ineffability of the experience. This means that the person experiencing the near-death phenomenon has a difficult time putting into words the nature of

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--comes after the journey through the tunnel and involves the individual's seeing his own body from a perspective outside of his body. For example, one woman who had "died" "moved out" of her body, floated to the ceiling of the hospital room, and looked down upon her own body in the bed where the nurses and doctors tried to revive her: "I felt almost as though I were a piece of paper that someone had blown up to the ceiling" (37). Moody says that most people are confused at this phase and desire to get back into their bodies but do not know how. However, some report a great feeling of peace and a sense of wonder about why people are trying to revive the body and why they are acting as if something terrible had happened. Some feel they have died and are ready to move on in spirit to the next realm, but most are confused by the out-of-body experience. Weightlessness and timelessness are often reported at this stage. Often, they try to speak to people around them, but obviously cannot. Many report a sense of a spiritual body at this stage. "Meeting others" can occur at different parts of the near-death experience. These "others" are "spiritual beings . . . who were apparently there to ease them through their transition into death, o

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