ABSTRACT
In 1994 the New York Times bestseller list featured for more than five months a book entitled Embraced by the Light, the report of a so-called neardeath experience (henceforth: NDE). The popularity of the book attests to a fascination with the afterlife, such as the Western world has not seen since the collapse of spiritualism after its heyday in the period from 1850-70 (Ch. 6.2). The beginning of this modern fascination can be dated to 1975, when Raymond Moody, an American former philosophy professor turned psychiatrist, published a relatively small book, in which he presented a narrative and analysis of reports about experiences of people who had been at the brink of death: ‘near-death experiences’, as he called them.1 The book was an instant success. Since its appearance it has been translated into more than thirty languages, sparked the foundation of societies for near-death studies in most Western countries, and the publication of three journals dedicated to the subject: Omega, Anabiosis and the Journal for Near Death Studies. The term has become well known to the public; the BBC and other television companies have dedicated programmes to the phenomenon; Hollywood has appropriated the theme in its film Flatliners (1990, directed by Joel Schumacher) and today we have the inevitable web site.2
