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Scientific Explanations for Near-Death Experiences Still Fail

Near-death experiences are alive and well, and not explained away.

Over a dozen years ago, University of Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and I wrote a book titled The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul (HarperOne, 2007). One of the ultra-sensitive topics we took up was near-death experiences (NDEs).

By then, the ability of modern medicine to induce and then rescind clinical death had resulted in a number of survivors' accounts that could be corroborated in various ways. At the time, however, the "scientific" approach generally amounted to making attempts to explain away the experiences. Some explanations leaned heavily on evolution: animals like the...