"Conscious Life Continues After Death"

Religion in Daily Life By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min. Rector, All Saints' Church 9601 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19114 (215) 637-5225 Written 27 October 2000

"The first scientific study of 'near-death' experiences has found new evidence to suggest that consciousness or the 'soul' can continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function." (Jonathan Petre, Electronic Telegraph, London, Sunday, October 22, 2000). Two eminent doctors in Britain based their findings on a yearlong study of heart attack survivors. Reports of such "near-death" experiences date back for many centuries. Persons close to death have vivid encounters with bright lights and heavenly beings. The new study concludes that a number of people have had these experiences after they were pronounced clinically dead.

This new study suggests that the mind or consciousness can survive the death of the brain. The study is based on interviews with survivors of heart attacks at England's Southampton General Hospital. It will be published next year in the British medical journal Resuscitation. The authors of the study are Dr. Peter Fenwick and Dr. Sam Parnia. Dr. Fenwick is a consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Dr. Parnia is a clinical research fellow and registrar at the Southampton Hospital. They both stress that more research is needed.

During the study period, 63 cardiac arrest patients survived. They were interviewed within a week. Fifty-six of them had no recollection of their period of unconsciousness. The result might reasonably be expected in all cases. Seven of these cardiac arrest survivors, however, had memories. Four of the seven passed the Grayson scale. This scale is the strict medical criteria for assessing near-death experiences. All four told about a "lost awareness of the body, seeing a bright light, entering another world, encountering a mystical being and coming to a 'point of no return.'" Three described themselves as non-practicing Anglicans. The fourth was a lapsed Roman Catholic.

The critics of near-death experiences argue that these experiences are the result of a collapse of brain functions due to a lack of oxygen. The researchers state that none of the four who had these experiences had low levels of oxygen. The researchers also ruled out the critics' claim that unusual combinations of drugs used in the resuscitation procedure were to blame. The resuscitation procedure was the same in every case. Dr. Parnia said: "I started off as a skeptic but, having weighed up all the evidence, I now think that there is something going on." The Right Reverend Geoffrey Rowell, Anglican Bishop of Basingstoke, said: "These near-death experiences counter the materialist view that we are nothing more than computers made of meat." As the Bible says, "In the eyes of foolish men they seemed to be dead."