In a personal investigation of the death penalty, McFeely, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, finds himself in a role he had never imagined for himself: an expert witness in the sentencing trial of a convicted kidnapper, rapist, and murderer. "A remarkable book--part historical tract, part political manifesto--that examines one of the most bitter issues of contemporary life".--"Boston Globe".

The long form poem is a practice of poetics in joy, gratitude, sadness, resilience and pain. This literary work serves as a practice of self-reflection and accountability in the wake of the prison system. This poem is dirge work acknowledging unjust atrocities, but reveling in our human resilience.

Case studies of near-death experiences in children reveal the patients' ability to communicate with deceased relatives and friends, as well as their experiences while dead

Real-life stories of out-of-body experiences, encountering a special light, greeters from the afterlife, life reviews, tunnels, and 360-degree vision--are all part of this intriguing look at near-death experiences (NDEs) by one of the world’s noted authorities, P.M.H. Atwater. Atwater shares her amazing findings, based on her sessions with more than 4,000 adults and children and over 40 years of research; a breathtaking culmination to a successful and controversial career. Atwater examines every aspect of the near-death phenomenon: from first-hand accounts of survivors experiencing flash forwards, waking up in morgues, and developing psychic abilities, to stunning cases of groups experiencing NDEs together. Atwater offers statistics from her findings to show the distinctive common patterns that people experience, as well as the common aftereffects and how it changed their lives. She also explores the physiological and spiritual changes that result from near-death experiences and looks at the connections between the NDE experience and what is often called “enlightenment." Near Death Experiences not only provides a glimpse of what lies beyond the veil of our temporal existence, but points to what--or who--we really are and what we are meant to be.

Begun in 1994, The Atlanta Study is the first comprehensive investigation of its kind into near-death experiences (NDEs). The study's name hardly captures what lies behind it: life-and-death dramas played out in operating rooms and hospital beds--and simultaneous events unseen by medical personnel but reported with astonishing clarity and conviction by nearly 50 individuals who returned from death's door. Now the founder of The Atlanta Study, Dr. Michael Sabom reveals their impact on the people who have experienced them. From both medical and personal perspectives, he shares the electrifying stories of men and women from all walks of life and religious persuasions. He explores the clinical effect of the NDE on survival and healing and discloses surprising findings. He questions some common conclusions about NDEs. And he scrutinizes near-death experiences in the light of what the Bible has to say about death and dying, the realities of light and darkness, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation. An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality. With a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Progress in medical science has increased our understanding of what happens when the brain begins to fail. Psychology delves ever more deeply into the nature of the self. In Dying to Live, Blackmore, a leading expert in near-death experiences, explores what psychology, biology, and medicine have to say about this extraordinary aspect of death and dying.. . . the best resource for materialist arguments that currently exists. . . . Blackmore's book is the most up-to-date catalogue of misgivings about the dualist concept of self and the religionist's desire for the afterlife vis-a-vis experiences near-death. . . . a fine book. -Journal of Scientific Exploration. . . one of the most intelligent and comprehensive examinations of the near-death experience to date. For thoroughness of treatment and tidiness of theory, the book is quite without equal. -Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research[This book is] brilliant though controversial . . . -ChoiceHer book is a model of understanding and . . . moving in its course through a sensitive subject. -New ScientistWell documented and well researched . . . The author's impartial treatment of diverse beliefs on the subject helps readers to see how scientific and spiritual points of view can coexist. There's much to think about here. -School Library Journal

"Heading Toward Omega breaks new ground in near-death studies by focusing on the meaning of the near-death experience for the survivor and for human evolution. A near-death experience or NDE--which an estimated eight million Americans have had--occurs when a person is clinically dead but then survives and reports such phenomena as floating out of the body entering a dark tunnel, reviewing a life panorama, and encountering a brilliant white light. Such accounts have been described in best sellers by Raymond A. Moody and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and in Kenneth Ring's previous book, Life at Death, they were documented for the first time. Dr. Ring's intensive three-year search for the meaning of the near-death experience has been pursued through both scientifically designed questionnaires completed by hundreds of experiencers and wide-ranging interviews, many with persons who have reported unusually deep NDEs, from which he quotes frequently and copiously. From this study emerges a provocative pattern of very positive changes in outlook, values, and behavior following a near-death experience--often a complete transformation of personality. Dr. Ring also finds that NDEs are often powerful catalysts for spiritual awakening and psychic development. Moreover, deep NDEs frequently include strikingly similar visions of our planetary future. The depth and consistency of these life transformations--as well as the apparent widespread and increasing incidence of the NDE itself--lead Dr. Ring to a startling conclusion: Near-death experiences may be part of an evolutionary thrust toward higher consciousness for all humanity. Thus they may foreshadow the birth of a new planetary consciousness as we head toward Omega, the final goal of human evolution."--front and back flaps.

In this book the author of On Having No Head investigates the most poignant problem our life poses - what lies at the end of it. He asks us to check four things. First, that to discover whether we are perishable, we must first discover what we are. Second, that outsiders are in no position to tell us this: they can only tell us what we look like at a distance. Third, that what we are is obvious as soon as we dare to look. And fourth, that we turn out to be in all respects the opposite of what we had been told. This revolutionary conclusion is arrived at by doing the nine "tests for Immortality" that form the backbone of the book. Then, our identity and immortality having been firmly established, we apply this knowledge to the fact of ageing and of dying itself, thus realizing their infinite potential for joy. Finally, the book explores in detail the true resurrection life - life lived in a Heaven which is none other than this earthly scene perceived as it is. 'The "open secret" is no longer secret. Douglas Harding's Little Book of Life nd Death makes the insights of the sages accessible to all. Courageous, personal and inspiring, this book asks the most difficult questions about life and death, and to our - and apparently even the author's - amazemnt, answers them. Like Harding's classic book On Having No Head, this work is written in a down-home, heartfelt syle. Read this book. Do the "experiments" which are Harding's unique and powerful contribution to what might be called the technology of enlightenment. Get ready to die, and to live anew.' Rober W. Fuller. Former president, Oberlin College. 'The literature on dying will never be the same again.' Ram Dass

An examination of the similaries of near-death experiences and those who claim alien abduction. Also includes a discussion of childhood alien encounters and of personalities that are apparently more sensitive to spiritual and visionary encounters.