Alexander, Eben (2012) Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, New York: Simon & Schuster, 196pages.

The author had an NDE and went from a backsliding  theist who was a Christmas/Easter attendee at an Anglican church to a universalist believer. As this is being written millions of this book have been sold. It was preceded with incredible hype including a cover of Newsweek and a prestigious publishing house. Dr. Alexander is extremely articulate and can discuss many near death  experiences with terms often used in science.  He discovered that God appears to be anthropomorphic.

He dies. He sees those surrounding him, then heads for a dark place that is like a tunnel and after that travels into a light. Much what he says after this is described in the primitive terms we use here on earth. He sees OM(God) and Orb is his interpreter. God is beyond the word “kindness” and thoughtful.  A woman on a butterfly wing also helps him in his journey. Most communication is silent and mystical. Heaven is beyond words. He did not see a Devil or Hell nor are they listed in the index. Evil is like a grain of sand that is dispersed throughout the universe. We are to do the best we can. The divisions between those who favor creeds or deeds or the reverse is not answered. It would appear that given that God is not wrathful, that a little of each  helps. However, that is conjecture on the part of this reviewer. One does not know if hell is forever(partialists) or is endured do based on the severity of the sin(universalist.)

In all this something seems off. The reviewer has not read of any OM and ORB before. Further, Alexander did not contact any dead relatives or friends. The reviewer has recently been in contact with an NDE person. She was met by an uncle. Osis and Haraldsson in their At the Hour of Death(1977) interviewed a purposive sample of 1,000 and found only one that felt they went to hell. However, most had similar experiences at death with the light and the tunnel as they journeyed into heaven.

Perhaps, the richest part of Newsweek article is the letters sent to Newsweek that are on the internet. The folks representing science see Alexander’s journey as part of a dream-state that emerged from his brain damage. The mainly Evangelicals remained livid in their disapproval, although the forward is supported by Jewish and Christian clergy.

A challenge for Alexander or some other of similar credentials is to draw large samples that due to the essence of the topic must be purposive rather than random and interview them. The statistical procedure is to take a step wise multi-regression to avoid multi-colinearity and rotate say the ten commandments used in some major world religions. X1(independent variable) may represent one sin and X2 symbolize the second commandment. With an N over 200 4 or 5 commandments may be regressed on the Y1 axis (dependent variable)indicating  Hell or not Heaven. Further, two major questions would be what did they believe and what did they do as right or wrong in their time and place in a particular society. Once done and replicated many times over, something  should emerge. This could help most of us and cause warring factions among others. However, much will still need to be answered, but in the mean time religion and science may/may not join forces. Multi-tabular Crosstabs may also be helpful. It is not clear if Mandelbrot is of value here. At the moment, the division between the two(science and religion) still is very much in existence. However, it does not have to be that way forever.   Prof. Joel C. Snell /Emeritus/Kirkwood College.