Welcome, noble viewers, to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television for the first in a three part series on near death experiences or NDEs. For many years NDEs were not seriously examined or openly discussed by the scientific community. Recently however, thanks to a growing number of scientific studies and research efforts, thousands of NDE accounts have been formally documented worldwide.

For more than 10 years Dr. Jeffrey Long, a radiation oncologist from Louisiana, USA, has been at the forefront of this movement and has contributed immensely to the advancement of near death experience research.

A near-death experience may be defined as two components— being near-death, and having an experience. The near-death part means that the person is so physically compromised from some accident or illness that they’re generally unconscious and may even be clinically dead. They’re so physically compromised that if they don’t improve physically, they will suffer irreversible permanent death. And yet at that time, when they’re unconscious and should have no possibility of a remembered conscious event during that period, they do have the experience part of a near-death experience.

Dr. Long’s comprehensive collection of surveys and evidence of near death experiences from across the globe is presented in a recently published book he co-authored entitled, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.

The non-profit Near Death Experience Research Foundation was founded by Dr. Long and his wife in 1998 and serves as a platform for people from all walks of life to share their personal NDE stories with the public by submitting them online at the Foundation’s website.

A 100-item questionnaire is used to screen all submissions to assure only those who have truly undergone a near death experience have their story recorded by the Foundation. The website contains the largest known database in the world of individual NDE accounts. Let us now learn more about near death experiences from Dr. Long.

How many people actually have a near-death experience?

A Gallup Poll published in 1982 estimated that perhaps as much as five percent of the population has had a near-death experience.

Other studies indicate that of those people that have a close brush with death, about 10 to 20% will have a near-death experience.

Is that here in the U.S.A. or worldwide?

The concept of about five percent of the population having a near-death experience actually comes from several different surveys around the world - United States, Germany, and Australia specifically - and that’s felt to be approximately accurate. The concept that about 10 to 20% of people facing a life-threatening event will have a near-death experience comes from studies all around the world.

Reports of near death experiences often describe entering into a blissful state and seeing beautiful Heavenly realms. Nearly all of those who were previously afraid to die no longer have such a fear after undergoing a NDE.

No two near-death experiences are identical if you study large numbers of near-death experiences, and I have, I’ve studied over 1,300. I’ve seen what other researchers have seen and that is, that there are elements consistently observed in near-death experiences. A typical, detailed near-death experience would involve first what’s called the out-of-body experience. Consciousness separates from the body and goes above the body. They can often from that vantage point see below them their frantic resuscitation efforts.

One of the most common elements seen during a near-death experience are profoundly positive emotions. People feel intense love, compassion, connectiveness, oneness. They really feel that even though they’re in a mystical, unearthly realm, that realm is truly home. In addition to that, very often in these unearthly realms, they may come to believe that they have, if you will, universal knowledge.

They say, “Ah hah! I understand how the universe works, my role in it and, what’s going on.” – knowledge beyond anything we could possibly know here on Earth. Unfortunately, essentially always, they’re not allowed to retain any of that knowledge, but those are certainly some very interesting near-death experiences that do describe that. The impact of personally experiencing a near-death experience is profound. People that have are generally changed and substantially changed, and the changes they go through last the rest of their life.

What we’ve observed is that the people having a near-death experience, over time, they almost always believe that there’s life after death. Well of course they do. They believe they personally experienced it. They almost never fear death anymore because they have a strong awareness, even an understanding, about life after death. Other aftereffects may include decreased materialism.

They have a much more interest in loving relationships with other people. These tend to be people that if they were in jobs where they had to compromise their moral principles, such as, sales jobs that at any cost (they must sell), they may find that after their near-death experience, that’s not a good match.

And commonly near-death experiencers will change professions and go into the healing professions or professions in where they can manifest their newfound or increased ability and desire to interact lovingly with their fellow human beings.

After this brief pause, we will continue our intriguing interview with Dr. Jeffrey Long. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television, featuring an interview with a prominent researcher of near death experiences, Dr. Jeffery Long of the USA. Over a thousand near death experiencers, from all age groups, races, and religious backgrounds have documented their stories online at the Near Death Experience Research Foundation website.

Regardless of the variations in demographic profiles of these individuals, Dr. Long has discerned nine common themes from these recorded experiences. He says that these similarities constitute nine lines of evidence that, taken together, are conclusive proof of the existence of an afterlife. As he points out, “No physiological or psychological explanation of NDEs can account for what is observed in NDEs.”

Some of the remarkable commonalities between reported near death experiences include meeting deceased relatives, out-of-body experiences, and total consciousness while under general anesthesia.

And also you spoke about the volume of the near-death experiences we’re talking about and the consistency of the stories.

Yes, a basic scientific principle is, that which is real is consistently observed. So you would expect if near-death experiences were real, you would consistently observe elements, not only among the over 1,300 I studied, but you would also expect that consistency of what goes on during near-death experiences from what all the other researchers are seeing in the thousands of other near-death experiences that have been reported.

From extensive review of the scholarly literature and looking over what other researchers are seeing and having studied near-death experiences as I have, what we’re observing in near-death experiences is consistently observed. And that consistency runs deep. We see the same consistency in the near-death experience among very small children.

We see the same near-death experiences all around the world. It’s as if it doesn’t make any difference if you are a Hindu in India, a Muslim in Egypt, or a Christian in the United States, the similarity of the elements of near-death experience worldwide is striking.

Over the past five or 10 years there has been more and more scholarly research published, and that’s research published in some of the most prestigious scientific and medical journals in the world.

And I think perhaps as a result of that research or perhaps scientists and physicians asking people that they know, if they personally perhaps have experienced a near-death experience, I think for a variety of reasons, today we’re having more open-mindedness among scientists and physicians about the reality of near-death experiences than we’ve ever seen before.

As an overview, about 45% of people have an out-of-body experience in the sense that they see ongoing earthly events at a time they’re unconscious or even clinically dead. That’s called the out-of-body experience component of the near-death experience and it’s typically the first element that’s observed.

As part of my study, I asked, “Did you experience a separation of consciousness from your body?” In response, 75.4% of our near-death experiencers said “Yes.”

And I understand that the consciousness always goes above the body, that it’s up on the ceiling, usually looking down.

Virtually all the time. It’s quite rare to have the point of consciousness go below the level of the physical body; very, very uncommon to have the point of consciousness at the same level as the physical body. Virtually all the time that there’s an out-of-body experience, consciousness rises up above the body, maybe directly over the body or to some other area, sort of looking at the body from an angle. But in general, that’s how an out-of-body experience works.

Some of the most dramatic near-death experiences that I read involve the point of consciousness leaving far away from the physical body. They may travel outside of the emergency room where they’ve suffered, for example, a heart attack and cardiac arrest. They’re actually able to see and hear ongoing events far from their physical body and far from any possible sensory awareness.

For example, we’ve had people have consciousness and during this out-of-body experience part of their near-death experience go to the nursing station where they were, even though they are in the operating room with their heart stopped. We’ve had people in an operating theater where they had their heart stop and then yet their consciousness was in the cafeteria of the hospital where they were seeing and hearing right at that point in time what their family was talking about and that is absolutely medically inexplicable.

An example of an out-of-body experience is, “I could feel my spirit actually leaving my body. I saw and heard the conversations between my husband and the doctors taking place outside my room about 40 feet away down a hallway. I was later able to verify this conversation to my shocked husband.”

After when they have their out-of-body experience, even if they were in an incredibly painful situation that caused them to nearly die, immediately they’re feeling no pain at all. They may feel a profound sense of peace and connection. In fact the most common word, what they feel and what is described in near-death experience is “love.”

They feel love intensely, compassionately. They feel a connection or unity of people that they see and all other people. Very dramatic, incredibly intense, positive emotions described in near-death experiences.

Our sincere thanks Dr. Jeffrey Long for speaking with us about your important research on near death experiences. Next Monday on Science and Spirituality, in part two of our three part series on NDEs, Dr. Long will further elaborate on the lines of evidence he considers proof beyond doubt of the afterlife, including blind people experiencing visual perceptions during their NDEs and small children giving near death experience details similar to adults.

For more details on Dr. Jeffrey Long, please visit Dr. Long’s book Evidence of the Afterlife is available at Our appreciation caring viewers for your company on today’s program. Next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May we all look within to discover who we truly are.

Imagine if all your life you had been deprived of one of your senses, and then experienced it for the first time…

Near-death experiences have been described in those totally blind from birth, they contain vision, not just fragments of vision or partial vision but dramatic, crystal clear vision.

Discover more of the fascinating findings of Dr. Jeffrey Long, a physician who is on the forefront of near death experience research, in the second of a three part series on his work airing Monday, July 26, on Science and Spirituality.