Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind

Rating:
Summary: A great steaming heap of garbage.
Review: A stunning collection of pseudoscience and anecdotal evidence without a single redeeming value, except possibly as material for campfire ghost stories. This should appeal to new-age types who can't really buy into the religion thing, but have a need to believe in an afterlife anyway. If you wish to enjoy it, leave your critical thinking skills at the door.

Rating:
Summary: A great steaming heap of garbage.
Review: A stunning collection of pseudoscience and anecdotal evidence without a single redeeming value, except possibly as material for campfire ghost stories. This should appeal to new-age types who can't really buy into the religion thing, but have a need to believe in an afterlife anyway. If you wish to enjoy it, leave your critical thinking skills at the door.

Rating:
Summary: Nice stories, but little to back them up
Review: In the current scientific framework the Near Death Experience is something of an anomaly. The accounts are intriguing, but science is by nature a skeptical enterprise and so, too often, NDE's are politely - and sometimes rudely - dismissed because they fail to accord with the prevailing materialistic paradigm. For those interested in the phenomena, however, a credible study that treats the NDE as worthy of serious scientific investigation is needed. For both the layperson and the professional scientist MINDSIGHT, by Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper, is by far the best book to start exploring this subject. Ring and Cooper's ambitious study involves NDE and Out of Body Experiences in the blind. After all, if evidence could be confirmed that blind individuals, particularly if they have been blind since birth, could see during a NDE the repercussions would be astounding. Ring and Cooper approach this study with great sensitivity, rigor, and ultimately reach conclusions that something more subtle, more profound may be involved than the experience of "physical sight" during an NDE. All aspects of this book are well handled from the description of the study, the first person accounts, and the scientific issues involved. But what I believe will the be the enduring contribution of this book is way Ring and Cooper articulate, in a clear and lucid fashion, a metaphysical framework that can account for such experiences. This includes grounded speculation on the quantum nature of consciousness, particularly as it is congruent with Eastern metaphysical traditions. Undoubtedly, many scientists will remain skeptical that such radical overhaul of our worldview may be called for. But the speculation Ring and Cooper engage in is philosophically sophisticated, and it has the added advantage that the latest research in quantum mechanics coincides so elegantly with the Eastern Wisdom tradition. Ring and Cooper are brilliant guides for the NDE, intrepid explorers really, determined to catch a glimpse of an undiscovered country so that they can, as Columbus did, confirm that the world is not quite as flat as the learned skeptics suppose.

Rating:
Summary: Mindsight
Review: Kenneth Ring is a pioneer researcher in the field of near-death research. In "Mindsight," he and Sharon Cooper divulge the results of their studies of blind persons who have had near-death experiences. In many cases they describe events seen and felt by the blind which could not have been explained in any other way than an out-of-body event. This is, as are most of Ken Rings books, a professionally created book with substantial new information on the near-death phenomenon. As a near-death researcher and author, I can heartily recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: NDE AUTHORS CASH IN ON INSECURE PEOPLE
Review: NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES ARE FAKE!!!!I WAS CLINICALLY DEAD FOR 6 AND A HALF MINUTES. DURING THAT TIME I SAW NOTHING. AFTER DEATH YOU CEASE TO EXIST. NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE STORIES ARE MADE UP SO AUTHORS CAN MAKE MONEY ON PEOPLES FEAR OF DEATH. DONT SUPPORT THESE CON ARTISTS.

Rating:
Summary: an important contribution to an evolving subject
Review: The book is an important contribution to the subject for a number of reasons, one of which is that some of the so-called skeptics have dismissed NDEs as evidence in favour of the survival hypothesis on the grounds that the NDEs of the blind differ from those of the sighted. This book firmly puts that myth to rest.

The book consists mostly of reviews of various cases of OBEs and NDEs in the blind, and one of the strongest concerns a woman blinded during surgery who apparently left her body while she was dying on a gurney with a breathing apparatus over her face. She seems to have seen her boyfriend and former husband standing speachless some distance away down the hallway. Seperate interviews with the two me support her story.

I predict more cases like this being made public in this decade. We could use a book on the cases of NDEs occuring during times when the patient's EEG recording was flat.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant: But take it for what it is
Review: Whatever one may say about the actual evidece, the book is downright gripping reading. When you start reading it, you will _not_ want to stop. The stories are absolutely fascinating!

What about the actual evidence? Weak or strong? Well, it is problematic... You can't structure an experiment for NDEs all that well. After all, you can't really study this in the lab (unless you're an unethical mad scientist). This, natrually, brings the problem of credibility. And this is valid. But, hand waving is not much good. As a matter of fact, if we can't trust humans at all, we're going to have to scrape _all_ of the social science, because that's almost all its got.

Overall, then, the state of affairs is not so bad. Obviously, the book has problems, but it is rigorous enought to have been cited in more than one medical journal.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant: But take it for what it is
Review: Whatever one may say about the actual evidece, the book is downright gripping reading. When you start reading it, you will _not_ want to stop. The stories are absolutely fascinating!

What about the actual evidence? Weak or strong? Well, it is problematic... You can't structure an experiment for NDEs all that well. After all, you can't really study this in the lab (unless you're an unethical mad scientist). This, natrually, brings the problem of credibility. And this is valid. But, hand waving is not much good. As a matter of fact, if we can't trust humans at all, we're going to have to scrape _all_ of the social science, because that's almost all its got.

Overall, then, the state of affairs is not so bad. Obviously, the book has problems, but it is rigorous enought to have been cited in more than one medical journal.