Near-death experiences — reported across cultures, across centuries, and across religious traditions — represent one of the most fascinating intersections of spiritual testimony and scientific investigation. The common features — the sense of leaving the body, the encounter with light or with deceased relatives, the life review, the return with a changed relationship to death — appear in accounts from ancient Egypt, medieval Europe, indigenous North America, and contemporary hospital wards in equal measure. Whether they are glimpses of what awaits, constructions of a dying brain, or something that cannot be reduced to either description, they reliably transform the people who have them — and they deserve serious attention from both scientists and theologians.
Rumi