The Crossover Experience Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from The Crossover Experience, a new book on the science and phenomenon of near-death experiences.

The book is written by DJ Kadagian with contributions from Dr. Pim van Lommel and Gregory Shushan, Ph.D., two experts in the field of NDEs.

Chapter 1

Introduction

“Life is a dream walking. Death is going home.” — CHINESE PROVERB

What happens when we die? It is one of mankind’s most enduring questions. Depictions of an afterlife date back tens of thousands of years. They can be found etched on cave walls and painted on artifacts unearthed at ritual burial sites around the world. It is hidden in sacred burial chambers deep in the Egyptian pyramids, as well as the ancient passage tombs of Scotland and Ireland.

It is depicted in the artwork, places of Worship, and sacred texts of the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, and other religious and spiritual disciplines being practiced around the world today. And yet, it still requires great faith to accept these beliefs — something we find in short supply amidst our fast paced, increasingly materialistic culture.

According to Pew Research, 72% of all Americans and 85% of Christians believe in heaven and an afterlife. However, a much smaller percentage believe in the neardeath experience (NDES). How do we reconcile this? The logical explanation is the former do not believe a person can experience “heaven” and return to tell the tale. And since they have not been there themselves, their belief is a product of faith.

Faith is hard work. And it is often harder to keep. Yet, for those who have had an NDE, faith is no longer necessary — for them, it is fact. They know there is an afterlife because, as they will tell you, they have experienced that realm first-hand.

Many return with stories of meeting a spiritual being – some say they encountered Jesus, some God, and some a pure loving entity. Ninety-six percent tell us that what they experienced was more “real than real.”2 And no one will ever convince them otherwise.

What if the question of the existence of life-after-life could now be answered with certainty? What if we now know what it looks like? What it feels like? Seventy years of research into the near-death phenomenon is providing us this very opportunity.

Photo by Daniel Seßler

In the 1960s, stories of people visiting another realm of existence began pouring in from around the world. Medical professionals, particularly cardiologists, at the front line of this new phenomenon began to notice a surge in reports that were closely correlated to recent advances in resuscitation techniques that enabled doctors to bring patients back from clinical death. Something that was not possible before this time.

A growing number of researchers affiliated with respected universities and medical institutions the world over began the painstaking process of gathering thousands of testimonials and analyzing what has become known as the near-death experience – a phenomenon that, if proven, would change the way we understand ourselves as a species. Things like why we are here, and what our place is in the universe.

Patterns began to emerge of a remarkably consistent journey of emotional experiences, from the overwhelming love NDErs feel emanating from a brilliant light to the emotional power of a life-review. From the raw sensation of telepathic communication to the collapse of time and space itself. Consistency of experience also extends to the physical environment they encounter – the sweet fragrance of this realm’s vibrant gardens, the sound of its otherworldly music, the texture of the mysterious dark tunnel, the visual impact of its gleaming structures.

Photo by Daniel Seßler

However, few who have had an NDE have experienced all of its elements. Some will have traveled through the dark tunnel but not walked the gardens. Some will have encountered a being of light but not faced a life-review. And few have experienced the hellish realm. Yet the phenomenon’s full wonder – and its implications – present themselves when the full arc of the experience is expressed in one complete journey.

In constructing this book, roughly 200 testimonials were pulled from exceptional NDE experiences out of a pool of over 4,000. Each of these powerful testimonials contains a piece of the NDE journey, with each chapter providing an in-depth look into each of the NDEs major components. Then, as one sprinter passes the baton to the next, we have taken the strongest legs of these collective experiences and connected them together into two powerful journeys for you to experience. From their entry into the tunnel to their return to this realm.

As you are experiencing these journeys, commentary and perspectives are offered by three people who approach them with very different perspectives and skillsets. First, the cardiologist and researcher, who has been “in the trenches” with those experiencing NDEs from the beginning. Then the scholar, who has focused his attention on the current NDE phenomenon through the prism of religion and indigenous cultures throughout human history. And lastly, the quantum economist, whose in-depth experience with statistics and pattern recognition provides both a micro and macro perspective of the data.

Crossover will take you on a wondrous journey through this mysterious, otherworldly realm, in search of a deeper, more expansive understanding of what the NDE is trying to communicate to us.

You can find more information, read a longer excerpt, or purchase the book at Amazon by clicking HERE.

You can find out more about DJ’s work exploring the near-death phenomenon at his website The CrossOver Experience.

 

DJ KADAGIAN

DJ Kadagian is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, author, and quantum economist. His films have aired on PBS, Gaia TV, the Discovery Channel, and Hallmark, as well as being featured at over 120 film festivals around the world. In his works, he has collaborated with some of the country’s top philosophers, academics, activists, poets, researchers, and theologians. His thought-provoking works have focused on socioeconomic issues, race relations, religion & spirituality, and alternative healing. DJ is also a hedge fund manager whose focus is within the discipline of technical analysis and quantum economics.  He develops and manages proprietary, non-linear, quant-based investments strategies.  He is a graduate of Cornell University and is a member of The Directors Guild of America. His latest book, Punching Waves / A Memoir of Sorts will be released in 2022.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Dr. Pim van Lommel is a world-renowned cardiologist and medical expert on near-death experiences. He has published the most comprehensive prospective study on NDEs in the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet, and is author of Consciousness Beyond Life. Over the past several years, van Lommel has been lecturing all over the world on near-death experiences and the relationship between consciousness and brain function. In 2006, the president of India awarded him the lifetime achievement award at the World Congress on Clinical and Preventive Cardiology in New Delhi.

Gregory Shushan, Ph.D., is the leading authority on near-death experiences and the afterlife across cultures and throughout history. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Conceptions of the Afterlife in Civilizations: Universalism, Constructivism, and Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Religious Experience Research Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and was previously Perrott-Warrick Researcher at University of Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion.

 

You can read a previous post featuring an excerpt from Dr. Raymond Moody’s seminal work Life After Life HERE.