Raymond Moody: “Those who survived clinical death are changed forever”

Psychologies: Why do you have such a keen interest in the other world? Maybe you were born and raised in a religious family?

Raymond Moody: Not at all. I was born in a small town in Georgia, in the southeastern United States, in June 1944, the same day my father boarded a warship, serving in the Navy as a corpsman during World War II. When he returned, he completed his medical studies and became a surgeon. My father was a born doctor and loved his profession very much. He was a committed atheist and we never talked about religion with him. He perceived death only as the cessation of life and the extinction of consciousness. Unfortunately, he was harsh and implacable when he stood up for his beliefs, so I was always afraid of him.

I must say, I was an inquisitive child, so my parents sent me to a private school for gifted children. I was very fond of space and astronomy. At the age of 14, I was already proud of the fact that I had the opportunity to meet twice and have long conversations with NASA employee Wernher von Braun, a well-known expert in the field of rocket science. Later at the university, I enrolled in a course in astronomy. As you can see, I had a rather scientific, materialistic mindset.

What changed the direction of your thoughts?

I once read Plato’s “Republic”¹. His philosophy literally captured me! And I was struck by the curious story that concludes the first part of this book, the myth of Era, the Greek soldier whose body was found on the battlefield … and then he suddenly came back to life and told about the wanderings of his soul in the realm of the dead. Later, in 1965, our philosophy teacher told us about the journey to the next world of George Ritchie, a psychiatrist who was declared clinically dead from pneumonia. Upon waking up, Richie spoke of his experiences, the details of which strangely echoed Er’s narrative, in particular in the description of the “unspeakable light”.

Driven by curiosity, I met this friendly and sincere man, and he told me about his adventure in great detail. A few years later, when I was already teaching philosophy at the university, where I gave a lecture on the legend told by Plato, a student approached me and shared his own experience, which was similar to that experienced by Er and Richie. And again he mentioned this light, which defies description. Coincidence or not? I decided to test this by regularly mentioning these stories in my lectures. As a result, my home soon became a gathering place for students who wanted to talk about these experiences! Then other people began to bring their testimonies to me.

And it was these stories that inspired you to become a doctor?

I naturally wanted to know more about life, about death, and about consciousness. I started studying medicine at the age of 28. In Georgia, many doctors heard about my research, and, oddly enough, I did not meet with any attacks from teachers and researchers. Everything happened as if the way before me opened by itself: they treated me very kindly and even offered me to give lectures. I became the most famous medical student in Georgia! Over the years I have collected dozens of stories of what I have called NDEs (Near Death Experiences).

Then I wrote a book, Life After Life, in which I tried, refraining from trying to metaphysically interpret this evidence, and simply carefully presented it in order to ask important questions: were these people really dead? What is really going on with the brain? Why are all the stories so strangely similar? And, of course, the most important: is it possible to conclude that the spirit continues to live after death?

What do those who have traveled beyond life and returned to it describe?

During clinical death, they hear a strange hum, then exit their body and fall into a dark tunnel. They realize that they now have a “different body”, see an indescribable light, meet their deceased loved ones who are waiting for them, or a “light being” who guides them. In a few moments, their whole life passes in front of them, and, finally, they return to their body … We have identified about fifteen stages that make up the “ideal” near-death experience: I must say, not all survivors go through all these stages. But their descriptions are identical, regardless of the person’s age, country, culture, or creed.

There are even cases where people blind from birth have experienced the same experience with the same visual images. And one more very important consequence, which is observed in everyone: the “near-death experience” always causes a positive (sometimes radical) transformation of the personality. This “returning of the self” brings about deep, lasting complex changes. By the way, this aspect is of interest to psychologists and psychotherapists who work with this topic.

Was it easy for you to get recognition for your research?

I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. In the US, my work was immediately well received in medical circles, because I never tried to prove the existence of an afterlife. I focused only on what happens to the human psyche when we are in a state close to death. After all, the definition of clinical death is still quite vague …

The research I started has been continued all over the world. And I got into other aspects of this topic, in particular, such as the “negative” near-death experience, which is reported by people who have experienced terrifying experiences. I am especially interested in “shared” near-death experiences: sometimes relatives or a nurse caring for a person empathically experience this experience with the dying person. This phenomenon is not as rare as it seems, and I have described it in detail.². We have also found that some people can experience a near-death experience, or at least some of its stages, spontaneously without being near-death.

And in this case, the person is still internally changing?

Yes, that’s why I began to be interested in the therapeutic potential of this phenomenon and to explore related areas. To better understand the near-death experience, it is necessary to consider it not as a unique phenomenon, but in the context of other phenomena that have an equally healing effect on the soul. For example, very common in the US methods of psychotherapy aimed at the study of past lives. In the late 1980s, I discovered that we have the ability to “greet” deceased loved ones in a special, altered state of consciousness. I relied here on the ancient Greek tradition of the so-called psychomanteums – the oracles of the dead (they are described by Homer and Herodotus), special places where people came to talk with the souls of the dead.

Are you not afraid to get a reputation as a mystic in the scientific world with such a subject of research?

My experiments with the so-called psychomanteum, which I continue to this day, brought me trouble … only from my father! The fact is that I suffer from a rare disease, myxedema. This is an underactive thyroid gland. She played a fatal role in my life, causing me to make terrible mistakes. For example, because of her, I entrusted the management of my finances to a man who ruined me, I got divorced and even went as far as attempting suicide. My father, being sure that my experiments were the fruit of a sick imagination, made me hospitalize in a psychiatric hospital …

Luckily, my friends came to my rescue. In the end, I was treated and everything went back to normal. Now that everything is behind me, I can say that this illness has done me good: it has developed my capacity for empathy and helped me better understand people who face difficult trials at the end of their lives.

You talk about NDEs as a given. But many still deny its existence…

This experience has long been officially considered a real psychic phenomenon. Those who deny it are simply ignorant… It is clear that the approach of death and the transition to the afterlife can cause atavistic fear in some people. To calm down, they just need to look at the many doctors, neurophysiologists or scientists who work in this field or even agree to talk about their experiences. All attempts to interpret the near-death experience as a hallucination, a fantasy, a reaction to a lack of oxygen, or the release of endorphins are recognized as unfounded. Read Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel: he conducted the largest-ever scientific study of the near-death experience³.

But after all, you yourself have said for a very long time that you are skeptical about all this?

I believe that we do not yet have “scientific” evidence for life after death, because the methods of modern science do not allow us to explore this human experience. I would even say that we need a new definition of near-death experience, because, as I suggested, it should not be considered as an autonomous psychic phenomenon, but as one of the exclusive experiences associated with death, along with reincarnation, the appearance of ghosts, mediumship … We know that consciousness is not only a product of the activity of the brain and our neural connections. Today I think that the spirit, the soul continues to live after life. We can say that we have approached the doors of paradise, but we still do not know what is hidden behind them …

¹ Plato “Republic” (AST, 2009).

² R. Moody “Again about life after life” (AST, 1998).

³ P. van Lommel at al. «Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands», 2001, vol. 358, № 9298.