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THE TRUTH IN THE LIGHT: AN INVESTIGATION OF OVER 300 NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES by Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick. London: Headline, 1995. Pp. 278. 116.99, hardback. ISBN 0-7472-1186-8.
TRANSFORMED BY THE LIGHT: THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES ON PEOPLE'S LIVES by Melvin Morse, with Paul Perry. New York: Ivy Books, 1994. Pp. 265. $5.99, paperback. ISBN 0-80411183-9.
Nowadays it is common in bookstores to see popular accounts of experiences with "the light," the term by which near-death experiences (NDEs) are known in the nonscientific literature on the subject. Many of these accounts are autobiographical, in that they focus on a single experience(or on a few of them) and on the effects of these experiences on people's lives. Other books summarize in simple terms research the authors have conducted on the subject. The books reviewed here represent the latter trend.
In The Truth in the Light Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick present a general study on the subject that was conducted in Great Britain. They asked 500 people to reply to a detailed NDE questionnaire that probed into the features of the experience, the context of its occurrence, and its aftereffects. These people had sent letters about their experiences to the authors and to another investigator after hearing about their interest in NDEs in television, radio programs, and newspaper articles. The exact number of replies is not clear. At the beginning of the book the authors state that over 350 people replied (p. 2), but later the sample size is set at 350 (e.g., p. 129). The respondents were mostly adults (80%) and women (78%).
The authors focus on qualitative descriptions of the features of the NDEs. In doing so, they offer a rich view of the phenomena that form the NDE, and they remind us of the human side of these experiences, particularly their aftereffects. The picture that emerges is similar to that of other studies. The Fenwicks also quantified the features of the experience. Some examples of their findings include: feelings of peace (77% ), OBEs (65%), brilliant light (72%), life review (17%), unearthly realm (24%), tunnel (51%), feelings of joy (31%), ESP (33%), and visions of the future (13%). The questionnaire obtained finer breakdowns of some of the basic claims. For example, among...