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April 10, 2005 - Art Bell

02:54:56

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Raymond Moody - NDEs and Dying

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55:48

raymond moody

01:12:54

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Speaker	Time	Text
art bell ▲ ● ▼		a safety problem.
		In a moment, I've got some news.
		Well, that's very worrisome.
		You might or might not have heard about it.
		If not, you will in a moment.
		scary stuff You might not have heard about this on the regular evening news.
		I'm really not sure, but this really, really, really bears your careful watching, all of ours.
		Headline is panic in Angola as killer virus spreads.
		The killer virus is Marburg.
		Most of you have heard, I think, of Ebola.
		Marburg is a close and extremely deadly relative of Ebola.
		Well, just listen to the stories.
		Panic spread through Angola's capital yesterday after the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus, an Ebola-like condition that kills with massive internal bleeding, claimed its 150th life.
		Many in Luanda, a city of 3.8 million, withdrew their children from schools, shops, ran low on supplies, bleach, which millions wanted to disinfect the water supply.
		State radio broadcasts an emergency message every single 10 minutes saying, alert, Marburg, don't touch any corpse.
		Inform the health authorities about any suspicious illness or death due to bleeding.
		Angola's health ministry said that 163 cases of Marburg have been recorded thus far.
		All are believed to have originated in the province of Uigi, I guess it is, UIGE, about 180 miles northeast of Luanda on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
		Four people have died in the capital, all of them thought to have traveled from that city.
		An Italian doctor working in a hospital there is among the dead.
		At least three-quarters of the victims are children under the age of 15.
		We've now started to deploy teams in the problem areas, said the World Health Organization.
		We can get a real sense of the depth and width of the problem.
		It's important to realize that Marburg is very new for us.
		It is serious since we don't know much about it.
		And then I picked up on a commentary published in something called, or on a website called recombionetics.com.
		And this is very worrisome.
		Marburg Airborne Transmission in Angola.
		Listen carefully.
		And I can't, of course, guarantee you.
		It's not one of the major news services, so I'm just going to read it to you.
		Be your own judge.
		It says, Medical workers warn visitors not to shake hands with anyone and not to stand directly in front of residents when talking to them for fear that a cough could release an infectious spray of spittle.
		Silo Margarita is one of the few nurses still working at the 500-bed regional hospital here, a sprawling collection of well-kept one-story concrete buildings that appeared almost deserted on Saturday afternoon.
		Wearing a surgical mask and plastic wrapped on her boots, she continued to care for 12 patients, despite the fact, she said, that as many as 15 of the hospital's nurses and two doctors have died from Marburg.
		The two nurses died only last Thursday, she said.
		The deteriorating situation there is raising the obvious question, is Marburg transmitting through the air in Angola?
		Although there have always been warnings about transmission via contact with bodily fluids and concern about coughing raising questions about the ease of airborne transmission, initially most of the Marburg cases were children under the age of one suggesting transmission via contaminated needles during childhood vaccinations.
		However, about a month ago, the first healthcare worker died, and as noted above, the number is now 17.
		Though protective gear was in short supply initially, the deaths of healthcare workers are still being recorded.
		The total number of Marburg cases alive is relatively small.
		When the WHO first announced the sequence results on March 23rd, they sequenced the virus.
		There were only seven Marburg patients alive.
		Get this.
		95 patients out of 102 so far have died.
		The number diagnosed has risen to 213.
		The number still alive has grown to 30.
		The increase in patients alive simply reflects the fact that newly diagnosed patients are being tallied quicker than older existing cases are dying.
		As noted above, there are only 12 patients in the main hospital at the epicenter of the outbreak.
		The ability of such a small number of patients to infect so many health care workers, especially, one might add, after infection control efforts have been increased, does raise the possibility that airborne transmission is fairly efficient.
		The current outbreak in Angola has a case fatality rate at or near 100% higher than any other prior outbreak of Marburg or Ebola.
		It has now begun transmitting in Luanda and will easily eclipse the old record of 280 dead set for Ebola, you'll recall, in 1967.
		So this is really one of those things that the world has got to keep its eye centered directly on.
		Should there actually prove to be airborne Marburg with up near what, a 100% fatality rate actually, looks like, that could go whizzing around the world very quickly indeed.
		and i'm sure and i would hope they would be taking appropriate steps to isolated and the mind mind anyway always wanders back to some motion pictures you'll recall it were made about outbreaks in the u_s_ and the cleansing of the area that ultimately was ordered by the political you know
		I mean, there could be a medical, absolute necessity to simply sterilize the area where such an outbreak occurred if it began to be airborne.
		I mean, that's literally all you could do and probably the only way that it could be stopped.
		So, you know, we've got to keep our eye on this kind of thing.
		The following, I think you will find very, very educational.
		This comes from a listener of mine down in Australia, a police officer, in fact, Ed Chanel, I'll give his name, a police officer in Australia.
		High, Thought perhaps you all would like to see the real figures from down under.
		It has now been 12 months since the gun owners in Australia were forced under a new law to surrender, turned out to be a total of 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australian taxpayers, he adds, $500 million.
		And the results from taking all of these guns are now in.
		You ready?
	Of course, as you know, crime would be down now substantially.
	They've taken away the guns from people, more than well over half a million of them, and destroyed them.
	So let's see what's going on in Australia now.
	It's been a year.
	Australia-wide, homicides, are up 3.2%.
	Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6%.
	Australia-wide, armed robberies, oh my God, they're up 44%.
	Now, you would think with all the guns gone, they'd be down, but they're up.
	44%.
	In fact, in the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300%.
	Oh, my gosh.
	Then it says, note, while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not.
	And the criminals still have their guns.
	While figures show over the previous 25 years, there was a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms.
	This has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months since criminals have guaranteed their prey is unarmed.
	There also has been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly.
	Australian politicians are just at a loss to explain how public safety seems to have decreased after such a monumental effort and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns.
	I doubt you're going to see this on the American Evening News or hear your governor or members of the State Assembly disseminating this information.
	But the Australian experience would seem to prove it.
	Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property, and yes, gun control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.
	Take note, Americans, before it's too late.
	And so I think that's a very well-advised little missive from Australia.
	There you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
	A year ago, they expended all of this money.
	They collected zillions of guns from law-abiding citizens in Australia.
	And what is their payment?
	Much more crime.
	Much less safe.
	Now, I live out in an area here, you know, kind of in the sticks.
	And here you're allowed, if you're clean and they do an FBI check, to carry a gun.
	And I must tell you, it makes for a very much more polite society.
	And I think a safer society.
	It's just common sense.
	Think about it.
	If you were a burglar or worse and you were approaching a residence, wouldn't you have much more reason to pause if you were, for example, approaching a residence here near where I live, where virtually everybody has a gun?
	You're damn right you would be.
	Or perhaps here where I live where one might, general expectation might be 10 or 15 or even 20 minutes before the police could arrive.
	Should something happen, about the only thing the police are going to be able to do, if somebody with bad intent is they'll be able to draw a chalk line around your body.
	And that's where you were right there in that chalk line.
	But if you have a gun to defend yourself, well, once again, from the mind of the person preparing to do the dastardly deed they've got to imagine, you might have a gun.
	But if you're in Australia and you're a criminal and you're confident that all of those nasty, deterrent things have been collected and the worst you're going to face is somebody with a frying pan in their hand, well, I guess the numbers don't lie, do they?
	So before we approve any measure to collect up all the guns at some great taxpayer expense and have them melted down, perhaps we should all reflect on what happened in Australia.
	What do you think?
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Well, you would have been, sorry.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
unidentified		Hi there.
unidentified		How are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm quite well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Great.
unidentified		Just ask about Ed Dames last night, if we could.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What would you ask about him?
unidentified		Well, he mentioned that some of the little elements that he saw in the future could be changed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He spoke of changing smaller things.
		Maybe something, for example, at a personal level for you.
		I mean, if you saw you were going to get hit by a truck, you just wouldn't go there.
		You wouldn't get hit.
		Something else would happen.
		The larger things, out of control, he said.
unidentified		Okay, now, as far as the collective goes, you know, like moving faith can move mountains.
unidentified		Don't you think we could sort of delay or maybe alter some of the big stuff as well?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't rule it out.
		As you know, I experimented with and believe very strongly in this mass consciousness business.
		But I also temper that, as I think you know, with caution because, you know, the old expression of not fooling around with Mother Nature, it's probably good advice.
		I mean, you know, if you're doing something on that scale, then if you did have an unintended consequence, oh my God, it would be massively severe over a very wide area.
unidentified		And sir, I'd like to ask you, I'm from a military family.
		I'd like to ask you about Semper V. If You're swearing an oath to the Constitution or just to the President's administration.
		How does that work for you guys?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean, you guys?
unidentified		Well, the military Marines.
unidentified		You can't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Semper V is, of course, a Marine expression, as you would say.
unidentified		Yeah, but it's regarding the oath or something along the way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not clear on what you're asking.
unidentified		Well, you know, you've got to sign away your constitutional rights to fight to protect the Constitution, and then everybody's letting the Constitution be eroded anyway.
unidentified		It's an odd dichotomy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a very broad political dichotomy.
		I mean, yeah, it is.
		Of course, the Constitution is being eroded.
		You know, in the broader sense, as we fight terrorism, the natural outcome of terrorism is going to be an erosion of personal rights.
		To fight it, we've got to search where we did not previously search.
		To fight it, we've got to be able to come up with all kinds of new technology, face recognition programs, that sort of thing.
		There's got to be tighter controls at the border.
		And those things that you consider to be your right of privacy are certainly becoming eroded as we fight terrorism.
		Just no question about it.
		But I don't see any contradiction with regard to somebody taking an oath to join one of the U.S. armed services and protect the Constitution.
		Not maybe in the very broadest sense.
		But in the meantime, believe me, a soldier still follows orders.
		When you're in the military, that's what you do.
		You follow orders and you let policy be decided in Washington.
		That's just how it works.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		When you hear my heartbeat in this hole, do you know that behind all this function lies that it desired am I late?
		Thank you.
		To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from East of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From West of the Rockies, call ARC at 800-618-8255.
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		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Those are the numbers.
		They're a little different over the weekend, so you might make note of them.
		We'll be in open lines for the next half hour.
		Top of the hour, though, comes actually the world's biggest expert, the world's foremost expert on the whole phenomena of near-death experiences.
		The Honorable Dr. Raymond Moody.
		I sort of threw that in.
		Very great guy, Dr. Moody.
		And he essentially began all of this in the modern era.
		He's quite a guy, and if you've been curious about near-death, he's the man.
		coming up uh...
		more in less than half an hour And so, into open lines again at the top of the hour comes Dr. Raymond Moody.
		Moody, Welcome, Line.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hello?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Oh, how you doing, Art?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm okay, sir.
unidentified		Hi, you want to hear?
unidentified		I died once.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You died?
unidentified		A long time ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You died once a long time ago.
unidentified		Yeah, back in 82.
		I was in a bad car wreck.
		I got busted up real bad.
		Wound up spending about six weeks in a coma, and my body healed.
		And coming out of the coma, I went into shock and everything shut down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, six weeks in a coma, shock, everything shuts down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I assume your heart quit beating, that sort of thing.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any recollection?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much do you remember of that time?
unidentified		Actually, I'm not sure if it was a dream or a memory or what happened, but if it was, it was not too bad.
		Because I didn't ever see him working on me or anything like most of the other people did.
		I kind of woke up like in a park.
		And it was a park I grew up in.
		The only thing was that everybody that was there was somebody who had died before me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a pretty big hit.
unidentified		And uh, well, the weird part was the first person who met me was my grandfather.
		And when I saw him, he looked like he did when we were when I the last time I saw him.
		But as time went by, everybody changed and we all just kind of became the same.
		Like we were all, you know, about the same age and everything was just really good.
		I mean, it's one of them things that I just want to love.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, when you first got there, for example, you met your grandfather who had passed, and he looked at first as you remembered him, but then changed until eventually everybody else, everybody still recognizable, was about the same age.
unidentified		Yeah, you know who everybody was.
unidentified		You just, everybody was the same, though.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's pretty interesting.
		All right, thank you very, very much.
		I was speaking with a friend of mine on ham radio, Ben.
		He's a doctor.
		He's a physician, now retired.
		I think mostly retired.
		I think he still does some.
		You know, I don't know what he does.
		I think surgery.
		Anyway, he knew that Dr. Moody was coming on tonight, and he said it is very interesting.
		You know, we encounter things like that.
		He told me he's encountered people who have had these NDEs, like the man we just talked to.
		And he's not so sure about it.
		He said, you know, there are explanations that could end up making everybody telling, you know, everybody's telling the truth.
		In other words, there are physical explanations that doctors give for what might be causing this.
		But then again, there's what the people who have gone through it say.
		And Ben said, well, my friend the doctor, you know, there could be explanations that would make both parties happy, the doctor and the people who have gone through these experiences.
		Anyway, that's what we're going to be talking about tonight.
		East of the Rockies, you're on air.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		I'm on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Hello, this is Andrew.
unidentified		I was just commenting about the guns.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, the guns.
unidentified		Yes.
		I think it's very foolish of them to take them away from the public.
		What if you're in an area like...
		And everywhere you look, there's crime and everything.
		So what happens if, say, you're in your house by yourself and somebody kicks in the door?
		And if you don't have a gun, what are you going to do?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, right.
		done in other words don't take guns away from the people that are ill These are people that have been checked out by the local police and the FBI and the authorities, and they're given permits to carry weapons.
		These people are not committing crimes.
		The ones that are doing it are the criminals.
		And they have the guns, and they're not going to turn them in.
		So this is like gun 101.
		I guess mine is the mentality of most Americans.
		We believe very strongly, and I think this is evidence from Australia.
		You know, how many times can you underscore something?
		This one just nails it right to the wall.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
		This is Blair in Sedona, Arizona.
		Hello.
		Would you remind folks of your 2001 interview with Pam Reynolds about her experience when she was completely brain dead?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Remarkable stuff.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I've had actually, sir, the one that hit me between the eyes was Sarah.
		Sarah is one I will never, ever, ever, ever forget.
		I don't know what hit me so hard about Sarah, and I don't know whether you ever heard that one.
unidentified		I heard that one too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that was the best, I thought.
		Pam Reynolds, very good.
		Sarah, right through the roof.
unidentified		And so it goes to the point I wanted to make about electronic voice phenomena and what Ed Dames talked about as residual energy being a prime motivator.
		Well, how about this spiritualism that the author of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, followed in the 19th century, whereby the spiritualists don't worship spirits, but they seek to contact those who cross the border dividing the material world from the spiritual, and that they say that God is real, but defined in different ways depending upon the individual's level of spiritual development.
		In other words, the phrase the God of your understanding is often used to talk about divinity.
		So doesn't that sort of bring to mind that maybe not all trans channelers are fraudulent and you just have to sort of judge by their fruits, you shall know them?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I certainly agree with that.
		They're not all fraudulent, though I think there are a lot of frauds out there.
		I've always been highly suspicious of channeling just because it, oh, I don't know.
		It's just so easy.
		I mean, anybody with a little bit of drama could do it.
unidentified		Shift their voice.
		Begin to become somebody else from long ago with the story of the old and the way it was when you were starved.
		Starbed through the heart by the sword.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right?
		So you can do that.
		I think anybody almost could do it, some more convincingly than others.
		However, I think there are real channelers, real psychics, separating the wheat from the chaff, not so easy.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello, turn your radio off, please.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's number one.
unidentified		Go off.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now you may speak.
unidentified		All right, I was wondering if Art ever heard of the Prometheus embarbed tapes.
unidentified		Hmm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, this is art.
		Oh, art?
		No, explain what you're talking about.
unidentified		Oh, Prometheus and Barb Tapes are 900,000-year-old tapes made by an alien trying to educate a caveman.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I wasn't around for that.
unidentified		They're all cartoons.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
unidentified		It's something you might enjoy.
unidentified		It has a very dawdy and overture to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, you know my email, artbell at AOL.com or artbell at mindspring.com.
		Be sure and send them right along.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, how you doing, Art?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing okay, sir.
unidentified		I think what people mostly forget about the Second Amendment is it was instated to help us, you know, just in case the government got out of control, is our way of fighting that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's one of the reasons, yes.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It makes everybody a little uneasy, as they should be.
		And that means not just criminals, but our government, too.
		That's what the Second Amendment is all about.
		It should make those who wish to do evil uncomfortable, because most well-intentioned, good citizens are armed.
		Something anybody of evil intent would have to keep in mind before committing it.
		First time caller line, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		I got an analogy for your buddy who is a medicinal surgeon guy that uses a ham radio.
unidentified		The brain is simply a computer, and it transceives and receives, much like a ham radio with video.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, nobody's proven that yet.
unidentified		Well, it takes some DMT.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take some DMT.
unidentified		Take some DMT.
		That's all I got to say, man.
		You guys have a good night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, see you later.
		Take some DMT.
		Well, that doesn't mean you're receiving anything.
		What that means is, well, in a way you are.
		You're receiving the results of all those neurons firing in directions that they're not sure of.
		You're getting those, so you're certainly receiving that.
		Now, whether the brain, brain actually, I can hear my wife laughing in the other room.
		Whether the brain actually receives and transmits anything, we have not detected it electromagnetically yet.
		That doesn't mean it is not so.
		It doesn't mean that some sort of communication doesn't occur on, oh, I don't know, perhaps a, what's the right word for it?
		There's a nanotechnological answer for this, but at the quantum level, that's what I meant to say.
		It may well be there's something occurring at the quantum level, but that's way ahead of us.
		And with what electromagnetic spectrum we have checked, we haven't found any transmission or anything aimed at the brain.
		Doesn't mean it's not there.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hey, Art.
unidentified		This is Lynn from Dallas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		About the guns, you know, if they try to take our guns away, I've never committed, I'm not a criminal, you know.
		I've always had a gun.
		If they order us to give our guns up, that's going to make me a criminal because I'm not going to do it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, you and many others, sir, that's right.
		I know.
		And I don't think the American government is dumb enough to try to tell Americans to give up their guns.
		You might be able to get away with that in Australia.
		You might be able to get away with that in other more socialist countries.
		But not here.
		Not Americans.
		No way.
		Now, I know that it's occurred in certain specific areas, New York City, for example, the San Francisco Bay Area, California in general, some certain areas.
		But other than that, I think that any order for Americans to give up their guns would be met with walls of lead.
		First time call online, you're on the air.
		Hello.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
unidentified		Art?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I'm Courtney and Mitchell.
		South Dakota listening on 1490KRN.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Happy to have you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What's up?
unidentified		Yeah, I guess I'm just kind of weighing on the gun debate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't even see why it was a debate.
unidentified		what debate well i guess uh...
unidentified		it's more of a comment about I'm a little nervous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm being a little facetious.
		To me, there is no debate.
		There's just you don't give up your guns.
		And when you do, you could imagine what would happen and what did happen in Australia, what I just read you.
unidentified		And I'm agreeing.
		I'm an NRA member myself.
		But I was just going to extrapolate just a little bit and wonder about, you say you live in a fairly remote area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		now don't you think that would really make the politicians mad seeing people in remote areas just because they are isolated and not in a more observable community of the city where people in cities Make them angry.
		Why?
		Well, the people in cities are easier controllable, more easily controlled.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I suppose.
		You know, all of this would be true only if they had designs on us, which I don't really believe they do.
		But we've got to keep our eyes on them.
unidentified		And just the fact that the media really portrays people in remote areas as backward type of people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the hell does the media know?
unidentified		Well, obviously.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know what?
		I've got a couple of things to say about that.
		For example, the kind of thing you just said is an attitude that comes from people, you know, in the Northeast Corridor, for example, in New York City, in those kinds of areas.
		They may look down on the rural people as being somewhat less.
		But here in the rural areas, sir, we're bigger than that.
		We tolerate people from New York.
		We tolerate people even from Brooklyn and find that they're good souls and they need not have such feelings.
		But I guess living in the city under all that pressure does that to them.
unidentified		Yeah, that's true.
unidentified		I'm just happy to be from the Midwest and just like to thank you for your show and you're doing a great service, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have a great night, sir, and thank you very much.
		There is a kind of an attitude that prevails in the Northeast Corridor about people in the rest of the country.
		And that's all right.
		We're bigger than they are.
		We need not retaliate with our own thoughts vocalized.
		Wildcard Line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		I think the concealed weapon carry laws in each various state should be integrated into a more uniform concealed carry program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They're working on it.
unidentified		I sure hope they'd work on it soon because if you go through New Jersey or New York, you sure can get in trouble if you're from Alabama or Georgia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I know.
		I know.
		They're working on it.
		Now, how many states might participate in that and whether it would still apply to cities where you've got, you know, like New York City, for example, I don't know.
		But, you know, I think generally there's going to be reciprocity among most of the states.
unidentified		Here in Georgia, I believe we have reciprocity in about seven states surrounding us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's excellent.
unidentified		But I had a dinner with a politician here about three years ago, and he said they'll never outlaw guns.
unidentified		They'll just outlaw the bullets.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've heard that.
		And I don't know if I buy that either.
		Plenty of ammunition available.
		I don't think any of that's going to happen in our lifetimes.
		Now, that's not to say that in another 100, 200 years, they'll be outlawing phasers or something.
		What do I know?
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Art, it's Barry from Pennsylvania.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Barry.
unidentified		I want to talk about the high price of gasoline.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Somebody better.
unidentified		It's out of control.
unidentified		I have a delivery business, and it's costing me at least another $200 a week to run my business.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, that's what we need to be afraid of.
		People like you, sir, just in business, out all across America, another $200 onto the tab every week for you.
		And if that has not yet squeezed you out of business, just wait till it goes up another buck or buck and a half.
		I mean, at some point, there's a breaking point for you.
unidentified		See, now, my neighbor, he's an over-the-road trucker.
		He's independent.
		I'm asking him, how are you able to do this?
		He's telling me that his broker is kicking him back money because they're charging the customer more.
		He told me his fuel bill last week out of his pocket.
		Now, mind you, he drives an 18-wheeler.
		He's $200.
		He said he got over $900 back from the broker because they're subsidizing the fuel.
		over the road truckers are making it.
		That's the only, I'm, I'm seeing $230, $2.40 a gallon for diesel.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		Look, eventually, it's coming out of the consumer's pocket.
		The price of everything is going to go up.
		This whole fuel thing could drive us right into an inflationary period that could knock us for a loop.
		I mean, I did a whole show on this.
unidentified		I listened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I'm right.
unidentified		What's your opinion?
		Do you feel that we are running out of gas, out of the fuel?
		Or do you think this is just big business trying to squeeze us?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think, sir, that the long emergency, that was the title of the article that I read.
		And by the way, I have scheduled the author of that Rolling Stone article on the show.
		So I thought you might be interested in that.
		Those of you who thought that that was an inspired article, the man who wrote it in person is even more inspiring, very vocal.
		It's called The Long Emergency.
		And in answer to your question, caller, no, I don't think we're running out of oil.
		I think that we're at the top of the bell curve, which means we have already extracted the first half of the known reserves in the world.
		We've already taken them out of the ground.
		The second half is going to be much harder, much more expensive to extract.
		So we're not out of oil, but the price of oil is going to spiral to a point that it could do irreparable damage to our economy.
		That was kind of the point made in that article, and I was so impressed with that article that not only did I read the bulk of it to you here on the air, but I also invited the author who wrote for Rolling Stone magazine onto the program.
		That'll be here coming up in the next couple of weeks or so.
		Coming up next is Dr. Raymond Moody.
		I've known Raymond for many, many years.
		Probably the top of his field, his field is Near Death Experience.
		It's a wild one.
unidentified		it'll be a wild show coming up next I had to get on the hair, over my head, hold me to me now.
		It don't come easy, you know it don't come easy.
		But you may choose if you want to see the blues, and you know it don't come easy.
		You don't have to shout old people vows, you can even play them easy.
		You've got to find the past, and all your sorrow.
		The future will last, it will soon be over tomorrow.
		I don't ask for bugs, I only want to trust, and you know it don't come easy.
		To talk with Art Bell, form a wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach Art by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is indeed.
		My guest coming up, Dr. Raymond Moody, is probably the great-grandfather of this whole near-death experience thing.
		He wrote the book, you may recall, Life After Life.
		Remember that?
		And many others.
		So, coming up in a moment, Raymond Moody is the foremost expert on the phenomenon of near-death experience, as well as a compelling lecturer on the subjects of evocation of the deceased, cult activities, out-of-body experiences, and the paranormal, and the relationship of the paranormal to the performing arts and the interconnections between humor and health.
		Humor and health.
		Laugh and live.
		He's appeared on several national television programs as an expert guest about these subjects.
		He holds both a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia.
		An award-winning author and scholar, Dr. Moody received the World Humanitarian Award in Denmark in 1988, as well as a bronze medal in the human relations category at the New York Film Festival for the movie version of Life After Life.
		An impassioned researcher, Dr. Moody first became interested in the phenomenon of near-death experiences during his medical training.
		How about that?
		Early on, since that time, he has written seven books about the subject and created the Dr. John Dean Memorial Theater of the Mind, a facility that enables people to experience altered states of consciousness for the purposes of education, entertainment, and spiritual advancement.
		dr moody in a moment for I guess it's been better than a decade that I've been interviewing Dr. Moody.
		Welcome to the program, Dr. Raymond Moody.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you, sir.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		I am so happy to be back on your program, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Great to have you.
		Doctor, just before I got on the air tonight, I was on my hobby as ham radio, and a friend of mine is a retired physician, sort of retired.
		I guess he still does some surgery, I believe, as a surgeon.
		And we were discussing the fact that you were coming on on True Wave.
		And he said, well, you know, he didn't scoff at the whole thing because he's encountered it several times in his career as a surgeon.
		He's encountered it, so he knows about it.
		But you know what he said?
		He said, you know, I can think of a number of explanations that would satisfy both the doctors who scoff at this and the people that have the experiences.
		And both of them could be telling the truth.
		Is that an attitude you find among many physicians now?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Lord, I really think it depends very much on, you know, not all, there is, physicians don't speak with one voice on this, but you know, a lot of the people who think that this can be readily explained tell us that they think that what this is,
		is the terminal events of the brain, that as the oxygen is being deprived, the mind constructs these hallucinations, which really are just the biochemical and electrical events taking place under those stressful circumstances in the brain.
		The real difficulty that I find with that are two things.
		Number one, we know now very well that these same experiences of getting out of the body and seeing this light and meeting up with the relatives of the deceased take place not just to the patients who are dying, but also to the bystanders.
		That is, people standing around the bedside as grandma dies will tell us that as the person in the bed passes away, they themselves leave their physical bodies, say goodbye to their grandmother that they now see there in spirit form, see grandma recede into this light and see relatives and friends of the deceased person seem to come to meet them and to have a reunion.
		And then, as this experience closes off, they feel themselves drawn back into their bodies and standing there beside the now deceased body of the person in the bed.
		There's not any question of the bystanders having any physiological distress.
		They're not even sick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, but again, let's go back to the person having the experience.
		There are physiological facts that are occurring.
		There are things that are occurring.
		The oxygen deprivation is real, and there are changes going on in the brain.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		From a purely medical perspective, doctor, what would the expectation be?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that, you know, before I went to medical school, I had philosophy training.
		I got my Ph.D. in philosophy.
		And the real difficulty here is what's called the mind-body problem.
		And that is that we just don't really have any idea how the mind is related to the body.
		I mean, this is not in any way to denigrate the neurophysiological research and so on.
		I mean, obviously there are correlations, but the real problem philosophically is that we just can't comprehend how all of these physiological events relate to consciousness.
		Even if we had a complete map of every single biochemical event taking place in the brain, that still doesn't add up to our inner experience of consciousness.
		There is still an unfathomable gap there, and that's what we call the mind-body problem.
		You know, it's very easy for people, especially I think in the early stages of their career, to fall prey to what's called epiphenomenalism.
		And epiphenomenalism is the point of view that what we experience as consciousness is just a sort of an illusion and that the real, where the action is, the reality is the brain process, the electrical and chemical events taking place in the brain.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, if I can just ask one question before I forget it, and that is, I've heard that it's possible to create this near-death experience, the separation from the body experience, with electrical stimulation to a certain part of the brain, a certain part of the brain.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that true?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and not just by various kinds of brain stimulation, but also, as the shamans knew, by all sorts of other techniques as well.
		Even gazing into a mirror will do it.
		You know, many shamans catapulted themselves over into other realms of reality by mirror gazing, or as with the Cherokee, gazing into clear ponds and lakes and so on.
		Or conditions of sensory deprivation, or sometimes just spontaneously.
		You know, it's a fairly common experience, apparently, for astronomers standing and gazing into the interstellar reaches through their telescopes to have out-of-body experiences, or performing artists playing great music sometimes talk about these out-of-body experiences.
		What I'm telling you, really, is that I don't know.
		I mean, there's all kinds of people who will give you firm opinions.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I had a caller in the last hour who screamed toward the end of his call something about DMT and then laughed hysterically and hung up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So that might be another yet unrealistic.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes, there are drugs that can do it.
		I mean, but still the real difficulty, I think, is what is the relationship between the mind and the body?
		And I just, I am very comfortable with saying, I don't know.
		Until we solve that one, I think that this is all going to remain a question mark.
		I mean, I'm not putting down the people who do these kinds of various kinds of experiments where they induce these experiences.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, none of it invalidates anyway.
		My friend the doctor had one more thing to say to me.
		He said, of all the people that I've had contact with as a physician who had this experience, one thing I can tell you for sure, it had a profound and lasting effect.
		It changed their lives.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		There you go.
		And that's the most intriguing part of this to me.
		I mean, it's really fascinating to see this, how this experience continues to unfold in their lives, even decades and decades later.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		The first person I ever talked with personally who had such an experience was in 1965.
		It was Dr. George Ritchie, who was then a psychiatry professor at the University of Virginia.
		And I was a third-year philosophy major at UVA at that time.
		Three years before that, I had read an identical account in Plato's Republic, which is how I first got interested in this.
		And then when I heard it three years later from Dr. Ritchie, I realized that it was not just an ancient Greek phenomenon.
		And so I've been following Dr. Ritchie now for 40 years.
		And in all that time, I can just absolutely say without any hesitation that he remains the finest person I've ever known in my life, and obviously profoundly moved by this experience decades and decades after it happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, to get you sort of re-aimed in your career in this direction, it must have taken a very profound experience of somebody's or that you were part of to move you this way.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it has been, although as I reflect on my career, really all of the major things in my career were pretty much set back in 1962 when I took a really fascinating course on the ancient Greek classics and learned all about these oracles of the dead,
		the institutions in ancient Greece where people went to actually call up the spirits of the deceased and read Plato's reflections about near-death experiences and so on.
		And I've just sort of continued to trace those lines of thought out throughout my career and have become really, as happens to most scholars, I think, increasingly baffled about this.
		I mean, one of the easiest things for me to say is I don't know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, having said that, it's been quite a while since we talked to you last.
		What are the new developments in the near-death world?
		There must have been quite some numbers since we last spoke.
		Experiments are ongoing.
		The experiences are ongoing.
		What's new?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You know, I think that the thing that's come out in recent years because of changes in our population has been the rise of a tidal wave, really, of these empathic death experiences, experiences where the people standing beside the bed say that they have the same experience that we know of now as the near-death experience.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's really a new one to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How common is it?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Art, I think that these probably now are just as common as near-death experiences, maybe even more so.
		The first one I heard was in 1972 from one of my own professors of medicine who said that her mother collapsed and had a cardiac arrest right in front of her, and she vigorously tried to resuscitate her mother, and her mother did pass away.
		But she said from her experience, as her mother died, she actually got out of her own body, looked down, saw her own body standing beside her mother's now deceased body, trying to resuscitate it.
		To use her exact words, I was trying to get my bearings, she said, and looked around, saw her own mother, again to use her word, now in spirit form there beside her, said her goodbyes to her mother,
		saw her mother's spirit recede off into the distance toward this light, saw relatives and friends, some of them she recognized as friends of her mother's who had died, others she didn't know, but she surmised they had been friends or relatives of her mother's who had died before she was even born,
		and saw them all, after this reunion, be sort of drawn back into this aperture, as she said, a bright light beaming from it.
		She said as this aperture closed, it closed like the lens of a camera spiraling down.
		And then she found herself there beside the body of her now-deceased mother.
		I think probably in 1972, those were quite rare.
		When I went to medical school in 1972, the practice we all fell into, because this is what everybody did, was that when the patient was dying, the doctors and nurses would come in and we would sort of usher the family out under the theory that this would be too overwhelming for them.
		Nowadays, in this intervening 30 years, it's changed entirely.
		And it's much more common that the doctors and nurses make themselves scarce and encourage the family to be there.
		And that, coupled together with the fact that the baby boomers are now losing their parents in huge numbers and are there at the bedside when this happens, I think it's bringing around a tidal wave of these things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's a good answer.
		But just if you want to guess for me, you're welcome to guess.
		What does this suggest about the nature of the event itself?
		In other words, is it a local event that perhaps has some sort of field or some sort of area of influence that goes beyond the immediate area of the person dying?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Maybe so, maybe so.
		And you know, having been there at the bedside of a lot of patients as they passed away, and including now quite a number of my own relatives, definitely there is a sense in which something very extraordinary and even indescribable goes on.
		It does feel like some sort of opening takes place.
		And, you know, once in a while things happen at the bedside of a dying person that just really have, they don't make a bit of sense.
		For example, time after time you see cases where patients are terminally ill, they're just withering away.
		They lapse into obtundation.
		They become unconscious.
		It looks like everyone standing around just assumes that they'll never see grandma again, and yet the breathing and the heartbeat goes on sometimes for days on end.
		Everybody assumes that they'll never have any conscious contact with this person again.
		And then everybody's just kind of waiting for their heart to stop beating.
		And suddenly, grandma sits up in the bed.
		If you have seen this, and I'm sure a lot of listeners have actually seen this, you will know what I'm talking about when I say they seem more alive than alive.
		It's absolutely uncanny.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've heard over the years of this moment of absolute lucidity just before death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's what you're talking about.
unidentified		Yes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		It even has a name.
		It's called Fay, F-E-Y.
		If you look up in the dictionary, it's a state of heightened awareness that portends imminent death.
		And they call their relatives together.
		They can even give a message to everybody standing around the bedside.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any physiological explanation to this?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Not that I know of.
		I mean, you know, it's easy for people to say, oh, there's a sudden surge of adrenaline and the neurotransmitters and all.
		But the question is, how do we know?
		I mean, I think that people are so threatened by this in a way that they're naturally drawn to throw some sort of explanation at it.
		As I said, I don't know.
		I don't know.
		I'm just, to me, one thing that's so curious about this, and again, I'm sure that lots and lots of people who work in hospices and with the terminally ill will know exactly what I'm talking about about this, that it seems that they almost light up.
		There's almost a glow that comes from them.
		So ten years ago or so, a guy from Australia came all the way from Australia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doc, Doctor, hold that story.
		We'll get right back to it.
		We're at a breakpoint here at the bottom of the hour.
		Faye, that moment of absolute lucidity, fascinating stuff from a fascinating man, Dr. Raymond Moody, foremost researcher on near-death in the world.
		From the high desert in the midst of the night, which is where we belong.
unidentified		course this is coast to coast a good morning on a morning from a boat in a country where they turn by time you're just strolling through the crowd like it's a lorry cultivating her grind she comes out of the sun
		in a skunk dress running like a water cup in the rain she
		comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she
		comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she
		comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress she comes out of the sun in a skunk dress baby i'm your man To talk with Art Bell.
		Time Carter Line is Area Code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is Area Code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from East to the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From West to the Rockies, call ART at 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing Option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is indeed an honor to have the world's expert on near-death experiences, Dr. Raymond Moody, with us this night.
		He'll be right back.
		This whole thing of people adjacent to those who die having an experience, and that now being mostly family members, I certainly do understand that these days the doctors and healthcare professionals, toward the last, do tend to perhaps evaporate in terminal cases, allowing the family close by.
		So now, of course, the families are reporting these kinds of experiences where they were not previously, simply because most of them were not present.
		As the doctor said, they tend to be ushered away.
		But to me, that would mean that the healthcare professionals, the doctors, the nurses, the ones who were there for the most part during the last moments of a person's life, would have had those experiences and perhaps didn't report them?
		Or do you think, Doctor, just before we get back to the story you were telling, do you think that they simply became immune to them in some way by blocking them in some way?
		In other words, not wanting to have them?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You know, back in the 70s, I actually heard quite a number of stories from doctors who told me precisely that, that they had all sorts of experiences like that when patients died, including seeming to see the person leave the body.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		And so, and yeah, I heard this quite a bit back in the 70s, both from doctors and nurses.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did any of them report they were able to block them in any way?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, become professionally detached to the point that they were not affected?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Not that I don't remember ever hearing anyone say that.
		As a matter of fact, I remember a very nice oncologist I met back in about 1973 or 4 telling me that he had made it a routine that when his patient passed away,
		he would stay in the room with them for about 30 minutes or so talking with them because he had no idea whether these near-death experiences he had heard were, quote, real, unquote, or not.
		But rather that he was convinced that at least from the perspective of the patient, something was still going on, and so he would stay around with people to comfort them.
		You know, I think as in any other profession, there are all kinds of different personalities.
		And to some people, this would be very threatening.
		But, you know, in our society, there's a certain tendency, I think, to villainize doctors and so on.
		But some of the kindest and most sensitive people I've known in the course of my life have been physicians.
		After all, that's why most of them go into medicine, is that they want to help people.
		And I've heard quite a number of reports like this from physicians.
		You know, Art, one thing I hear all the time is that, oh, poor Dr. Moody, he suffered under the medical profession.
		You know, they tried to drum him out of the medical profession because of this research and so on.
		And that makes a really great story, so much so I wish it was true almost, because my wife says that I do have a little bit of a martyr complex.
		But in the reality, when I went to medical school in 1972, I had already been researching this for years.
		And so since I went the Ph.D. in philosophy route, some of my friends that I'd grown up with were ahead of me in medical school.
		Some of them were residents and so on.
		So by the time I entered medical school in September of 72, my friends had spread the word among the faculty that this student coming in in September was doing this research.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no, they knew about it ahead of time?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, as a matter of fact, yes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		And within two weeks, Art, I can sit here and remember eight professors that went out of their way, there probably were more, but I remember eight, went out of their way to contact me and to say, either, thank God you're doing this research because I had this experience myself, or the others said, thank God you're doing this research because I've seen this with my patients, and I'm really curious.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I would have thought the opposite.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would have thought they'd have made the life of a young medical student who believed this kind of thing totally miserable.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, like I said, that's a better story.
		But the fact is, is quite otherwise.
		Matter of fact, just very shortly after I got to medical school, Claude Starr-Wright, who was one of my hematology professors, as I recall, he was the first one to telephone me and came over to my house to see me and talk about this because, you know, a lot of physicians were seeing this.
		Right after Life After Life was published in 1975, I started getting letters from all over the country from physicians who had been finding this among their own patients.
		So the techniques of cardiopulmonary resuscitation were so widely available at that time that this was just happening to lots and lots of people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, I didn't want to take you away from your story, the Australian story altogether.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yes, talking about this man who came to see me from Australia, and what had happened to him was that his wife, they'd been married many, many years, had a terrible illness, and she was just withering away.
		And one day, he was going to go out to the store for a few minutes.
		And so he just went and sat beside his wife, who was in bed, and he said that she was transformed.
		She seemed healthier than he had ever seen her before.
		And so, of course, at this point, he concluded, oh, my God, she's getting better.
		She's going to live through this.
		And they had a very heartfelt conversation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Was it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Was it Faye?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		She was right there on the verge of death.
		And so he went out of the house expecting that his wife was going to recover.
		And when he came back a few minutes later, she had passed away.
		And so just before death, there's this dramatic turnaround.
		And as he was describing this to me, I wish I could portray for you the look that he had on his face.
		He said that as he reflected on this incident subsequently, he said, I felt at that point, he said, that she already had one foot on the other side.
		So this is very dramatic and very memorable.
		And I'm sure, quite sure, that lots and lots of people who are listening to us tonight can relate experiences like this from their own families and so on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's no doubt about it.
		What about near-death experiences of people who have attempted suicide?
		Are they in any way different?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		No, they're not.
		And the person who's an expert on this is Dr. Bruce Grayson of the University of Virginia, who, like me, has interviewed thousands of patients with near-death experiences.
		Beginning, Bruce did in 1975, was the first case of this he found.
		And Bruce is an emergency psychiatrist, so in a typical week's work, he gets to interview several people who've attempted to kill themselves.
		And some do and some do not have near-death experiences under these circumstances.
		So what Bruce did was to follow these two groups for a long period thereafter.
		And he found that whereas the people who did not have a near-death experience when they attempted suicide continued to have a high rate of subsequent attempts to kill themselves, people who did have a near-death experience had an essentially zero rate of any further attempts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, one other quick question.
		Forget Suzanne for a second.
		Of those who have near-death experiences, what percentage report an NDE of those who go into clinical arrest, what percentage actually report NDEs?
		It's rather small, isn't it?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		It is rather small, interestingly.
		And there was a study reported in the British Journal of Medicine a few years back that did a study of, I think, 600-plus survivors of cardiac arrest in Holland and found, as I recall, that about 18% of them reported these experiences.
		But you know, an interesting thing that I have noted over the years is that there seems to me to be a tendency, whereby older physicians, like people who've been in the business for a long time, tend to estimate this as higher.
		In other words, the older they get, the higher the percentage that they estimate.
		I talked in about 1980 with a cardiologist at St. Luke's in Denver.
		And what was that guy's name?
		It will come to me.
		But anyway, he was a very experienced cardiologist.
		And he told me that he thought that about 60% of the patients that underwent a cardiac arrest experienced something like this.
		Fred Schoonmaker was his name.
		And Fred was the kind of guy that you could naturally talk with.
		You know, he's just very easygoing and so on.
		And I think there's probably some, my guess is that patients would be less likely to talk with someone who came on as a sort of harsh and scolding figure, whereas they might be more likely to Open up to someone who's more easygoing and personable.
		And so that's a factor that makes it, I think, essentially impossible to get a really accurate estimate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure there's a lot of don't ask, don't tell philosophy here, no doubt about it.
		So some percentage, no doubt, just simply never reported.
		I can understand that.
		It would still have a profound effect on their lives, I'm sure.
		Can you describe the typical, is there a typical NDE, doctor, that you could describe?
		Or do they vary so very much?
		I guess it would be interesting if more of them had similarities than not, wouldn't it?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, there are variations, wide variations, but they seem to be variations within limits, and that is that there's about 15 or so common elements that crop up again and again in many stories.
		And one person may have three or four of those things or seven or eight or nine or ten or the whole spectrum of it.
		And it looks as though the longer a person is in a state of cardiac arrest, the more likely they seem to be to report more of these features.
		So it seems that the experience gets deeper the longer the cardiac arrest persists.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And how many of these are reported as positive versus negative?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, most of them are reported as positive.
		In this part of the experience where people say that they see their whole life portrayed around them in a panorama, they see everything they've ever done there at once in full color, three dimensions.
		And when they rewitness the events of their lives, they see them not from the perspective they had when they were doing these things, but rather they are watching themselves as a third person.
		And when they see themselves doing something unkind or unloving to a fellow human being, they feel empathically the bad feelings they've brought about in this other person's life.
		And conversely, when they see themselves doing something loving to someone else, they feel the good feelings.
		And in that situation, obviously, I mean, all of us have done things that, I mean, I'm not looking forward to seeing a review of my life, let's put it that way.
		Nor am I. And so there's always unpleasant aspects of it.
		What people say, though, retrospectively about this panorama is that they're very glad they went through it because it convinces them that what life is all about is trying to learn to love and to growing in wisdom.
		In terms of the really negative hellish experiences, you know what I think?
		Again, I would have to refer to the work here of Dr. Bruce Grayson, who's done a special study of negative near-death experiences.
		And he finds, number one, that they seem distinctly rare compared to the other more positive near-death experiences that we think of.
		And that, secondly, there's a lot more variability to them.
		That they fall into three major categories.
		I forget the first two categories.
		But the third and rarest category of them is the full-blown hellish experiences.
		Now, there's a certain kind of mentality.
		I call them the fund of Christians, although they could be the fund of anything.
		You know, they kind of want there to be a lot of hellish experiences to back up their religious ideology.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wonder if many of these report this life review, because I've often thought that life review is a way of causing you or making you judge yourself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so I wonder if the hellish experience follows that life review, or if the negative ones even report a life review.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That would be interesting, and I think that that's a very difficult thing to figure out now because, number one, they seem distinctly rare, and number two, because as it now appears,
		one of the fundamentalists who wrote a very lurid book on this with all these alleged hellish near-death experiences he had found, it looks as though he probably was making it up, at least that.
		I mean, he was quoted as saying someplace, well, you've got to scare people to convert them and so on.
		So, and I just don't trust that information.
		I trust Dr. Bruce Grayson, who did a very thorough and thoughtful study on this.
		And he says that they occur, certainly, but they seem to be rare.
		But then what do you make of that?
		I mean, just because there are not many hellish near-death experiences, you can't infer anything about hell from it.
		I mean, I just don't know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		What would be the most fascinating NDE you've ever heard?
		There is certainly one for me.
		I did one on the show with a gal named Sarah that I'll never get over for the rest of my life.
		What an interview.
		Went on for about an hour and a half.
		She had every detail down.
		It was astounding.
		It just floored me when it happened.
		Every time I listened to it, I've listened since, it floors me.
		I mean, it just profoundly affected me.
		How about you?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You know, one that I know of that actually, I haven't talked with this woman personally.
		I know her ex-husband, who is a psychiatrist, but I know of this case from a friend of mine, Dr. Michael Sabom, who's a cardiologist who studies near-death experiences in Atlanta.
		And he has directly interviewed this woman.
		Her name is Pam.
		And oh, some years ago.
		Back in the 90s, Pam, who was at that time in her 30s and a very respected figure in the arts community in Atlanta, was found to have an inoperable brain aneurysm.
		And that is that it was in such a position that if the surgeons had gone in, it would have burst and she would have died on the table.
		But the family was just not willing to accept this.
		So they searched and searched.
		And in Phoenix, they found a surgeon who was doing a radical new procedure.
		So they went out to Phoenix, and the following procedure was done to Pam.
		She was placed on a rotating operating table.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, God.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		She was, her body was cooled.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I know this.
		Doctor, listen, we're coming up to a break.
		Yeah, that's right, we are.
		But all of a sudden, like a ton of bricks, it fell on me.
		I know who you're talking about.
		I interviewed Pam.
		Oh, good.
		So, wonderful.
		Hold it right there, Dr. Moody.
		As a matter of fact, either that case won't like it was on 60 minutes.
		It's a remarkable story.
		Dr. Raymond Moody is my guest.
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		Music Now you step inside, but you don't see too many things.
		Coming in out of the rain, they hear the jam But anything But anything You've got this dream of our fights and man.
		You got the wound.
		Let it go down.
		Forget about everything.
		You know he's always keep moving.
		You know he's never gonna stop moving.
		Cause he's rolling.
		He's the rolling stone.
		When you wake up, it's a new morning.
		The sun is shining.
		It's a new morning.
		You're going.
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		To talk with Art Bell, call a wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach ART by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free, 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of worldwide, my guest is the worldwide expert, the world's expert on NDE's life after death.
		whatever it is that happens as we approach the door of death we'll be right back the The story you're about to hear is just astounding.
		I mean, try and imagine an aneurysm in the brain.
		That's like, I don't know, it's like a blood vessel that in one part has sort of weakened and turned into a balloon, getting thinner and thinner as it expands.
		And of course, when it explodes, which is what an aneurysm can do, well, then you're dead.
		The brain floods with blood, I guess, and you're dead.
		Well, Pam had an aneurysm, an inoperable aneurysm.
		Doctor?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		And so the family found a surgeon in Phoenix who did a radically new procedure.
		They took Pam out to Phoenix, and she was put on a rotating operating table, and her body was progressively cooled until she became extremely hypothermic, very low body temperature.
		And then they stopped her heart.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Stopped her heart.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		They took the top of her head off and then rotated the table so that she was upside down and they drained all the blood from her body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All the blood out of her body.
		So obviously then everything's shut down.
		Brainwave flat.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that right?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		and not no heart pumping no blood in the body all the blood out of the body this person is She was dead.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very dead.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
		And so then, of course, since there's no pressure in the arteries anymore, then they could go in and they could take that aneurysm and repair it.
		And then once they did that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Without the blood, it would deflate like a balloon.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so then there it just deflated, and I guess they can clip it out, sew it up.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		No more danger of hemorrhage.
		So that's what they did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How long did that take?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You know, I don't remember.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		About 40 minutes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		About 40 minutes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So this woman was dead, in effect, clinically in every way you could measure for 40 minutes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, I talked with her husband about this in Winston-Salem, and He was marveling about it, and I said, Well, you know, that means that by the criteria you and I learned she was dead.
		And he said, Yep, dead as a doornail.
		And so, then they sewed the top of her head back on, put her body back horizontally, began to reinfuse the blood into her body, gradually warming her up.
		When her body got to a certain temperature, they restarted her heart, and she came back to life and is vibrantly alive.
		And with this incredible story of passing out of her body, relating conversations that went on during the surgery, she told Michael Sabom, my friend in Atlanta, who interviewed her about this, that she was describing how certain tools they used in the surgery looked.
		And she described one as looking like an electric toothbrush.
		And, you know, cardiologists are not heart surgeons.
		So Michael, being a cardiologist, listened to this, and to him it didn't ring true.
		He just didn't believe the part about the electric toothbrush.
		But anyway, he got in touch with the heart surgeon in Phoenix who sent him a photograph back of the instrumentation used, and there was that instrument that looked like the electric toothbrush.
		And so Pam describes this voyage out of her body, went into this other realm, was escorted back down through this tunnel or passageway by an uncle, as I recall, and then came back into her body and is fully alive.
		I saw an interview with the surgeon who did this procedure, and he obviously was just quite incomprehending and startled by what she said, and as the interview made it appear, certainly, just couldn't comprehend how this could be.
		As I myself can't comprehend how it could be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can't comprehend any of it.
		I can't grasp any of it.
		Where was she for 40 minutes?
		Where was Pam?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		Yeah, you know, it just really doesn't stack up.
		I mean, and I've heard other things.
		Well, I mean, there are just so many.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll tell you what.
		Let me hold you there for a second.
		I've got kind of a special person online.
		Somebody, Tom, a doctor, sent me a quick computer message, and I'm very, very tempted to bring him on with you for just a second.
		Tom, are you there?
		Tom is a physician, right, Tom?
unidentified		I'm an emergency physician in Washington State.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		An emergency physician in Washington State for how long, huh?
unidentified		23 years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		23 years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you have something you want to say?
unidentified		I'm a board-certified emergency physician, and I've been doing this for a very long time and have attended the deaths of an awful lot of people.
		And I can't believe that the story that your guest just told sort of meshes in with the story that happened to me.
		I was in the emergency department late one evening when a woman had a cardiac arrest at a restaurant.
		And she had completely collapsed, was unresponsive, and they called the ambulance.
		The ambulance drove down about six or eight blocks, caught an elevator, up the service elevator, up to where she was at, and when they found her, she was completely unresponsive and in ventricular fibrillation.
		There was no blood flow to her brain at all.
		And when they arrived at the scene, they put a breathing tube in her and give her some electric shocks, and her heart started breathing.
		And it was about five minutes.
		It was at the very, very out, the very, very longest that people who suffer this kind of event come back with any kind of meaningful intellectual activity.
		She was way out there.
		When she arrived in the emergency department about 15 minutes later, she was, for all practical purposes, next to brain dead.
		If you imagine your house with all the lights on, it's a normal person.
		There was one bathroom light on.
		I mean, it was that little tiny thing that you plug into the electric switch.
		That was all that was left.
		She had a gag reflex, who if you pulled on the endotracheal tooth, and there was no other response in her.
		She was admitted to the intensive care unit and cared for, and eventually discharged from the hospital.
		And I sort of lost follow-up on this lady.
		About a year later, I was in the emergency department, and there was this perky red lady complaining of some chest problems on the director, and I walked in and introduced myself.
		We had a little chat.
		And then I went back and looked at her old records, and there was this record of this lady who had had this horrible cardiac arrest and was next to brain dead when I admitted her to the hospital.
		And I said, my God, how did things go after your cardiac arrest?
		And she said, well, they couldn't get me through the kitchen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They couldn't get me through the kitchen.
unidentified		They couldn't get me through the kitchen.
		And I go, what?
		And says, all I remember about my cardiac arrest was they couldn't get me through the kitchen.
		And there are things that happen, there's serendipitous events.
		And at the very same time that this lady was in the emergency department on her second visit, the medic who had resuscitated her in that restaurant was in my lounge eating dinner.
		And I asked him to come over and explain this situation.
		He goes, he says, oh my God, we could not get in.
		He didn't hear me talk with her.
		This is completely unrelated events.
		I said, Wayne, what happened to this lady at this arrest at the restaurant a year ago?
		And he goes, oh, we couldn't get her through the kitchen.
		The hallways in the kitchen, through the winding corridors, through those tables.
		You couldn't get the stretcher through the kitchen.
		And they jammed their stretcher in the kitchen.
		They couldn't get her out through the kitchen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No way she could have known that.
unidentified		There's no way she could have known it.
unidentified		And here these two independent people collaborate this story that they couldn't get her through the kitchen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there you go.
		There you go.
		So thank you, Doctor.
		Thank you very much.
		There is one, Dr. Moody, from another physician.
		There's no way.
		I mean, somebody whose heart has stopped.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I just, yes, yes, I remain baffled by this.
		You know, I've had all kinds of experiences in my medical practice, certainly not as much experience with resuscitations as I'm sure Tom has had.
		Although a lot of that, even with the resuscitations, but primarily most of the people I've taken care of were terminally ill people that we didn't resuscitate.
		And even in situations like that, some astonishing things happen.
		One event occurred years ago now that I just still scratch my head and just marvel.
		Basically, this is still a very personal story that I can't divulge everything about it, but let's put it this way.
		I was dealing with a terminal patient and was seeing him in his house and didn't know this man that well.
		I knew some of the family members, but I didn't know this man that well.
		He certainly didn't know any personal details about my life.
		And on this one day that I was going to see him, I had this gosh-awful, entirely personal, and this is the part I can relate, but something that I was working on then.
		It was totally unrelated to this case of this man.
		But it was just a problem that was just gosh-awful and unique to me.
		This was a very unique kind of situation and a problem that had come up in my personal life, not in my professional life.
		And I was just worried to death, worried sick about this all day.
		Well, that evening, I went over to this person's house, and when I walked in the door, his daughter came up and she said, we just can't figure it out.
		She said, all day he's been going on and on about, and then she said, my exact problem that was bugging me that day.
		Now, you know, I mean, I'm sure many, many other physicians could share similar things with you.
		I mean, and there's not really any way, I think, within the current logic that we use of computing this or figuring these things out.
		But certainly when they happen to you, they're quite-changing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		This happened well over 10 years ago now, this thing I'm talking about.
		And I still think about it almost every day.
		It's absolutely bewildering to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doctor, do you think there is any difference in the number of NDEs that occur to people who are anticipating death versus those who get into some sort of flash accident?
		And I'm asking this for, I hope, an obvious reason.
		If you're anticipating death in our modern day, we've had so much on the air in the media about NDEs that one might imagine a person would have an expectation built up, or even certainly be thinking very hard about the possibility of an afterlife as they near their death.
		They know it's coming.
		They know they've got a fatal disease or whatever versus somebody who, boom, gets into an accident, didn't see it coming, didn't even give it a moment's thought, and there it is.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Art, I don't know, but I will say one thing about that is that, you know, back in the 60s and early 70s when I was interviewing people, I had a sort of clear field, as it was, because there wasn't really any publicity till the mid-70s.
		So I had a long period of time when I had people who had never heard of this.
		And in 2005, when this has been so publicized, I think you and I, being people who follow the media, I mean, you're talking to a two or three hour a day CNN man here.
		And so we follow the news and we see what's going on, and so we naturally assume that people are like us.
		But what I have learned in my practice really is that that doesn't seem to be a very accurate assumption.
		Not too long ago, I worked with some cardiologists who had a practice of, and because of their cardiology practice, basically it was mostly sort of well-off middle-aged men,
		business people, in their practice who had the typical midlife or 70 and into their 70s heart attack and had spent their whole life sort of preoccupied with their business and the workaday world and so on.
		And suddenly would have this cardiac arrest and then had these experiences.
		Well, they had one of their patients had a dramatic experience like this, which brought it to the attention of these cardiologists.
		So I was living not too far away From where their practice was.
		So they would call me when they got interested in this, and they would call me occasionally when they had patients who had this sort of experience.
		And I was just fascinated that these people who were quite well off and you would think to be very informed, certainly very intelligent and accomplished people, didn't have a clue about this.
		I mean, you know, they would just be flabbergasted after I would do my interview and so on, and they would say, well, Doctor, have you ever heard anything like this before?
		And I would assure them that, oh, yes, I mean, this is quite, you know, this is exactly the kind of story I've heard from thousands of people.
		And even though at that time there had been abundant publicity about it, these people just hadn't heard of it.
		So I think that you and I, because of our habits, probably tend to think, sort of to overestimate the degree of awareness that people have of this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, perhaps so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But still, in this modern day, as people approach death, surely the thoughts of whether it's really all over or whether something else.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that part, yes.
		I mean, and that goes back to antiquity.
		You know, I remember in the very first few pages of Plato's Republic, there's this same story that certainly as people age, when they get into their 60s and so on, and they begin to think, uh-oh, you know, my dad, it really does, then they really start thinking about this in a very deep way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course, more is gone than is to go.
		I mean, that's clear.
		So do you have any advice for those of us who are now getting on in age and have to begin thinking about things like this?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, one thing I want to say is a sad thing is that it's kind of like when it's the 11th hour and it's a race against time.
		Well, that's not the ideal circumstance for logical thinking.
		Plus, and especially as we both know in that sort of circumstance, people get very vulnerable to charlatans.
		I mean, you and I both know that there are plenty of people around who will give people the answers, right?
		I mean, you're like, oh, well, you know, I want to know whether there's a life after death.
		Well, sure, buddy, I've got the answers for you here.
		And, of course, that's a very hazardous situation.
		You know, actually, Art, something that I have been working on, actually, it's my oldest continuous work.
		It goes back to 1963 was when I started working on it.
		I have been working out a whole new kind of logic.
		And I do think, actually, that it's possible for people, and especially maybe people who are of older age, because, you know, when I went to college back in 62.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, it's possible for them to what?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		To really get closer to the truth about this.
		You know, I've been telling you for years, I think that when somebody says, oh, I've got scientific evidence of life after death, that's bogus.
		But I do think that we're on the verge of having a whole new way of thinking about this that actually will make it possible to think out this and to get closer to the truth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe one day a scientific explanation will be possible.
		Dr. Raymond Moody is my guest.
		I wonder what that would do to the world, don't you, if science said, we've got it.
		We've got the proof there is life after death.
unidentified		what would that do to the world and what would that do to the world?
		The world would be the most important part of the world.
		Thank you.
		To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from East of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From West to the Rockies, call ARC at 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, I'll tell you, if a woman can be dead in every clinical manner for 40 minutes and then come back with a big story, if people can tell us about not being able to get through a kitchen door when their heart was stopped and no blood was moving.
		Well, all of these things mean we don't know A lot about the brain.
		We certainly don't know much about the process of death itself.
		In fact, that alone is pretty scary.
		What if when we die, we don't intellectually die right away?
		What if we are aware of things around us for quite a while after they've zipped up the bag?
		that's something to think about.
unidentified		Gunshot
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If patients know what's going on while their heart's stopped and while blood's not moving, the brain's not being nourished.
		Then that means we just don't understand all that much about death and the process of death and what really is death.
		I mean, we define it in a certain way, but what if we're wrong?
		Doctor?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I think we probably are wrong.
		I mean, you know, by definition, the big mysteries of existence are big mysteries.
		And, you know, to me, it just seems rather foolhardy for anybody to think that they would have a clear notion about that.
		I mean, let's hypothesize that there is some kind of life after death.
		Then at the very minimum, we can sort of imagine that it's a transformation of some kind that's far more dramatic than we have ever experienced while we're alive, even just unimaginable.
		So in a way, all bets are off.
		I mean, even the people who've come very close to death, about the most common thing they tell us is that they just don't have any words to describe what they went through.
		And they also say that time and space, as you and I appreciate it, evaporate at that point so that they find themselves in a timeless, spaceless existence that they can't even describe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm curious, after all the work, years of work and research that you've put into this area, have you come to the point, honestly, that you can tell me that you're very comfortable that when you die, there is an existence that goes beyond that physical death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you certain of that now, Doctor, in the way a religious person is comforted?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		No, no, I am absolutely not.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Now, I will say this, that number one, I think there's three ways that people have to settle this question for themselves, which is the biggest question of all, is their life after death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You bet.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Some people say that they have faith that determines it for them.
		I respect those people, but I'm not in that category.
		Other people have had some experience, like a near-death experience, that settles it for them.
		And I respect that group, but I'm not in that category.
		The only path left to me is reason.
		And the fact is that it's just to be, I think that if people resort to reason about the question of life after death, they really need to acknowledge to themselves that what that's all about is that they are looking for the unique legitimacy that reason provides.
		Because, you know, I mean, nobody balances their checkbook by consulting the astrology column, right?
		But the reason you use arithmetic is that you know as long as you follow the rules, you're going to get the same answer that the bank does or that the computer does or whatever.
		And that's the point of reason, that it gives us a legitimate answer, but the legitimacy comes from following the rules.
		So often, in this case of looking into the question of life after death, people want to say, oh yes, you know, I'm being scientific about it or whatever, but really all they're trying to do is to make the outcome positive.
		And so then they fudge.
		And so that makes it like they're deceiving themselves.
		I mean, I honestly don't know.
		But I think this, that I think there's hope.
		And the hope that I think there is, is that I do think that there's a way to bridge the logic that we use is not adequate to the question.
		But I think that there is a way of bridging and extending logic into a new realm that will get us closer to the answer.
		That much I'm convinced of.
		But this is the trick with that, and that is that most of the people who are interested in, they think that they're interested in the question of life after death.
		What it really boils down to is that they want to hear inspiring stories.
		And you love stories.
		I love stories.
		And, you know, I've heard thousands of these things, and I hope I hear thousands more.
		I love stories.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course I love stories.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		But the fact is, the stories will never, no amount of stories will ever get us to that point of certainty about life after death.
		And so that's the real question that I think that improvement can occur.
		We can get a lot closer to the answer, but that it's going to take conceptual reasoning rather than just this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, science is pushing forward very, very quickly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One of the things I said at the bottom of the last hour was, you know, how would it affect the world if science suddenly came to some sort of absolute conclusive answer, who knows what it might be, but in some way did determine that there is life after death, did something or had a communication with the dead or something that was irrefutable that proved to the world that indeed there is an existence following the physical one, what that would do to the world?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, maybe one of the reasons that we don't know is that if we can imagine that situation, that maybe it would dissolve the barrier between the worlds.
		I mean, suppose that we did have some sort of system of reason that could give us a sure answer, then maybe that would dissolve the very distinction.
		I mean, it would be kind of embarrassing to sit around and go through your daily activities with a certain knowledge in your head that there's another dimension.
		Then it would kind of like we would be aware that our current existence is dreamlike, which it is anyway.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So is it necessary for the world to function to not be able to answer that question?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You know, I've often puzzled about that very thing.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		It may be that there's something deep within us that people really don't want to know whether there's life after death because they realize that if they did know, then it would make this whole existence we're in kind of illusory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		You've got a kind of an interesting segment in the questions lined up to ask you, and that is, I guess you did work with criminally insane people, and you've got something on serial killers and mass murderers.
		What do you know about them?
		How do they fit into this?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, I did.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		I worked for a while in a maximum security unit art for the criminally insane, dealing with paranoid schizophrenic killers and mass murderers and occasional serial killers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		The schizophrenics and so on, I mean, you could kind of understand that because it's as though they're in a dream.
		I mean, I think it was Junck who said the schizophrenic is a dreamer awake.
		And, you know, to them, they weren't killing an innocent person.
		They were killing the communist, you know, who was chasing them or whatever in their minds.
		But the serial killers, that was very tough because, you know, most of them are sociopaths.
		And you can't really tell what's going on with them because they will just try to figure out what they think you want to hear, and then they'll feed it back to you.
		So you can never get a sense of a real person operating with a sociopath.
		And so for that very reason, I mean, they're very enigmatic.
		I could never figure out what was going on, if anything, inside a sociopath.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in other words, serial killers are a blank to you.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
		I mean, you can get certain kinds of things, obviously, about them.
		I mean, obviously, they get a sexual thrill from the killing, you know, they often have an orgasm at the point they kill the person and that sort of thing.
		So to them, the act of killing is sexualized.
		But there's no real honesty to them.
		I mean, as I say, they just try to read you and then to manipulate you to feed back to you what they sense that you want to hear so that you don't have a sense of a real person.
		It's interesting that in all those years I never really met in that environment.
		I mean, serial killers, you just don't know what to make of them.
		But the paranoid schizophrenic killers and that sort of thing and the mass murderers, I never met up with anybody in that circumstance that I felt was evil per se.
		I mean, most of these things, we all understand, for example, what resentment is.
		And, you know, a lot of these guys, the mass murderers, it was just that resentments had built up to such a degree that one day they just sort of exploded.
		And, you know, I guess we've all exploded and we've all had resentments, so we can all kind of imagine what that would be like.
		Evil is not something I even encountered in a forensic psychiatry situation, although certainly in other aspects of life you see it going on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But in the cell blocks where mass murderers are locked up, serial killers, those kinds of people, you find them very hard to read.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, they're just trying to tell you what you want to hear, but not really explain what they feel.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		That's right.
		That's how it is, not just with serial killers, but sociopaths in general.
		You don't, first of all, they are all very talkative usually, and they're very charming.
		That's why a serial killer can get to their victims, because they're so charming that they can get the person right in the car with them, and so on.
		And people think they're very nice people, and so on, often.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess that's why a program like mine does so well, dealing in the paranormal, dealing in all these kinds of things.
		These are things people want to know about.
		They really do.
		Certainly, the people in this audience, for the most part, really are curious about this type of thing.
		And that leads us into investigations of the paranormal generally and the things that cannot be explained.
		Oh, by the way, I've been asking a lot of guests lately.
		I found this wonderful show on TV called Medium.
		Have you seen it yet?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		I haven't.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		No, I haven't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nobody's seen it.
unidentified		Nobody has it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, it's one you've got to catch.
		It's called Medium, and it's extremely well done.
		What is your view of mediums in general?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, now, first of all, I've known a number of people in my life, ladies in the neighborhood.
		You know, I mean, the kind of people who live down the street and who have this kind of uncanny, incomprehensible talent of being able to tell you things.
		And as long as it's in the neighborhood and that kind of, and these are very unobtrusive people who just a few people know about the talent and so on.
		That's one thing.
		That is genuinely baffling to me, Art.
		I've seen things, People like that do things that I just can't imagine what's happening.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've seen it too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And very occasionally, I had an experience or so with things that are just completely inexplicable.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so they do exist.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yep, that's right.
		And then on the other hand, there are the performers.
		I mean, you and I both know you can go down to the magic shop.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		And you can buy a book that can tell you how to do this and make people absolutely convinced that you have supernatural powers.
		And that part, I mean, I think that one thing I always tell people, and the practical way it comes up with me is this.
		I do a lot of grief counseling.
		And so from time to time I have people come to me and they say, well, should I go to a medium?
		And I say, I mean, you know, and that is what then people are putting themselves into your hands.
		I mean, you have to make a real, real thoughtful judgment.
		And this is what I tell people.
		I say, well, if you're going to do it, then you sort of owe it to yourself to read up on how some of these things can be produced by trickery.
		So I always tell people, if you want to do it, arm yourself first with information about how it can be done fraudulently, because there are all sorts of ways.
		You know, one of the ways that's not very often talked about in the public domain, I've noticed, is that the fraudulent mediums work together, even though on the outside they may be kind of like the professional wrestling, acting as though they're bitter enemies and so on.
		They actually work together.
		And it's been known since antiquity.
		The people who worked in the Greek oracles knew that the average person who goes to an oracle is going to show up at another oracle within the next year or two.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But isn't it, from this point of view, Doctor, isn't it a legitimate occupation?
		In other words, a medium who perhaps may not be telling the truth or may be using some sort of trickery.
		In a way, they are grief counselors, aren't they?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
		I mean, it does.
		Yes, yes.
		And even, I think, some of the ones who...
		I mean, you know, I remember a judge asked me one time something about somebody's motivation.
		And I said, you know, Judge, I mean, here I am 40 years old.
		I can't even make a good judgment about my own motivation on most things.
		And, you know, he looked at me and he said, Dr. Moody, that's the wisest answer I've ever heard from an expert witness.
		And so, you know, I mean, I wouldn't want to make a judgment about anybody's motivation.
		But the fact is, these things can be done by trickery.
		And so just naturally, people who consult mediums, I think, ought to really investigate this and become educated on it before trying it out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so you're not saying baloney.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		No, no.
		No, no, no, no.
		I mean, I was saying, I don't know.
		I mean, I've seen things that I don't understand.
		And I also know that some things can be done by trickery.
		So the wise person ought to consult, really become educated before trying it out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How do you do that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are there any books you recommend to people?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		I think reading a wide array of books on it.
		Books by people who've investigated mediums, books by mediums, magic books that give the simple step-by-step instructions on how to do it.
		You know, I had a really interesting experience about 10 years ago or so, eight or ten years ago, down in Florida, Art.
		I was in a lecture and I gave a somebody from the audience asked a question about psychics.
		And I gave a similar sort of thing that I'm telling you about, that, you know, people ought to be careful because it can be done by trickery.
		But certainly we've all had experiences where we seem to know in some weird way what somebody else was thinking and just being as I'm being now.
		Well, afterwards, they had a reception for me, and I was sitting in the reception, and this young woman, she was early 30s, as you could tell just by looking at her, and just from her whole demeanor, you could tell that she was a professional person from her vocabulary and the way she presented herself.
		You know, looks like a businesswoman.
		So she really got on my case.
		She said, oh, you know, I went to the psychic and you told me absolutely these things.
		There's no way he could have known it and blah, blah, blah, and so on.
		And so I said, well, now just imagine here.
		And I put my hands over my face and I sort of, you know, leaned down and I said, hmm, I just don't understand this.
		I just don't understand this.
		But I'm sitting in your office or in the place you work, and I'm pulling out your middle desk drawer.
		And I'm looking down here in the right-hand corner.
		It looks to me like there's some little packages of McDonald's or Burger King mustard or ketchup or something like that.
		And that woman, I mean, Art, it was just like she bowed, like her head bobbed, and she sort of bowed.
unidentified		And I know from, as a psychiatrist, you knew you had her.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
		That I could have said at that point, hop on my bus, we're joining my culture in California.
		You would have been right there.
unidentified		And I told her.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Moody, hold that.
		We'll be right back from the high desert.
		Dr. Raymond Moody is my guest.
		How about you?
		A few little catch-ups down there.
unidentified		What's that?
		Never reaching the end.
		Letters I've written Letters I've written
		To be continued...
		talk with Art Bell, form a wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
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		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Indeed So, my guest, Dr. Raymond Moody, the world's expert on NBE, Shelley from Vancouver, BC Canada writes, hey, Art Medium is a fantastic show.
		Best thing on TV right now, in my humble opinion.
		I watch it every week.
		Did you know it's based loosely, probably, on a real medium in Arizona?
		And I know that's true.
		And you know what?
		I would very much like to interview that particular medium.
		And, you know, in the show, she's just kind of an average housewife in the employ of a district attorney's office because she obviously helps solve cases.
		I mean, just a very regular kind of person.
		The way they do the show is very appealing because it's not full of hocus, pocus, and baloney.
		It's kind of the way you would imagine it to be in real life if somebody had that power.
		And I do believe some people have that power.
		And I would love to meet the person on which that show is based.
		Hint, can't, can't.
		By the way, it's on Mondays on NBC.
		Unsolicited plug.
		You want to catch a good show?
		Medium.
		Monday.
		Mondays on NBC, as they say.
		Check your local listings.
		In a moment.
		Oh, you know what?
		I would like to restrict all of my phone lines to people who have had NDEs.
		How about we try that?
		And that means all of my lines.
		Now, I may be taking a risk here, but we've got a very wide audience, and I think we can cast a pretty wide net.
		so i'm gonna make it a shot at it if you're not So please just hang up.
		Unless you've had an NDE.
		If you've actually had an NDE, if you've experienced clinical death and really have gone through this, then let's give it a try, all right?
		Just all of the lines.
		Everybody else, please just hang up.
		And we'll take only calls on any of the lines from people who have really had clinical death and a real NDE.
		If that's you, then let's see if we can fill the lines this hour with those people.
		It may be tough, but we're going to give it a try.
		So only NDE experiencers, people who have actually undergone clinical death, need apply.
		you know the phone numbers and in a moment we will continue you know the phone numbers are not going to be able to do that.
		Once again, Dr. Raymond Moody, and I thought we'd give it a try, Dr. Moody, and this hour where we take calls, take them from people that have actually had an NDE.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Think that's a good idea?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, as you said, everybody likes stories.
		The one about the lady with the aneurysm has been with me.
		I think I saw it on 60 Minutes.
		You know, they did a piece on it.
		It was absolutely incredible.
		And at the end, they asked the doctor, well, doctor, for those 40 minutes, where was she?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He's just, I don't know.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Right, right.
		And I heard one a couple of years ago that's really quite fascinating like this, too.
		And I heard this from a well-known psychotherapist, a very fine woman who's about my age.
		I'm 60 now.
		And it happened to her son, who was 30 years old at the time.
		And it happened to him about four years before she told it to me.
		I also heard this from a cardiologist in Washington who had also looked into the case through this same woman, psychotherapist.
		And what happened was that her son, who was 30 and who was a very macho individual, specifically he was a firefighter, and you know that generally my experience anyway has been that those are very sensitive, sweet people, But also, there's a macho culture to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, absolutely.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		So, this young man had at age 30 a dissecting aneurysm of the aorta.
		And if you have, if you are not medically informed and you don't know what that is, you're lucky almost because I'm not going to induce hyperventilation spells in your listeners by explaining what that is, but believe me, it is a gosh-awful circumstance.
		And so this, very often people with it die.
		And so this young man was taken to the hospital in time, and they were able to operate on him to repair the aneurysm.
		But during the time in the operation, he did experience a cardiac arrest and had a near-death experience.
		Now, concurrently with this, his wife was full-term pregnant.
		And about this time, she was delivering her daughter.
		Now, his perception was that as he went up through this tunnel, his young daughter was coming down the other way.
unidentified		Really?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Grabbed onto him, and in his rendition of it, pulled him back into his body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Holy mackerel.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		While he was in the hospital, and I saw photographs of this that his mother, as it were, showed me.
		They put his infant daughter on his chest while the, I think, about three months he spent in the hospital.
		And the young girl was about four at that time.
		And the grandmother or mother of this young man said that the daughter and her son were just absolutely inseparable.
		And, you know, people often ask me, they say, well, you know, they'll start telling me a story and they'll say, oh, I guess you're bored by this.
		You've heard so many of them.
		And I always say, yes, yes, I find this so boring.
		You're telling me that your heart stopped beating for 20 minutes and you got out of your body and you saw a light.
		Yeah, I find that very boring.
		And of course, what I'm getting at there is that this never gets boring.
		This is intrinsically fascinating.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course it is.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		And inspiring, too.
		I mean, it does give hope because just as we can't say for sure that this does show that there's a life after death, we can't say that it's not either.
		We just don't know.
		And certainly, it really does change the lives of the people to whom it happens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Doctor.
		Here comes one of them.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Raymond Moody.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
		I'm very honored to meet you.
		I've had three near-death experiences, and they've been different times, each one.
		One was at three, and I had German measles, and I don't remember a whole lot about it, except I came back and scared my mother to death by saying that they sent me back.
		The next one I had was about 10, and I had an overdose of a medication, an injection, and just went whamming out of my body so fast I didn't even know what happened to me.
		And we were in the car.
		My mother had taken me to the doctor, and we were on our way home.
		And she was driving crazy, screaming and yelling, and looking straight through me, and I kept telling her I was all right, you know.
		Well, I turned around and looked where she was looking, and I was on the seat laid out, you know.
		Well, that kind of popped me back into my body.
		And the third one happened when I was around 30.
		I had hyperthyroidism, and my heart was going at about 160 at rest, and it decided to take a little vacation.
		And I went into the big one where you go to the light and the tunnel and the whole bit.
		And I thought it was crazy.
		I never talked about it for years because this was before Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and everybody, you know, really different.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about the coming back process?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, do you remember why or how, instead of going forward, like I presume most do, you came back?
unidentified		With the light, it was just the light.
		It was absolutely phenomenal.
		It was just amazing.
		Word, you just don't have words.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I understand.
		But again, ma'am, do you remember the return process?
		Do you remember?
unidentified		Well, I remember just being back in my body on that, and that was not good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, a lot of people I've heard say that, Doctor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This return process, are most people in some way notified they're going back or given a decision or what?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		There's about three different patterns.
		Some people say that they just suddenly find themselves back in their body and they had no sense of transition.
		A second group will tell you that somebody there told them they had to go back.
		Either this light they meet up with or a relative who's passed away said, you have to go back.
		It's not time yet for you and so on.
		And a third group are people who tell us that they're given a choice, that they're told, either you can go back to the life you've been leading or you can continue with this experience.
		Not too surprisingly, all the ones I've talked with who were given that choice chose to come back.
		And it's interesting that almost universally, they say the same thing.
		They say the reason they chose to come back was that they had young children left to raise.
		They said if it had been left up to them, they would have preferred to stay in the light.
		But they choose to come back most frequently because they have young children.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That absolutely, of course, makes sense.
		Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Dr. Moody.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, fellas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I've had two of them.
		My first one was when I was about 15 years old.
		I was leaving my parents' farm, going to work, and there's a real steep hill about a quarter mile away from their farm.
		And I was putting along.
		I just was listening to a CD I just got, which is kind of ironic with the guest name that's Moody Blues.
		And I was jamming to that.
		I was going about 45 miles an hour, and I come up to this hill.
		And right as I popped over the hill there, there was a four-wheel drive truck coming at me about, he's probably going about 45.50, they said.
		We had a head-on collision car wreck, and the only thing I remember is I remember floating above the wreck.
		I've seen the whole accident above it.
		And then I remember about five minutes later, actually, I don't remember the time, but going by, the guy who was in the other truck said I was out for about five minutes.
		And I woke up, and when they come out to investigate the wreck, they said, well, he must have impacted here.
		And I told them, no, it was about seven feet down.
		I watched it, you know, I watched it above the wreck, and they thought I was all crazy.
		And then the recent one I had about two years ago, and I don't want to talk about that one.
		I'm still kind of tripping out about that one.
		You fellas have a good night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		You too, sir.
		Take care.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Moody, huh?
unidentified		I'm sorry.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I had to excise what you just said.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So let's start again with just your first name.
unidentified		Right.
unidentified		This is J.R. I'm listening to you on 570KLIS in Dallas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		I got ran over.
		Oh, hello, Doc.
		Moody.
		Hello, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Hello, sir.
unidentified		I got ran over when I was six years old by a truck.
		A boy was chasing me across the street.
		A truck backed up, and he caught me, and he drugged me.
		And the first thing that I remember in the hospital was leaving my body.
		And I don't know if it was near death or an out-of-body experience because I was looking down at my body, and there was like a bench, and I was sitting on this bench in my room looking down on my body.
		And it looked like a woman in a habit, you know, like a nun.
		Yes.
		In a real, just the whole thing was white.
		There wasn't any black on it.
		And she came up and sat down next to me and put her arm around me and said, it's going to be okay.
		And the next thing I knew, I was waking up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Back in your body.
		Doctor, everybody so far has said that.
		Like, the first thing that happens is an accident or whatever, and they're out of their body.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		They're out of their body.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Conscious and able to see things.
		Now, I also remember another 60 Minutes piece where they, it was really cute.
		In the operating room, they had, having heard all these stories, they put some numbers up where only somebody on the ceiling could see them and tried to get people to come back and recite those numbers, you know, as proof that they really had been up and out of their body and on the ceiling of the operating room.
		If they would have been, they would have seen those numbers.
		The other argument, the counter-argument that people had not reported those numbers back was it was not very important to them.
		It isn't what they were concentrating on.
		They were concentrating on their own bodies and their situation and whatever they were feeling, but not looking for evidence to repeat later.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And not only that, but let's say that someone did be accurate, accurately report something seen under that circumstance.
		What would we make of it?
		I mean, there wouldn't really be even any context to interpret it.
		You know, Art, one of the most interesting things I know is that the whole notion of truth that we have, the very idea that certain things are the case independently of what anybody thinks about it,
		is not a notion that goes back to prehistory, as we might imagine, but it actually was formulated in about 500 BCE by an identifiable historical figure.
		His name was Parmenides.
		He was one of the first of the ancient Greek philosophers.
		And the way that Parmenides came up with this notion is, and you can verify this for yourself just by going down to Borders and getting a standard history of ancient Greek philosophy and read about this, but he went over to the other side and this notion of truth was divulged to him.
		And because of that long sequence of events, it went from Parmenides, then ultimately to Plato, who formulated a counterbalancing notion of falsehood, and then on into Aristotle, who formulated logic as you and I use it.
		I mean, logic is a technical word, but it's incorporated now into the common thought of everybody.
		And that because of those historical events, logic as you and I know it is predicated on literal language.
		And so because when we talk about life after death, we're not using a literal mode of language.
		It precludes really having certain scientific knowledge about this in 2005.
		I'm not talking about 2050 or 2100.
		I mean for now.
		But to me, it's just a fascinating little piece of information that the logic we have ultimately even came from the other dimension of reality or what was Parmenides regarded in any way as the spirit world, the place that people go when they die, that he went to.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dr. OBEs, are they essentially the same thing that happens to you when you clinically die?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		A lot of people who have near-death experiences, as a matter of fact, very commonly in the near-death experience, people have an out-of-body experience.
		But out-of-body experiences can also occur in other contexts as well.
		For example, like astronomers looking through their telescopes sometimes get out-of-body.
		Or it happens to people sometimes just spontaneously.
		So you don't have to be near death to have an out-of-body experience.
		But if you are near death, that's a very common circumstance in which people get out of their body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So far, each person has said exactly that.
		And then I've talked to all these people, interviewed many people on OBEs, and it does seem like they're sort of exactly a similar process at that point.
		In other words, out of the body, but able to observe everything around them.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And sometimes able to accurately describe what was going on in the circumstance, too.
		As I've known from many of my patients and from people who've related this to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so many doctors have heard that.
		How do they explain that?
		I mean, the prisoner's out cold.
		They've got no heart moving.
		They've got nothing feeding the brain.
		They couldn't possibly know these things, but they know them.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Art, I don't know.
		It just, I mean, I just don't know.
		It's okay to strengthen my practice that I really, it certainly inspires me to go on to try to learn more, but I would be foolish to think that, to say that I have the answer to that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Dr. Moody, hold it right there.
		We're at the bottom of the hour.
		Dr. Raymond Moody, the world's foremost authority on NDEs.
		And still, there are many things to which he responds properly, I might add.
		I don't know.
		It's refreshing to hear sometimes.
unidentified		I'm Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Everybody, Art Bell.
		We're talking with Dr. Raymond Moody, and we're looking for people on the line to have had actual MDEs.
		Probably clinically dead, that sort of thing.
		That's what he specializes in, so that's you.
		Um, please give us a call.
		If not, sit back and listen.
unidentified		To talk with Art Bell.
		Call the wildcard line at Area Code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is Area Code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from East of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From West to the Rockies, call ARC at 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Another very interesting thing that I note just with a few people that I talk to who say they've had MDEs, more than not, they've had several, not just one, but several.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wonder if that's common, Will asks.
unidentified		Gunshot You're done.
unidentified		Gunshot
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Once again, Dr. Raymond Moody.
		And Doctor, you've written a lot of books.
		What are you working on now?
		What's coming next?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, Art, actually, just in the next few days, I'm going to open a new website called RaymondMoodyInstitute.com.
		And I will be putting out daily reflections on that.
		And been doing a lot of research in the last few years on a fascinating phenomenon, art, that I call the swansong phenomenon.
		This is something I have seen for years and years, but finally have accumulated enough cases that I can make some sort of good statement on it.
		And basically what I have found out is that it is very common, not as common as near-death experiences or empathic death experiences, but still quite common, that people in the hours or day or so or sometimes minutes before they die will suddenly start reciting poetry or sometimes even making up poetry on the spot or singing.
		And even when you talk to the people who are left behind, they say that, you know, as far as they knew that their relatives who had passed away had had absolutely no interest whatsoever in poetry while they were alive, and yet right there on the verge of death start erupting into poetry.
		And, you know, I've looked a lot into this, and I have found that the ancient Gnostics, for example, at least one sect of them, that as a spiritual practice while they were alive, they would make up these elaborate songs to sing just as they were dying.
		And the whole idea behind this was that they believed that they could attune themselves to the other dimensions of reality they were going to be going into by singing or by reciting poetry on the verge of death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Doctor, I'm not into poetry, so if I began reciting poetry, you can be sure I was dying.
		All right, we've got a lot of people on the phone.
		First on caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Moody.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hello.
		Hello.
		Yeah, my name's Casey, and I'm calling from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Casey.
unidentified		In December 8th, 2002, I was in a very horrible car accident.
		We smashed through a couple of brick walls and ran into a truck and I received a bunch of lacerations, mostly on my head from the broken glass.
		And the next thing I know, I'm hovering over the scene of the crash.
		And I felt myself being pulled up, like, as reverse gravity.
		And I began traveling at tremendous speeds through a cloud of like white, a white area.
		And what's really weird is I felt really powerful when I was traveling.
		And the next thing I know, I was sucked back into my body in the hospital room.
		And that's when I awoke.
		And they were feeding me, you know, plasma and everything to get the blood back in my body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		So it's like you were going up one minute and powerful and flying through the white light.
		And then the next thing you know, boom, you're back into the hospital.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yeah, it was really weird.
		I was traveling very, very fast.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		All right.
		Thank you very much.
		So are those reports common?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, yeah.
		I've heard of this like a sudden ascent upward.
		You know, Jung had a similar thing when he had a cardiac arrest during a heart attack in about 1944.
		He describes being propelled upward like that at high speed.
		And yeah, that's something I hear from time to time.
		And again, this passage into or through the realm of light is a feature you hear again and again in these stories.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And of course, many doctors and psychiatrists explain as the brain dying from the outside in with the center being the last vestige of life and therefore the light.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and you know, Art, have you ever thought about the fact that if you applied that same line of reasoning to how you perceive what you're looking at now, it's the same thing, right?
		I mean, the physiologists tell us that whatever you're looking at right now, the light from your light fixtures is beaming down and bouncing off of it.
		It gets reflected into your eye and refracted through the lens onto the retina, and the rods and cones undergo a chemical change, and the electrochemical impulses go up into your brain.
		So does that mean that what you're experiencing is not real?
		I mean, you know, it's just you can apply that same reasoning even to the experiences of everyday life.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's right.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Dr. Moody.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, fellas, again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		I was the same fellow that I had the car wreck with combined speeds of over 100 miles an hour, and I seen their accident above the wreck.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I got it, sir.
		We can only take one call per night, easily, one per week, actually.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Moody.
		Hello.
unidentified		Is this me?
		You.
		Okay, this is James from Cowhoon, Georgia.
		Yes, sir?
		Share my experience.
		I was walking up the road facing the traffic out near Houston.
		And the next thing I knew, I was in a room and I was looking at myself, and I was up in a corner, and there were three shadows, and two were moving, and one was sitting behind a desk.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, was there a reason why you had this?
unidentified		A drunk station.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, oh, oh.
		Yeah, I wonder how many people are unaware of even what happened to them.
		That's a good thought.
		So first thing, you didn't even know about the accident.
		You just thought when you were out of your body.
		Got it.
unidentified		And it seemed like they were having a court.
		One had a real rough voice and one had a kind voice and both of them wanted me to go with them.
		And I was getting tireder and tired as the thing was going on.
		Finally, I said, I don't care who I'll go with.
		Quit this arguing.
		And next thing I knew, I was waking up about six weeks later in the hospital.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Six weeks later.
unidentified		Wow.
unidentified		Yeah, I guess they kept me, you know, kind of medicated.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
unidentified		It broke my neck, back, and leg.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
unidentified		I didn't even know what happened until they told me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So there you are, doctor.
		There's one that they had a bad cop, good cop routine that worked.
		I almost said that myself.
		So a lot of different things, apparently, can happen to people.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you very much for that story, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The intriguing part of that was that he didn't even see the accident coming.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He was just out and above.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That often happens in a situation like that.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		It's called retrograde amnesia, where people don't remember the actual event, and sometimes before the injury, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I suppose you could be standing on a road and not see the car coming and not have any warning whatsoever.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Raymond Moody.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
unidentified		This is Tim from Phoenix.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Dr. Moody, I'm looking at my bookshelf.
unidentified		I'm looking at the book Life After Life right here.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		One of my favorite books.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you, sir.
unidentified		Anyway, when I was in my 20s, I was driving down the road.
		I was a musician.
		I had an amplifier in my front, passenger side seat, and my guitar in the back, and I got hit by a lady.
		An amplifier crushed my ribs, and I remember an impact.
		I was screaming, and I saw myself out of body, out of the car, screaming.
		Next thing I know, I'm laying in the street, like when you go by an accident, everybody rubbernecks and looks at the guy.
		And I'm in the ambulance, and my side's crushed, and I'm just trying to not, you know, get into shock.
		But the weird thing is, too, is when you're talking about Carl Jung, is everything in the car was crushed except for my guitar.
		Even the case was crushed.
		But the guitar is the only thing that survived, and I played for 20 more years after that.
		So, wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		I hope you kept that same guitar.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you're lucky guitar.
		International Line, you're on the air with Dr. Moody.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good evening, sir.
		It's a pleasure to talk to you.
		I've been listening about 10 years, and I've heard of a lot of stories.
		My name is Bill.
		I'm listening to CGOB out of Winnipeg, Manitoba.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Bill.
unidentified		Superstition.
		I was a young child.
		My grandmother had died, and my aunt and myself were in the room when she passed away.
		And my aunt carried one of these instrumentator cameras, and there was smoke coming out of the register above a window, okay, the old steam-type fed one.
		Yes.
		And so my aunt, why she took the picture, I have no idea, but I saw something come out of my grandmother's body at the same time.
		And later on, when we looked at the picture, it was a picture of Jesus with his hands folded down.
		And my grandmother survived.
		She was dead for 40 minutes.
		And after she got out of the hospital and was talking, and I had told her of this story, and she said that when she was in the light, Jesus told her that she still had grandchildren.
		She has over 200 grandchildren, by the way, that they needed their grandmother.
		And no, she had to go back.
		And she remembers talking with Jesus, and Jesus was in the room, and a lot of people never really believed this story.
		And I saw the picture, and I was there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, sir.
		I appreciate the story.
		Doctor, do you think that people's individual religious preference dictates the experience they're going to have many times?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		No.
		I think that their individual religious experience shapes the language they bring to it.
		But I think that there is an underlying experience which people will universally say that they can't put into words anyway.
		And that what they do is that they just bring the closest words they can find in the traditions they've known about.
		And I know lots and lots of people who say that prior to this they had no religious background or interests or beliefs and yet have an experience which transforms them in the same way that we hear from people who have these experiences.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Moody.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Oh, hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		About a year ago in January, I had my daughter by emergency C-section because their hands died on the technique.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you're kind of breaking up on us.
		Dear, hold it.
		You're breaking up on us a little bit here.
unidentified		I'm sorry.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're on a cell phone.
		Okay, hold on.
		You had your daughter by emergency C-section, and what happened to you?
unidentified		I passed away for 10 seconds.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, you passed away or out?
unidentified		Away.
unidentified		My heart stopped, and I stopped breathing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
unidentified		But anywho, at first, I see nothing but blackness, and I felt completely at peace.
		And then I see my dad that died about two years back, and he told me that little girl needed me.
		And all of a sudden, I felt like I was being thrust down.
		And I woke up later in the recovery room.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Thank you very, very much.
		It just goes on and on so many.
unidentified		It does.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		I mean, this is just endless.
		And, you know, the studies that have been done, well, this was many years ago now, but the Gallup Poll got interested in this, and they found that at that time, some enormous number of Americans, I think it was about 8 million American adults, had been through something like this.
		And this was about 1980, I believe.
		So, you know, we're dealing here with an experience that is really remarkably common.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, apparently a real phenomenon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But the big but, of course, is that even with the lady who disappeared for 40 minutes, and we can reasonably ask where was she, we've never had anybody come back who's been dead for, well, I don't know.
unidentified		What's the world's record, doctor?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've heard people who've had extremely lengthy cardiac arrests.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		But now, one thing that gets into the picture here that's kind of befuddling is that we've all heard the thing about the five-minute rule, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That after five minutes, the brain is hopelessly damaged.
		The trouble is that's an excellent clinical rule of thumb, but there's all sorts of circumstances in which it doesn't apply.
		For example, drowning in cold water, or if the person is frozen in a snowbank, then these apparent arrests can go on for incredible lengths of time.
		And then there's another class of people where it just doesn't make sense under any circumstances, and yet they lived.
		I mean, I just, you know, there's all kinds of things that happen to you in medicine that just don't go by the books.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe you would be willing to comment on those people who wish to be cryogenically preserved.
		You know, since we know that slowing down the metabolic rate allows us a little extra time.
		Perhaps being frozen would not be so scientifically crazy a thing to do at death, or even just prior to death, or if people have actually gone to courts and tried to get permission to be frozen while they're still actually alive.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You know, Art, I'm thinking, I wonder if maybe technology won't someday, maybe even soon, supersede that with all of the amazing things they're doing now with the genetic engineering and the stem cells and all this other stuff.
		And maybe that sort of complicated arrangement won't even be necessary one day.
		I mean, in the New York Times Sunday magazine today, there's a really fascinating article, for example, about stem cells and the way that they can now create sort of hybrid entities that have human cells and cells of various animal species.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I'm a little uncomfortable with that.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, there's some pretty weird stuff that's going on.
		And so our science is getting so far beyond the pale that we are entering almost the age of nonsense and science.
		About several months ago in the New York Times Sunday and Tuesday science section, there was an article that said really that science has now reached a point where there are some things that we know that are true by our calculations, and yet they make absolutely no sense to the mind.
		So we may be getting into an area now where it will be possible to transfer consciousness on in some other way that we don't even need to freeze the body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, perhaps so, but there's a lot of worrisome questions with that one, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Transfer a consciousness, all the memories, and with it what we think of as the soul or that which leaves the body at the same time, or does that leave, leaving only a very cold consciousness minus something very important?
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		That's right, that's right.
		I mean, it's eerie.
		It makes you chilled almost some of the things that science can do now.
		It's really scary.
		And I'm very liberal on them.
		I mean, I'm just, I vote whatever almost that science can do.
		Let's give it a try.
		But things are getting really spooky in a lot of areas.
		I was asking about a couple of months back, I asked six of my friends who are very articulate and very intelligent and all very well-informed.
		And I asked them all independently the same question.
		I asked them, is the notion of a magnet made entirely of plastic nonsense or not?
		Every one of them said it's nonsense.
		But the reason that I asked that question was that about a week before, I had read in a science journal that scientists have now actually done that.
		They've created a magnet that's made entirely of plastic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Guarantee I would have said nonsense.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		And so, I mean, things are changing so rapidly.
		And the area that's so dear to your heart and my heart, this whole area of detection of extraterrestrial civilizations, I just, I mean, I'm just getting the increasing sense that we are right on the verge of it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doctor, we're also, this was our swan song.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, okay, great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Referring to your next book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Buddy, Doctor, Dr. Raymond Moody, thank you, my friend.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		Great, great talking with you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have a good night.
raymond moody ▲ ● ▼		You too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care.
		That's Dr. Raymond Moody.
		See you all next weekend from the high deserts.
		I'm Art Bell.
		Good night.
		This is Crystal.
unidentified		Good night in the desert.
		Shooting stars across the sky.
		Protect the star array.

▲