The most recommended books about near death experiences

If you are curious about the science of the unexplained realms of consciousness, and how to explore their possibilities, then this accessible, well-researched guide is the perfect place to start. Citing peer-reviewed studies, Gober covers near-death experiences, telepathy, “remote viewing,” and other phenomena which, though part of the anecdotal heritage of all cultures, remain unexplored by all but the bravest scientists. 

I am a self-help junkie and have read a ridiculous amount of books about relationships. But if I had to pick one, this would be it. This little book reveals the secret to peace in your relationships… and it’s not what you think. Anthony de Mello teaches that love is found only in fearlessness and freedom. He provides a simple formula for releasing the angst caused by unhealthy attachments to our partners, so we can feel joyful and complete in their company or on our own. Anthony de Mello’s wisdom has been instrumental in my personal healing and provided the foundation for my own teachings. 

This generational read opens with an encounter with suicide that took a supernatural occurrence to escape. From there, readers travel through pages of a child’s near-death experience, surviving flames of a house fire that left her with third-degree burns to encounters that only she can explain. As the author chronicles her process of facing elementary taunts of bullies, to the 30 reconstructive surgeries she endured to regain her mobility, readers uncover a story of the father’s love and the family ties that we can all relate to.

See His Glory, unravels the broken pieces of this burn survivor’s past to reveal a most beautiful work…her story. What I really love the most about this author and the story is how she highlights the love she experienced from different people through her suffering. She described one of the lessons she has learned along her journey is the universal language of love… show more.

In my book, the character learns that death is not a permanent phenomenon, but something more cyclical – so it’s no surprise that The First Time I Died sits at the top of my list. The novel centers around Garnet McGee, who returns home for the holidays and gets swept away in a cold case involving the death of her boyfriend. That is, until she falls into a frozen pond and drowns. This story is a dark roast coffee with just the right sprinkle of sugar – a tragic death interwoven with memories of a once-in-a-lifetime love. 

Near-death experiences on the surface sound like they have no relationship to politics and economics. However, they allow us to make inferences about a “moral imperative” embedded within the structure of reality itself.

Near-death experiences are instances in which a person’s consciousness has remarkable perceptions—even though the person is sometimes clinically dead. In fact, the experiences are often reported to be “realer” than real. This perplexing phenomenon has been studied extensively by the University of Virginia’s Bruce Greyson, MD, and he explains in his book why many of these profound cases are likely not hallucinations. (And he further explained these concepts to me when I interviewed him for my podcast, Where Is My Mind?).

The life-changing messages from near-death experiences teach us that we are all interconnected at a deep and fundamental level. Many near-death-experience survivors even report that they relived their whole life, and they become each person… show more.

This is the most comprehensive book on Native American afterlife beliefs ever written.

What makes it especially interesting is that the author focuses on myths and legends of afterlife journeys – what he called “Orpheus myths.” He looks at them from many perspectives – historical and cultural – but most importantly experiential.

Writing almost 20 years before the popularization of near-death experiences in the Western world, Hultkrantz identified NDEs as a different type of experience from dreams or shamanic visions – and found that indigenous people did, too.

He also suggested that such experiences contributed to afterlife beliefs – that is, that they weren’t simply culturally created “stories” or hallucinations. Readable and entertaining as well as scholarly, it’s wonderful that this book is back in print after languishing in obscurity for decades!

This book spent five years on the New York Times bestseller list. Despite what some see as controversial claims that the author spent ninety minutes in heaven and then came back to life, only five of the eighteen chapters dwell on Piper’s “near-death experience.” The majority of the book chronicles his horrifically painful struggle to survive and then recover the use of his legs which were mangled in an accident. He often begged God to let him die. Instead, God brought people into his life to help him move past self-pity and find a renewed purpose.

I read this book not long after reading Spook, and it scratched many of the same philosophical itches for me. I love its dreamlike quality and haunting sense of nostalgia. As far as I know, it's also unlike any other work of fiction in its approach to the question of life after death.

It blends two seemingly unrelated topics—historical disasters (e.g., the Hartford circus fire, the sinking of the Titanic)—and the science of near-death experiences in a striking, unique way. Although it is, in many ways, a deeply sad story, it ultimately feels hopeful. This is one of those novels that left a lasting impact on my psyche.   

This long-lost early book on near-death experiences was written around the same time as Raymond Moody’s classic Life After Life, but totally independent of any knowledge of that more famous work.

Hampe was a German philosopher, and while the book made a huge splash in Germany it’s practically unknown to the English-speaking world, even though an excellent translation was published in the 1970s (finally now reprinted).

Hampe is a deep thinker though has a very engaging style. Knowing that he had his own NDE makes the book poignant and moving to read. What I find most interesting about it is the very different approach he took compared to Moody.

Rather than looking at the phenomenon as a scientific puzzle and focusing on the possibility that NDEs are evidence for an afterlife, Hampe was interested in their metaphysical implications. 

Thinking about the hope of heaven kept my mental health positive while going through cancer treatments.

This book includes several near-death experiences of people all over the world who literally died for a moment and saw the afterlife. As a witness to the spiritual realm, they give us vivid descriptions of heaven and what they saw while their physical bodies were dead.

These amazing stories from people of different ages and religions point to the reality of a beautiful place that I can’t wait to experience after I die.