Heavenly Bound | Raymond A. Moody, Life After Life

Medicine has rediscovered that all life ends in death, and now seems marginally willing to explore the possibility of life after death. Raymond Moody, a psychiatrist trained in philosophy, writes one of the more straightforward and more widely circulated books on this topic. He draws on intensive interviews with some fifty persons who were medically resuscitated, who came near death, or who observed a near death, in order to give a composite description of the experience immediately after dying. 

Life after life includes a surprisingly pleasant sensation of leaving one’s body and of reorientating oneself in a timeless, weightless state in which one’s vision and hearing remain definitely intact but one is invisible and inaudible to others in the mortal state. One becomes aware of other spiritual beings and of a unique being of light who radiates love and warmth. The being of light extends perfect and instantaneous understanding without need of spoken language and draws one’s reflections upon one’s own life; in effect asking, are you prepared to die and what have you done with your life—questions posed to induce reflection rather than to accuse or to threaten. Stressed are two life tasks: learning to love other people and acquiring knowledge. One is often reluctant to return to mortality and thereafter holds life more precious and no longer fears death. 

Moody’s writing is unpretentious and restrained. These qualities may enhance his credibility in the twentieth-century scientific community, which remains generally skeptical about after-death existence. Witness the fate of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the pioneer in death and dying. When she first sought to interview terminal patients on the medical wards in Chicago, the attending physicians glibly informed her that they had no patients who were dying. She persisted, acquired international fame, and has had her stages of dying become dogma in the field. But now that she has turned her attention to life after death, the recurrent murmur in the audience is that she has now flipped out and has lost her scientific credibility. 

Moody takes pains to abstract general phenomena from descriptive accounts without adding excessive speculations or forcing the narratives to conform to preconceived notions. This sets Life After Life a niche above most other current writings on the topic. The out-of-body experience of Moody’s medical school professor, Dr. George G. Ritchie (Return From Tomorrow [Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1978]), is more detailed but remains an individual account. The purported dictation of William James through the spiritualist, Susy Smith (The Book of James [New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974]) has fascinating thoughts but lacks clear separation of original phenomelogic observations from interpretations and explanations. The observations are in accord with Mormon beliefs, but the conclusions, presumably drawn by James himself, might well represent the thoughts of a brilliant man in a lower order of existence who is not privy to the inner working of the entire plan. Less suspect and more readily available to the Mormon audience is the thick book of Duane Crowther (Life Everlasting [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967]). We find many of his accounts interesting but mistrustful because of uncritical mixing of folklore, hearsay and doctrine and because the material is forced into a preconceived Mormon belief system. For example, Crowther’s introduction claims divine manifestations are available to a hierarchy of Saints from prophets down through stake presidents to faithful lay members of the Church—oblivious to non-Mormons and to the not-particularly faithful who also tell of life after life. 

Moody explicitly says that he is “not trying to prove that there is life after death.” However, most Mormon readers will most likely take literally the blurb from the cover jacket of the Bantam book edition and read his account as one that “actually gives history that reveals there is life after death.” We view his description as a fugitive blink at another sphere of existence and not as an attempt to prove continuity of the soul. The accounts of life after death edify the believer, but could whet curiosity that distracts from the fullness of loving and learning here and now. We recommend this book but hope it does not make anyone so heavenly bound that they are no earthly good. 

Life After Life by Raymond A. Moody, Jr. New York: Bantam Books, 1975, 189pp., $2.25.