Book Review - Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

The problem with reading someone else's Near Death Experience (NDE) is that you want answers to your questions and of course you do not get them ! :) That about sums up my frustration with the book.

However cannot blame the author for this ! Isn't this inability to adequately describe the experience part of NDE stories ? Every time ? Most of the stories say the same thing - that it is impossible to communicate just how loved and cherished one feels in the utopia land !

I picked up this book for a change of pace. I have been reading only business books of late it seemed like so I wanted something very very different and this caught my eye. First of all - a neurosurgeon ? And NDE - felt like a perfect combination.

The main idea of this book is that each and everyone of us is loved. Truly loved by the divine.
( Call it what you will ).

Hmmmmm okay I guess.

I have read the scientific explanations of what NDE means and that it is, simplistically put - a phenomenon of the brain itself. I personally prefer to keep an open mind about this topic. So I have no need to rip into the author's theory of why his experience is special ! :) And I have no need to argue if NDEs are true or not !

In the book the author goes into coma for 7 days due to bacterial meningitis and recovers completely with no after effects and his thinking abilities are intact ! Amazing really ! He explains that in his brain - the neocortex that controls the cognitive part of the brain is dead so his experience is not a figment of imagination ( as that part of the brain switched off during his coma ! ) ; so his experience is unique.

I have no argument about the experience itself. I just found, it was not too very different from any other NDE story. I did feel that - he got no answers ( other than being told he was loved ) and his story about his recovery was unexplained.

• From what he wrote I thought the E. Coli bacteria physically ate part of his brain. What happened to that ?
• Are all his cognitive abilities intact ? So was he able to get back to his practice ?
• And, did he finally understand where he picked up the E. Coli bacteria from ?

I also could not understand the author's fixation with his birth family. Really !!!! Here is this lucky guy ( born to a teen mother ) who has been brought up by a family where he is loved, taken care of, goes on to become a neurosurgeon and he is pining for his birth family to an extent that he feels depressed for a time. Jeez why ???? Seemed ungrateful to me !

While he mentions different realms and myriad dimensions and that evil is a minuscule part of the entire universe the explanation somehow lacked conviction and felt incomplete.

My 2 cents - this is an emotional writing about an NDE experience but does not give adequate proof of heaven as the title suggests.

I better look for other books for a change of pace ! :)