Robert Christophor Coppes

I got interested in NDEs after I read the book “Life after Life” from Raymond Moody, who coined the term Near-Death Experiences. In the book, a woman said that no-one judged her during her NDE, even though she saw moments in her life review that she wasn’t particularly proud of.

Once I had an interview with a woman who had been a child right after the Second World War. At that time, my country was a war-torn country and candy was a rare luxury. She told me that during her life review she had seen how she had shared her candy with a schoolfriend. She saw the gratitude and happiness of her friend, but she saw that from the perspective of her friend. For a moment, she was her friend. That was such a surprise to her. She also saw how her kind gesture had rippled through the world, affecting not only the mother of her schoolfriend whom she didn’t know, but also others.

She also saw a painful moment, where she had been asked by one of the other schoolfriends to help her to get rid of lice. The NDEr did that but only after making a big fuss about it. In her NDE she saw what pain that had given her friend when she was exposed to others, however, she felt the pain from her friend’s point of view. That was so very direct. Nevertheless, the most painful moment was when she saw that she had had alternatives. If she had chosen another reaction to her friend’s request, she could have added much more love to the world. Missing out on that opportunity was most painful to her.

In general, the lesson we get from life reviews is that life is a zero-sum game. If I do something to you, I in fact do it to myself. I will feel how it felt to you as if I am you. I will become the receiver. Isn’t that wonderful? That is the best way to feel what you have done to others. So, better do nice things to each other.

When I started reading about NDEs, I remember that I loved the individual stories. Not so much the heart attacks and the accidents, but the messages they contain. After so many years of studying NDEs I realized that one cannot understand them by reading a few NDEs. Compare it to looking at a building. You cannot get a good idea of the building when you have only a few points of view. You also need to see the sides, the back, the roof and the interior. That is why I have hundreds of quotes from more than a hundred NDErs in my book. All together they will give you a good “Impression of Near-Death Experiences”. Hence the title.

Those would be the verified out-of-body experiences, or veridical experiences. These are experiences that give circumstantial evidence that NDEs are real. They prove that the consciousness can exist separate from the body and sometimes even prove that what an NDEr heard or saw in the other-worldly environment is true. Most of the time these are situations where the NDEr can describes specific details of the operation or the place of accident (of the earthly environment), and that are later confirmed independently. Sometimes it is something the NDEr has seen or heard during the core of the NDE while being in this heavenly environment. An example: I had an interview with a Dutch woman who saw her life review in her NDE, which she had in 1986. My interview with her was in 2008, so 22 years later. My interview was just after the investment bank Bear Sterns was rescued by the FED. She told me that in her NDE she had seen that there was going to be a severe financial and economic crisis that would affect many countries and many people. In her NDE there was no indication of when that would happen, but the tension in the world during the rescue of Bear Sterns was identical to the feelings she had in her NDE. Therefore, she said with much confidence: “this is the time”. I didn’t believe her one bit, because after the intervention by the FED the stock markets had gone through the roof. In September of that year, many big financial mammoths like AIG, Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac and Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, while the last one triggered the financial crisis that was the worst since 1929. She had been right all along, and this information she had received in her NDE.

Good question. I still wonder how I navigate. I feel like being in a split. On the one side I am an economist and on the other side I am interested in these kinds of provable spiritual topics.

NDErs say they have been in heaven, or at least on its doorstep. Religions also say that they know all about what happens in the afterlife. I wanted to compare them, and I used 5 main religions. I discovered that the essences of each religion can be found in NDEs, but not the other way around. Not all essences of NDEs can be found in each of the religions. An example. In Hinduism it is believed that each one of us has God within. That is what many NDErs say as well. However, that is not what is believed in Judaism, Christianity or Islam. In those religions, God is a third person. He/She is outside us. In Buddhism there are no gods, or maybe only as one of the states in which we can reincarnate.

The most common aspect is the immense unconditional love that NDErs feel. That is so overwhelming that it takes years to adapt again to a life without that wonderful feeling. The other aspect would be that we all are at least very closely connected, but probably that we are ONE, or that together we are God. That is something we don’t understand, but that is what many NDErs tell me, so I must echo that in my book.

I translated my uncle’s war diary into English and added some background info for the reader. I did this for my US family. Wars are terrible. They are contrary to the essence of the Light that is seen in NDEs. The Light is pure unconditional love, pure peace, pure perfection. It is so distressing to me to see the hate an strive in so many conflicts around the world. There is free will. That’s what NDErs also say. So war is the choice of humans, not of God.

I’ve been called awful names because of my work in trying to spread good information about NDEs. That’s not always nice, but I know that the Light loves everyone unconditionally, and that would be me and the people who call me names.

There are some cultural differences in NDEs. For instance, NDErs have reported seeing main figures from their religion. Typically, a Christian would not see Krishna or Mohammed, and a Buddhist would not see Jesus. So those are the cultural differences, but the common theme in NDEs would still be the unconditional love and the feeling of close interconnectedness with all and everything.

I expect further research to be in the direction of proving aspects of NDEs, especially verifiable out-of-body experiences.

Most important is to get yourself informed. You are not alone. About 4 to 5% of the population in Western countries have had an NDE. Go to the website of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (www.iands.org) and take it from there. Also, process the experience. That is hard work, but many people have done it, so can you.

I hope they realize that veridical observations give circumstantial evidence that NDEs are real. Then people will be interested in the main messages in NDEs. In my opinion, these are unconditional love and ONEness.

I am looking out for wonderful examples of NDEs, preferably with verdidical observations, but in fact, each of NDE is wonderful, especially for the NDEr.

I was introduced by Kathy McDaniel, an NDEr, who was very enthusiastic about AllAuthor. And I became enthusiastic, too.