By Meghan O’Gieblyn — 2019
The strange, startling, and competing explanations for human—and possibly nonhuman—consciousness.
Read on www.newyorker.com
CLEAR ALL
This question is more than a mind-bender. For thousands of years, certain people have claimed to have actually visited the place that, Saint Paul promised, “no eye has seen … and no human mind has conceived,” and their stories very often follow the same narrative arc.
1
Ever since Proof of Heaven, the narrative of a life-changing seven-day coma I underwent in 2008, was published two years ago, I have had a front-row seat (and often a seat on the stage itself) at the battle between those who believe in heaven, in a spiritual realm beyond this one, and those who,...
In 2008, Eben Alexander, MD, an academic neurosurgeon for over twenty-five years, fell into a deep coma.