At this point, the skeptics can hardly wait to say, "Aha! What this is really all about is wish fulfilment. People, afraid to face their possible total extinction, imagine their perfect bliss and then project it into the skies, the future or wherever." But this is precisely where the plethora of new information about the near-death experience offers a radically fresh insight. One of the most significant aspects of this entire phenomenon is that, while modern medicine, with its ability to save lives that would have been lost a generation ago, has vastly increased the number of persons having near-death experiences, the experience itself is universal.

Such an experience is reported in Plato's Republic, written in the fourth century before Christ. Around the year 1500, the Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosh executed his now-famous TheAscent into the Empyrean, in which the familiar tunnel of light is there for all to see. The literature of the Middle Ages is replete with stories of otherworldly journeys. Now, while some eight million Americans have reported near- death experiences, studies from around the world show that it is no respecter of race, age, color or creed.

Discovery: Researching this during the past four years, in the lght of a lifetime study of world religions, has brought me to a dramatic discovery and conclusion. It is now my conviction that it is the phenomena related to near-death experiences that have convinced humans from earliest times that there is life beyond the grave, rather than the other way around. Instead of it being the product of an attempt to deal with the enigma of death by projecting one's wishes into another world, the near-universal belief in a hereafter is, in my view, the attempt to express what has already become known, at different times and in different places, through direct experience.

That accounts, I believe, for the fact that while the near-death experiences of Hindus will differ from those of Christians, and those of Japanese from those now reported in thousands of cases from Eastern Europe, there are core features that remain true of all such experiences. One of these is the absolute certainty and clarity of the transcendental or "otherworldly" nature of the experience. Since a large proportion of those I have personally investigated--and other studies bear this out-have been people with no religious faith whatever, including articulate agnostics and atheists, the power of the near-death experience to change people's minds about the reality of life after death is singularly impressive.

The second core characteristic is the awareness of bliss. Generally, this is described in terms of feelings of great peace, joy, "being surrounded by an incredible love," or of having one's heart's desire fulfilled. For Jung, it was the vision of a temple where, had he entered, he had the deep intuition he would learn the complete meaning of his life and of life as a whole. For the author of the Book of Revelation, it was being in the presence of God, seeing the river of life flowing from the "throne" of God and knowing there were trees by it with leaves that were "for the healing of the nations."