2) You say it is psychiatry not psychology that deals with case histories. Thank you. I wanted to use the term "case histories" in place of your prejudicial "anecdotes" as a basis for study. I still think this is a valid answer to your question about how to proceed. - In this country both psychiatrists and psychologists have private practices and treat cases and can do case histories and case studies and publish in respected journals. The only difference is the former went to medical school. Both have the same understanding of patient's mental problems. - - > 5) Matter is a special form of energy (by which you mean the measurable energy defined by physicists, and not the imaginary "chi"). In view of your reply to BBella, perhaps I could repeat a quote from Wikipedia: "It has been noted that the names 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' serve mainly as an expression of human ignorance, much like the marking of early maps with 'terra incognita'." - Physical sciences can measure any form of matter or energy ( except dark energy and dark matter at this point considering their theoretical existence) but psychological studies involve the input of the subjects which can be shaded by the underlying psychology of each individual. It is almost like quantum theory: one gets averages of the people (particles).

GPJ: Matter is a special form of energy. E = m.c^2. Energy is the more basic concept. Of course I am referring here to the measurable energy defined by physicists, not the imaginary "energy" or "chi" referred to by new ageists. - Ch'i has been around for much longer than new age thinking. It is one of the older units of measurements of energy recorded in Chinese writing. New ageists are not the only ones to use the term ch'i, just as Christians are not the only ones to use the term spirit, or physicists the only ones to use the term energy. But far from being imaginary, ch'i represents wind or breath, which can be measured by physicists. I'm sure you know this but just thought I would mention it.

GPJ: NDEs and OBEs are experiences that happen and have natural explanations adequately explained by existing science. It is only where they are associated with a few paranormal claims that they are questionable. For instance the patient who claimed to see a shoe on the outside ledge of the hospital building while having an "Out of Body experience" (as reported in chapter 6 of David Turell's book). A proper scientific examination of this case would establish where the shoe came from, how and when it got there, whose it was, whether the patient was ever in a position to have seen it before, or knew the owner of the shoe, whether she was aware of the investigator's interest in paranormal occurrences and therefore likely to make up a story to please him, and so on. - George: It is impossible to do a double-blind study (or its equivalent) in this area of scientific interest. The story is reported by Kimberly Clark Sharp (now married), a hospital social worker at the time the event happened. Dr. Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist, knows Sharp and trusts her tale about Maria, the patient, who came to the hospital with a heart attack. Maria could know nothing about the hospital with her personal background. Most of what you object to cannot be corroborated, and obviously you should know that. This excerpt is from Greyson's review of Sharp's book: "After the Light". - > Significantly, Sharp starts her book not with her own NDE, but with that of Maria and her now-famous tennis shoe on the ledge. Maria was a migrant worker admitted to Harborview Medical Center's cardiac care unit (CCU), where Sharp was working as a social worker. While her body was undergoing a cardiac arrest, Maria floated out of the hospital and saw, on a third-story window ledge on the side of the hospital farthest from the CCU, "a man's dark blue tennis shoe, well-worn, scuffed on the left side where the little toe would go. The shoelace was caught under the heel" (p. 11). Despite Sharp's having had an NDE herself, her professional training led her to doubt Maria's story until she finally located the shoe by going from room to room, pressing her face against the windows--although the scuffed toe could only be seen from a perspective outside and above the window. Sharp first published this account in my 1984 NDE anthology (Clark, 1984), and it has been repeated several times, most recently by Susan Blackmore (1995); but the detailed account here is the definitive "Maria's tennis shoe" story. - Many of these 'stories' are anecdotal. Van Lommel's patient was part of a prospective study. The Lancet article is very impressive, especially the significantly different rate of mortality in those patients with the 'deepest' NDE. - I agree this is a 'where's there is smoke there must be a fire' approach to science. Do these 'stories' exist becasue people want them to exist? Of course. Death frightens people. But when doctors at the bedside in hospices learn from patients events the patients could not have known about, that is corroboration of 'something'. I'd love to be able to order a definitve EEG after an NDE and 'scientifically' prove the point. In human psychology one cannot. Most psychological papers are inferences, with no scientific machine or lab support. As I noted in my book, why do so many people have the same NDE's in pattern? Why do they always communicate with the dead? And why should we ignore third-party corroboration because it is anecdotal and not part of a planned study, which actually now has been started because of all the anecdotes?

I offer two counter-proposals to this approach. I do prefer to be tied to science, in the sense of scientific method, because I'm convinced that that is the only way we have of finding out reliable answers. What are the alternatives? Divine revelation?
 
> Likewise I propose that: New discoveries must be viewed through the prism of past views. This is because scientific knowledge is cumulative. We can't go back to first principles all the time. It is important to fit new discoveries within the existing framework. This, for instance, is what has happened with plate tectonics, which is now able to explain continental drift in terms of Newtonian mechanics. - Since I started this whole issue of 'preconceived prism' let me reply and clarify. The other portion of my statement was quite clear (to me) that I was referring to a rigid prism, not allowing change. I am in absolute agreement with your two above statements. Am I controversal? Absolutely, when I see a majority opinion that to me is obviously wrong, being swallowed and fawned over. I still follow Thomas Kuhn, because I saw his point of view in front of my nose in medical practice.

I so agree.
> 
> There's nowt to explain. All these "inexplicable" coincidences and apparent presentiments are more than adequately understood if one has regard to the very human qualities of wishful thinking, and confirmation and selection biases - the sort of standard pattern-making that we humans have evolved to do. This is really basic stuff.
 
> 
> On the other, we have all the well-established evidence that homo sapiens has evolved to be (for good adaptive reasons) a pattern-seeking creature; that this pattern-seeking leads us to believe that utterly unrelated things are causally connected (i.e. magical thinking); that our memory is highly selective and seeks confirmation of what we, as intelligent social animals, would like to be the case, often because it's socially reinforcing; that we story-telling creatures use reminiscences and anecdotes to bolster our sense of security, purpose and comfort and to dispel our fear of separation and death; and, if any exist, that we latch onto any confirmatory study to support what, a priori, we would like to believe. 
 
 An excellent article on the scientific debate behind Clinch's point of view:
 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html?page=1