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Editor's Foreword It is with great humility and gratitude that I begin my tenure as editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. I am humbled by the magnitude of the job. For over a quarter century, near-founding Journal editor Bruce Greyson has dedicated his penetrating mental acuity, commitment to objectivity, and exacting writing standards to the publication of a wide range of well-presented perspectives on the topic of near-death and related phenomena. And with his status as a psychiatrist holding respected academic appointments at the Univer- sity of Virginia and the University of Connecticut, he has infused credibility into the field of near-death studies - a crucial factor in the development of a field that both honors, and also often challenges the limits of, the prevailing Western worldview of positivism, materialism, and scientism. Dr. Greyson has accomplished this feat on a grand scale. My own analysis of periodical literature through 2001 revealed that articles from the Journal represented 64% of all scholarly journal publications addressing near-death experiences. In an update of the literature through 2005, I found that authors had published 15 times more articles on near-death experiences (NDEs) in this Journal than in the journal with the next highest publication rate of such articles. In addition to its broad scope and high quality, the Journal is the clear leader in quantity of publications on NDEs. Even to the end of Dr. Greyson's tenure as editor, he made a substantial contribution to the field, devoting his last issue of the Journal to the heretofore under-addressed topic of cross-cultural NDEs. It is my intention to proceed with editorship of this Journal on the basis of the example Dr. Greyson has set. As daunted as I feel in facing this process, I am equally grateful for the opportunity and for the confidence both Dr. Greyson and the LANDS Board of Directors has communicated in inviting me to become the third editor of the Journal. I also am very grateful to the Consulting Editors who have agreed to continue lending their expertise to the Journal. Metaphor- ically speaking, rather than attempt to fill Dr. Greyson's giant shoes, I hope to stand on the shoulders of this giant, seeing the field of near- death studies on its continuing journey into a far-reaching future.
Journal of Near-Death Studies, 27(1), Fall 2008 2008 lANDS
