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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Response to "Is it Rational to Extrapolate
from the Presence of Consciousness
during a Flat EEG to Survival of
Consciousness After Death?"
To the Editor:
It is my pleasure to respond to Titus Rivas's (2010) letter regard-
ing my recent review of Jeff Long and Paul Perry's book, Evidence of
the Afterlife (Holden, 2010). I respect Rivas's commitment to the field
of near-death studies and how he uses his intellect in pursuit of that
commitment, and I value his many contributions to the field and to
this Journal. In my review, I applauded Long on the many contribu-
tions his book makes to the field of near-death studies, and I also ex-
pressed frustration at two things. One was the limited explanations
of methodology that inevitably occur in a book written for the popular
rather than professional audience. The other is summarized in these
sections from the review:
Of biggest concern is Long's major premise: "[T]he afterlife is for all
of us. . . a loving. . . realm." First, he has generalized to "all of us" an
experience that has been reported by a minority of people who survive
a close brush with death. Of those survivors, only 10 to 30 percent
later report [a near-death experience (NDE)], and 70 to 90 percent
have no memory of anything. Also, despite their similarities, every
NDE is unique in its contents, which defies a definitive description of
"the afterlife." In addition, the nature of consciousness during revers-
ible, temporary death does not necessarily characterize "the afterlife"
during irreversible, permanent death. Furthermore, a substantial mi-
nority of [near-death experiencers (NDErs)] report distressing rather
than "loving" experiences-a topic Long admitted was beyond the
scope of his book. (Holden, 2010)
I do agree with Long that much of the data about NDEs lend sup-
port to the hypothesis of an afterlife-although commitment to that
belief remains, from a purely scientific perspective, a leap of faith. I
also believe that the data provide far more equivocal evidence about
the exact nature of that existence. (Holden, 2010)
As I was severely constrained by a word limit for the review, I
couldn't expand on these points. I'll expand on them in the following
Journal of Near-Death Studies, 29(2), Winter 2010 2010 IANDS
362
