Wanda Colie vividly remembers what she saw in 1984 when, at age 28, a condition that produced blood in her lungs nearly killed her. The pain vanished and a crowd of familiar faces came to welcome her in a light-drenched valley.

For more than two decades, Colie kept her experience secret. But she’s recently joined hundreds of others who’ve started going public with their near-death experiences, or NDEs…

Once dismissed as mere hallucinations, NDEs are being taken more seriously than in the past. Studies published in The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, and the Journal of the American Medical Association have reframed NDEs as phenomena worthy of scientific research.

Last year, three medical doctors published books on new NDE research, including what it suggests about consciousness beyond the brain and even the possibility of afterlife.

Several mainstream films, including Clint Eastwood’s recent “Hereafter,” toyed with the possibility of an afterlife, and as NDEs garner increased attention, more people with NDEs are opening up and shedding light what happens as earthly life slips away.

The Louisiana-based Near Death Experience Research Foundation, whose database of more than 1,600 NDEs is the world’s largest, added a record 280 new accounts last year — up 35 percent from 2009. The North Carolina-based International Association of Near Death Studies (IANDS) has amassed more than 900 accounts at its website and now tracks 46 support groups for people who’ve had NDEs.

Jeff MacDonald holds a Master of Divinity degree (cum laude) from Yale Divinity School and a Bachelor of Arts degree in U.S. history from Brown University. He is a minister in the United Church of Christ, is the author of “Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul.”
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