Managed to listen to the end

Narration for this was always going to be tricky to get right and I don’t think the subject matter suited this jaunty delivery.
Interesting research, lots of personal stories with implications for recommendations for improvements to medical practices.

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Very interesting!

This is well presented and very interesting. One of the better books on the topic. The Narrator does a great job of the different voices that really helped give each case history its own distinct feel.

Worth your time, if the subject interest you.

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very life affirming, as much about life as death.

science needs to stop dismissing NDEs. the NDE is real and should be treated as such.

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NDE

wonderful reading thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to all my friends, as I am a medium and very spiritual I definitely believe life continues after death .

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NDEs un a new light

Very interesting topic. Well researched and presented. the voice artis was excellent as well. made it very easy to listen to.

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I wish the narrator would just speak normally

Would you listen to The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences again? Why?

I'm a couple of hours into this and there is something that is driving me crazy. This otherwise fantastic book has been spoiled by the narration. The narration is fine when the narrator is speaking normally, but every time she is reading the words of a male person she slips into the character of cockney barrow boy. It is so irritating! I have no problem believing the stories in this book, having had experiences myself that mirror some of them (though I wasn't dying at the time), but I can't believe that every male who contributed to this book, including educated and professional men all spoke with a cockney accent and dropped their 'h's. I don't know how the men whose stories are told here must feel about this, but I'd be mortified if it was my husband's words being spoken as though his typical way of communicating is like: 'Would you Adam and Eve it, one minute I was brown bread the next I was being telepathically spoken to by a guy in a shiny white whistle and flute'.

I would have preferred to hear the author narrate this. She has a lovely Welsh voice, but maybe she was advised not to record it herself. Shame though if that was the case.

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1 person found this helpful

A Clinical Reflection

I read Penny's book after it being recommended in John Burke's Imagine The God of Heaven. it was interesting to hear things from a medical practitioner's perspective who was taking a clinical approach while still not being dismissive of NDEs. Again, as John Burke says, people will still attempt to interpret what they have seen amd experienced according to their worldview, but Dr Santori treats every individual story with equal respect and, although she has her own view, does not dismiss any particular perspective as being less valid than another, leaving it for us, as the reader's to make up our own minds.

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Alright but a bit light

I had really high hopes for this when I started listening to it and I should stress I did enjoy listening to it. But I felt there wasn't enough science in it - it's mostly anecdotal evidence and a lot of it is from people who claim to be "psychic".
I'd have liked to hear some hard facts about what the doctor's research found but from what I can gather her experiments didn't really prove anything. The symbols she set up high so anyone in her ward experiencing an NDE could see them were never seen. So you can take that as evidence of the NDE not being as real as its claimed, can't you...?
I expected to be convinced by this book but ultimately it just raised a lot of unanswered questions. If it's a REAL thing, why do cultural expectations play any part?
It IS worth a listen, and the narrator is quite good just don't expect to embrace death after listening to it!

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4 people found this helpful

Hugely intriguing study

Easy to listen to and very informative. I'll be listening to most of it again soon.

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Glad I listened.

Overall I must say that I'm really glad that I listened to this book. An important subject and any information / perspectives etc are valuable. I can relate to some of what was noted in terms of relatives nearing death.

So overall a positive review. But.

1. As noted by others the narration can be irritating. It is almost as if the narrator is trying too hard. Too many attempts at accents to differentiate different characters relating their stories and also inappropriately (in my view) "sing songy" delivery in parts.

2. The author is clearly convinced of her core thesis and so there did seem to be a tendency to give unblinking credence to most NDE recollections whilst being rather dismissive at times of scientific conjectures that may run contrary to the thesis.

3. The book did become repetitive. The same points were made on numerous occasions.

4. The prose style swung between fairly regular narrative style and "University thesis speak". I'm from a scientific background (although not medical) and I'd have found it more credible to have ditched the "thesis speak".

Definitely worth reading but if another book is contemplated maybe my points above might help?

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