Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying Are Trying to Say About Where They're Going
Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying Are Trying to Say About Where They're Going book cover

Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying Are Trying to Say About Where They're Going

Paperback – May 19, 2015

Price
$13.99
Format
Paperback
Pages
272
Publisher
Atria
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1476757070
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.68 x 8.38 inches
Weight
8 ounces

Description

“A wide-ranging account of discoveries and evolving understanding about life, death, the afterlife, and the true dimensions of consciousness. Numerous firsthand accounts, observations and results of scientific research provide a readable primer on psi phenomena, significantly expanding our understanding of the realities of our existence." ― Light of Consciousness “The word is out: you don’t die when you die. That’s the message from around 15 million Americans who have experienced a near-death experience, as Pearson’s sparkling prose shows in this enormously engaging book.” -- ―Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters Patricia Pearson’s work has appeared in The New Yorker , The New York Times , and Business Week , among other publications. A former member of USA TODAY ’s Op-Ed Board of Contributors, she gave a recent TEDx talk, “Why Ghosts are Good for You,” which points to research showing the importance of NDAs in helping people cope with grief. She is based in Toronto, Canada. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Opening Heaven’s Door Read more

Features & Highlights

  • The first book by a respected journalist on Nearing Death Awareness—similar to Near-Death Experience—this “fascinating” (
  • Kirkus Reviews
  • ) exploration brings “humor, sympathy, and keen critical intelligence to a topic that is all too often off-limits” (Ptolemy Tompkins, collaborator with Eben Alexander on
  • Proof of Heaven
  • ).
  • People everywhere carry with them extraordinary, deeply comforting experiences that arrived at the moment when they most needed relief: when they lost a loved one. These experiences can include clear messages from beyond, profound and vividly beautiful visions, mysterious connections and spiritual awareness, foreknowledge of a loved one’s passing—all of which evade explanation by science and logic. Most people keep these transcendent experiences secret for fear they will be discounted by hyperrational scrutiny. Yet these very common occurrences have the power to console, comfort, and even transform our understanding of life and death. Prompted by her family’s surprising, profound experiences around the death of her father and her sister, reporter Patricia Pearson sets out on an open-minded inquiry, a rare journalistic investigation of Nearing Death Awareness, which Anne Rice praises as “substantive, eloquent, and worthwhile.”
  • Opening Heaven’s Door
  • offers deeply affecting stories of messages from the dying and the dead in a fascinating work of investigative journalism, pointing to new scientific explanations that give these luminous moments the importance felt by those who experience them. Pearson also delves into out-of-body and near-death experiences, examining stories and research to make sense of these related but distinct categories. Challenging current assumptions about what we know and what we are still unable to explain,
  • Opening Heaven’s Door
  • will forever alter your perceptions of the nature of life and death.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
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(105)
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★★
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Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Judicious, compassionate and analytical, a work that deals with a hard subject: Dying.

Patricia Pearson’s book comes from the standpoint of a skeptic turned believer writer/journalist who had an open mind and ear concerning her dying sister, Katharine’s, ethereal experience. Before her passing, she was blessed to be intuitively and spiritually aware of a divine grandiosity that not only enveloped her but allowed her to sense and feel a transcendent intimacy, a unity that allowed her and connected her to her father who had unexpectedly passed away a short time before her. While the family was sadly preparing for her coming death, Katharine and Patricia’s father died in his sleep, a blow that nobody saw coming. In the eulogy for her dad, Katharine opened up about her experience. She was not shy, reluctant or overzealous to convince anyone. She just spoke her truth. It was what it was. And while no empirical data could corroborate her experience of energy, a presence and a feeling of well being, it was irrelevant what people thought, the believers and unbelievers. Her sister’s experience opened up Pandora's box for Patricia Pearson, sending her on a journey that stretched into many areas of the medical, scientific, palliative, religious and psychological worlds, highways and byways that often intersected. Ultimately, they all merged into one road to one destination. In her book, she covers thanatological pioneers, aspects of precognition of the dying, their symbolic language, how: “I have to get the bus” really means that the person is ready for their trip. She covers visions, how the dying can see and sense loved ones who have predeceased them, as happened with her sister Katharine who was dying from metastatic breast cancer. She delves into the world of the Near Death Experience (NDEs) and Nearing Death Awareness (NDAs) as well as the science of dying and its cross cultural components, how people from different ethnicities and cultural views see death and how death approaches them. An ironic aspect to dying is that the purview of the one who is dying seems to broaden rather than narrow, which seems very contradictory to what dying is all about. What was so great about this book was that there were many aspects of science included as well as cultural and theological additives. For such a vast, mysterious and difficult topic, Patricia Pearson covered her topic well; it was investigative without being judgemental. I’m sure her sister’s spirit was with her all along in the writing journey.