Is there an afterlife? Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander III has added to the many descriptions of near-death experiences. Eben has been an academic neurosurgeon for the last 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham and Women's and the Children's Hospitals and Harvard Medical School in Boston. During his academic career he has authored or co-authored more than150 chapters and papers in peer reviewed journals and made over 200 presentations at conferences and medical centers around the world. He thought he had a very good idea of how the brain generates consciousness, mind and spirit.

In the predawn hours of Nov10, 2008, he fell into a coma after contracting bacterial meningitis. He spent a week in a coma kept alive by a ventilator, his prospects for survival diminishing rapidly. On the seventh day, to the surprise of everyone, he came out of his coma. Memories of his life had been completely deleted, yet he awoke with memories of a fantastic odyssey deep into another realm - one he found more real than this earthly one. His older son advised him to write down everything he could remember about his journey before he read anything about near-death experiences, physics or cosmology. Six weeks later, he completed his initial recording of his remarkable journey, totaling more than 20,000 words in length. Then he started reading, and was astonished by the insights his journey brought to the world's literature on near-death experiences, and to all phenomena of extended consciousness.

One may not believe what this doctor has experienced in his coma and may think all that he encountered during that particular week was nothing but fantasy. One may even regard such a book as nonsense. But what we should never forget is the fact that there is neither enough evidence to justify the nonexistence of an afterlife nor enough evidence to support its existence.