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*No. 1 New York Times Best Seller*
PROOF of
HEAVEN
A Neurosurgeon’s
Journey into the Afterlife
DELUXE EDITION
WITH DVD
*A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR
ON LESSONS OF HEAVEN*
by EBEN ALEXANDER, M.D.
*Dr. Alexander and his story have been featured on the cover of
Newsweek, Oprah’s “Super Soul Sunday,” “Dr. Oz,” ABC’s
“Nightline,” “20/20,” “Good Morning America,”
“Fox & Friends” and more*
(Simon & Schuster; Deluxe Edition On Sale: Sept. 3, 2013; Hardcover)
“Dr. Eben Alexander’s near-death experience is the most astounding I have heard in more than four
decades of studying this phenomenon. He is living proof of an afterlife.
—Raymond A. Moody, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., author of Life After Life
“Dr. Eben Alexander’s story of his near-death experience is astonishing. His brushes with the
Sublime are exhilarating to read. . . . He allows scientific method to reveal horizons of reality that are
ultimately more luminous and multidimensional than we previously intuited.”
—Rabbi Neal Gold, Temple Shir Tikva
“A remarkable account.” —Kirkus Reviews
Essential to most faiths, the concept of an afterlife is often met with skepticism — if not outright
rejection — by the scientific community. Lacking evidence, scientists and doctors repeatedly dismiss
the testimonies of those who claim to have had Divine encounters through Near Death Experiences
(NDEs). And for most of his eminent medical career, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander was squarely in
that camp, believing that NDEs were nothing more than the neurological response of a brain under
stress.
Until he had one himself.
Now newly released in a Deluxe Edition package, PROOF OF HEAVEN: A Neurosurgeon’s
Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster; Hardcover; September 3, 2013), recounts the
extraordinary discoveries Dr. Alexander made while in a life-threatening coma—discoveries that
shattered his long-held notions about the brain, consciousness, and God. An avowed man of
science, Dr. Alexander was unprepared for what he encountered in the heavenly realm and the ways
it would transform his Christian faith.
His extraordinary story unfolds like a medical thriller. Awakened early one morning in November
2008 by a horrible headache, Dr. Alexander insisted to his wife and youngest son that he was OK—
the pain was likely from a lingering cold. But his condition deteriorated rapidly, and within hours Dr.
Alexander was rushed to the hospital in the midst of a grand mal seizure. Upon his arrival (in the very
emergency room where he worked), a fellow doctor was shocked to see her colleague seizing on a
gurney, but she quickly recognized the possible culprit: meningitis. A spinal tap confirmed her
suspicion. Dr. Alexander had been stricken with a bacterial meningitis so rare it afflicts only one in
10 million adults, and he was thrust into a deep coma. There was little hope of survival, and none
for recovery.
As Dr. Alexander reconstructs what transpired in the hospital during that week—based on accounts
of medical personnel and his devoted family, and aided by his own knowledge as a physician—he
also recounts the otherworldly experience he was engaged in. Even though his neocortex—the part
of the brain that controls thought, emotion and language, and which scientists like Alexander had
believed was responsible for generating near-death experiences—was completely shut down by
infection, he embarked on a vivid journey in the company of a guardian spirit.
Meanwhile, Dr. Alexander’s family and doctors were holding vigil at his bedside and began to weigh
the possibility of stopping treatment. Then, on the seventh day of his coma and to the surprise of
everyone, Dr. Alexander’s eyes fluttered open. He had come back.
In the following weeks, Dr. Alexander made a truly miraculous recovery and eventually was able to
return to everyday earthly life. But he continued to be blown away by his NDE, recalling every detail
vividly. At the urging of his oldest son, he wrote it all down and tried to make sense of what had
happened. He says, “Everything I had learned in four decades of study and work about the human
brain, about consciousness, about the universe, and about what constitutes reality conflicted with
what I’d experienced during those seven days in coma.”
Then, like any scientist, he set out to explain his experience through research. He formed hypotheses
and tested them. He read reams of literature on NDEs and, over time, he started to fathom the
connections between this monumental religious encounter and the science to which he had devoted
his life.
“I’m still a scientist,” Dr. Alexander writes, “I’m still a doctor, and as such I have two essential
duties: to honor truth and to help heal. That means telling my story.” And it is a remarkable story he
has to tell. No scientist of person of faith will be able to ignore it. And reading it will change the way
you think about God, the soul, and the afterlife.
Lessons of Heaven from the new afterword in PROOF OF HEAVEN, Deluxe Edition:
Number One: Remember the Limits of Words, and Remember Their Power
Number Two: Remember Your Brain’s Limits
Number Three: Remember You Are Not Alone
Number Four: Remember That Faith Leads Toward, Not Away from, Truth
Number Five: Remember That You Have Been Here Before
Number Six: Remember That We Are Going Somewhere
Number Seven: Remember That We Make Our Own Reality
Number Eight, Nine, and Ten: Remember You Are Loved, You Have Nothing to Fear, and You
Can Do No Wrong
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eben Alexander, M.D., has been a neurosurgeon for the last 25 years, including 15 years at the
Brigham & Women’s and the Children’s Hospitals and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Near Death Experience and Journey into the Afterlife
By Eben Alexander, M.D.
Simon & Schuster Hardcover
On Sale: September 3, 2013
Hardcover price: $24.99
ISBN-13: 9781476753027
eBook ISBN-13: 9781451695205