Are near-death experiences from God or a spiritual deception?

Lissa Rankin is a spiritual teacher who is currently writing articles questioning some of the spiritual claims made in the New Age movement. She’s not a Christian, but she is asking some probing questions about some of the false beliefs in the New Age. She recently wrote a Substack post entitled, ‘Did Eben Alexander really prove heaven? Did Anita Moorjani’s near-death experience cure her cancer?’ The article addresses claims made in the authors’ bestselling books.

In Proof of Heaven, neuroscientist Eben Alexander recounts his journey to ‘heaven’ during a near-death experience (NDE). Rankin addresses some of the claims Alexander made in his book. For example, he claimed that he was completely brain-dead at the time; therefore, his experience was ‘spiritual’ rather than hallucinatory. One of the spiritual messages he received during his NDE was that he could do nothing wrong. He was, however, being sued for $3 million for medical negligence at the time of writing it.

READ MORE: What exactly is a “good death”? A Christian perspective on Assisted Dying

In Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani recounts her NDE while in hospital with stage 4 cancer. After she came back, she began recovering from cancer and believed that she was healed through the spiritual experience. However, Rankin, a qualified medical doctor, points out that she was also undergoing chemotherapy at the time, which was probably the cause of her healing.

When I was in the New Age, I was an avid reader of near-death experiences. As someone who grew up in an atheist family, I found these accounts fascinating proof that the spiritual realm was very real. Yet the contradictory nature of the different accounts was puzzling. One person met Jesus, another a Hindu god. The experiences seemed more based on people’s personal belief systems, or so I thought. A question gnawed at me: what is the objective truth about the spiritual realm?

READ MORE: From the New Age to new life in Jesus

I was also scared by the occasional accounts where people had more hellish NDEs. 

I was also scared by the occasional accounts where people had more hellish NDEs. These were sometimes people who’d been in a dark mental state before dying, such as a man who committed suicide. At the time, I had thought the universe was just a realm of ‘love and light’, and I couldn’t find a clear answer as to why some people went to such a dark place.

It was only twenty years later, when I became a Christian, that I fully understood that NDEs may well be spiritual, but that doesn’t mean that everything that happens to an experiencer is true.

READ MORE: From manifestation to Jesus: Why influencer Madison Rose walked away from New Age spirituality

Many near-death experiences don’t acknowledge the truth of who Jesus is or the Christian worldview.

In 1 John chapter 4, John tells his readers to test the spirits to see whether or not they are from God, and that any spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ is from God is the antichrist. Many near-death experiences don’t acknowledge the truth of who Jesus is or the Christian worldview. In fact, a large number of NDE accounts push New Age ideas, such as Eben Alexander being told he could do no wrong.

It seems that when people are close to death, their mind is in a vulnerable state where doorways that have been opened in their lives allow demonic spirits to tell them false stories of what the afterlife is like. This is similar to accounts from those who use psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca. They have a ‘trip’, like a spiritual TV show, where demonic spirits masquerade as angels of light, showing a false version of the spiritual realm.

Yet this doesn’t mean all NDEs are false. For example, Ian McCormack got stung by a swarm of deadly jellyfish. During his death, he descended into hell. He then remembered how, years ago, his mother told him that if he was ever in trouble, he could call out to God for help. McCormack became convicted of his sin and emerged from his experience as a born-again believer.

There are other NDE accounts where God reveals himself to non-believers, or to believers. They return to life with testimonies to reveal the truth that God is real, and to offer encouragement for those who already believe.

While Satan uses NDEs to spread lies, he is only counterfeiting what is real and true: the nature of heaven and where we will go after we die. Sometimes God offers people a glimpse of this for the encouragement of believers, or to convict non-believers. As I listened to Ian McCormack’s testimony on YouTube, I felt a renewal of my faith and fresh excitement about what awaits us in heaven. I hope and pray that this fascinating topic can lead people out of Satan’s contradictory lies to discovering the truth of Jesus.

Further reading

Imagine Heaven by John Burke
The NDE Conspiracy by Shaun Tabatt