Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife

by Raymond Moody, Paul Perry

Overview

The author of Life After Life present a look at his life spent researching near-death experiences in this fascinating memoir.
Paranormal begins with a harrowing account of Moody's suicide attempt—due to an undiagnosed illness that led him into depression—and proceeds to explore his lifelong fascination with life beyond our bodies. Moody traces the roots of his obsession with the point of death and how, at age twenty-three, he launched the entirely new medical field of near-death studies. He went on to explore the world of past lives and possible reincarnation before stumbling into the fascinating realm of facilitated visions. Moody's rural research center, Theater of the Mind, dramatically advances paranormal research by melding ancient and modern techniques to arouse many of the transformative elements of the near-death experience in people who are still living.
After more than four decades of studying death and the possibility of an afterlife, Moody still sees endless promise in the fringes of psychological sciences, where he continues to seek answers to what happens to our souls after death.
Praise for Paranormal
"A lucid, engrossing memoir from a psychologist and philosopher dedicated to the afterlife. . . . The fascinating life story of an impassioned mystical maverick." —Kirkus Reviews
"Best known as the man who coined the phrase "near-death experience" . . . Moody is candid and upfront about his life working with near-death experiences, past-life regression, and mirror gazing. . . . An interesting addition to any library." —Library Journal
"Moody radically changed the way modern humans think about the afterlife. Paranormal is a thrilling and inspiring literary experience." —Larry Dossey, MD, author of Healing Words and The Power of Premonitions

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062046444
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/07/2012
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Raymond A. Moody Jr., Ph.D., M.D., is a world-renowned scholar, lecturer, and researcher, and he is widely recognized as the leading authority on near-death experiences. He is the bestselling author of many books, including Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife.

Paul Perry is an internationally bestselling author who has co-written nine books on near-death experiences.

What People are Saying About This

Pim van Lommel

“Raymond’s Moody lifetime pioneering activities have been the major impulse for all later research that has been attributed to breaking the scientific and social taboo about near-death experiences, shared death experiences, and the possibility of contact with deceased relatives.”

Jeffrey Long

“Paranormal is the fascinating and heart-warming story of Dr. Raymond Moody’s extraordinary life, chronicling the exciting journey that has given us some of the strongest evidence that life after death is a reality. I highly recommend it.”

Dannion Brinkley

“The personal story of Raymond’s life before and during his pioneering research into what happens at the point of death—once again expertly written by Paul Perry—will help every reader better understand their own search for the same answers.”

Editorial Reviews

A lucid, engrossing memoir from a psychologist and philosopher dedicated to the afterlife. . . . The supernatural undertones saturating the narrative are dwarfed by an overwhelming sense that this eccentric visionary just might be on to something . . . the fascinating life story of an impassioned mystical maverick.” — Kirkus Reviews

“[In Paranormal] Moody… looks back, reflecting on his fascination with death, the effect of his life’s work, and trying to figure out what it’s all meant. One key revelation: … the psychologist and philosopher…says he has ‘woken up to God.’” — Religious News Service

“Raymond Moody radically changed the way modern humans think about the afterlife. In Paranormal, he sums up his journey and shares fresh insights. The result is a thrilling and inspiring literary experience. Anyone who is not grateful for Moody’s immense contribution to human welfare ought to check his pulse.” — Larry Dossey, MD, Author of Healing Words and The Power of Premonitions

“Paranormal is the fascinating and heart-warming story of Dr. Raymond Moody’s extraordinary life, chronicling the exciting journey that has given us some of the strongest evidence that life after death is a reality. I highly recommend it.” — Jeffrey Long, M.D., author of Evidence of the Afterlife

“Raymond’s Moody lifetime pioneering activities have been the major impulse for all later research that has been attributed to breaking the scientific and social taboo about near-death experiences, shared death experiences, and the possibility of contact with deceased relatives.” — Pim van Lommel, author of Consciousness Beyond Life

“The personal story of Raymond’s life before and during his pioneering research into what happens at the point of death—once again expertly written by Paul Perry—will help every reader better understand their own search for the same answers.” — Dannion Brinkley, author of Secrets of the Light

“Best known as the man who coined the phrase ‘near-death experience’ . . . Moody is candid and upfront about his life working with near-death experiences, past-life regression, and mirror gazing . . . an interesting addition to any library.” — Library Journal

From the Publisher

[In Paranormal] Moody… looks back, reflecting on his fascination with death, the effect of his life’s work, and trying to figure out what it’s all meant. One key revelation: … the psychologist and philosopher…says he has ‘woken up to God.’

Religious News Service

Raymond’s Moody lifetime pioneering activities have been the major impulse for all later research that has been attributed to breaking the scientific and social taboo about near-death experiences, shared death experiences, and the possibility of contact with deceased relatives.

Pim van Lommel

Paranormal is the fascinating and heart-warming story of Dr. Raymond Moody’s extraordinary life, chronicling the exciting journey that has given us some of the strongest evidence that life after death is a reality. I highly recommend it.

Jeffrey Long

The personal story of Raymond’s life before and during his pioneering research into what happens at the point of death—once again expertly written by Paul Perry—will help every reader better understand their own search for the same answers.

Dannion Brinkley

Raymond Moody radically changed the way modern humans think about the afterlife. In Paranormal, he sums up his journey and shares fresh insights. The result is a thrilling and inspiring literary experience. Anyone who is not grateful for Moody’s immense contribution to human welfare ought to check his pulse.

Larry Dossey

A lucid, engrossing memoir from a psychologist and philosopher dedicated to the afterlife. If Moody's (The Last Laugh, 1999, etc.) career capstone arrived with the lionizing 1975 publication of his landmark report Life after Life, his memoir, co-authored by Perry (co-author: Evidence of the Afterlife, 2010, etc.), an acclaimed author on the subject, affords his life's work even more dramatic heft. Moody's passion for the spiritual world can be traced to an early childhood in World War II–era Georgia raised by an abusively crass father and a depressed mother. He recalls at age 4 establishing theories about death and concepts of postmortem "soul survival." Moody writes ardently of an interest in astronomy throughout adolescence, undeterred by a skeptical father and crippling myxedema, a thyroid deficiency. As a philosophy scholar, he became "hooked on death" and intensely explored spiritual phenomena, out-of-body sensations, near-death events and theories of mind-body coexistence. Plumbing an interest in "facilitated visions" via hypnotic past-life regression therapy, Moody details his nine former lives, including that of a threadbare wooly mammoth hunter, a drowning boat builder and a murdered female Chinese artist. He coined the term "near-death experience" as his first book soared in popularity; on the lecture circuit, he befriended fellow afterlife pioneer Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Then his illness resurfaced, causing a suicide attempt and a stint at a psychiatric facility after his experimentations with spirit communication and crystallomancy were discovered by his closed-minded father. Now in his mid-60s, Moody continues his revolutionary research. The supernatural undertones saturating the narrative are dwarfed by an overwhelming sense that this eccentric visionary just might be on to something. The fascinating life story of an impassioned mystical maverick.

Kirkus Reviews