Customer Reviews

Parting Visions: Uses and Meanings of Pre-Death, Psychic, and Spiritual Experiences

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Reminds us that we are spiritual beings having a relatively brief human experience before returning to our real & eternal home. Reinforces that spirituality is truely present in everyone and transcends all earthly religions. Many wonderful stories throughout the book to support the love and freedom that our beloved deceased have found. Death will kill the body but not the soul. We can grieve the ugliness of earthly disease and death, but we cannot grieve about the love present in the hereafter. EN

Parting Visions was originally published in 1992 and parts of it are seriously out of date with current studies. For example, the author writes about Therapeutic Touch, the so-called ability of a practitioner of such to manipulate a person's aura. Several years ago, a nine-year-old girl created a science fair project that thoroughly debunked this practice as mere wishful thinking.

The beginning of this book was more interesting and veritable in that it focused more on visions experienced by people very close to death, a common and well-respected phenomenon of the dying process. The author, a pediatrician with no overwhelming religious beliefs, had sufficient experience from witnessing the deaths of many children (the topic of his earlier book) to understand that there are too many similarities in the visions the dying related for them to be mere hallucinations or the products of brains starving for oxygen. And he also believes that these visions form a purpose in relieving the fears of both the dying and their loved ones. No one, least of all me, can argue with this.

But then the book devolves into religious gobbledygook and affirmations that these visions, especially shared ones and premonitions of death, are proof of God's existence, rather than a phenomenon that exists irrespective of any religious beliefs. Many of his later examples of empirical testing leave much lacking in the area of scientific scrutiny.

The book also suffers from far too much repetition of ideas and examples and an outpouring of too much eagerness in the effort to "prove" a scientific basis for near-death experiences. Eventually, I had to give up on attributing too much veracity to the entire book.

If you are fascinated by near-death experiences, then you will enjoy "Parting Visions." The reason these stories are so compelling is because most of us are afraid of death and it makes us feel better to know what awaits us on the other side.

While this book deals mostly with positive experiences there is one negative or hellish experience that should give us all pause. Also, if you think seeing angels is a thing of the past (in biblical stories) you maybe be surprised by some of the experiences witnessed by nurses who were not dying at the time.

So in this book there are visions in which angels are seen by people who haven't died and there are visions experienced by the dying. Both versions are very similar and in some cases the life of the person sensing or seeing the angel is spared.

Once you read this book you will realize that you are fully conscious when you are dying. It is frightening to think of just disappearing into nothingness, but if you think of dying as just a pathway to living eternally then dying loses so much of its terror.

I've read numerous books on near-death experiences and this is one of the best even though it doesn't really describe what heaven or hell look like. I was fascinated by the stories of angels and that people are seeing them in our modern world. I'm really surprised this book has so few reviews!

My only possible encounter with an angel was when I was a small child I was swimming unsupervised in the Cape in Africa. I was caught underwater in a wave and almost drowned. A man wearing a diving suit pulled me out from the wave. As soon as I was safe, the man disappeared so I didn't even get to thank him. I've always imagined he was an angel and have always been grateful that my life was spared.

~The Rebecca Review

Parting Visions is a quick read from the author of Closer to the Light, that is compelling, entertaining and quite inspirational. I've read a number of books on near-death experiences, and this is one of my favorites. The best part is that it leaves you with a feeling of hope and joy. The significance of mystical experiences such as encounters with angels, psychic premonitions, and near-death visions are all explored.

If you have experienced a loss, your spirit of renewal could be found right here.