Do they speak French in heaven?
This is a recently released French NDE documentary that I really enjoyed. It is quite long, so you might want to break it into 2 sessions, but well worth watching as it covers the subject thoroughly with some fresh thinking, various interviews with well known researchers from both sides and some intriguing new cases I had not come across before and were quite recent. (Click on the image to see the YouTube trailer)
Overall while the skeptics were given a lot of airtime, the framing was very balanced and up to date. Of note was a recent interview with Charlotte Martial who gave more details about her study and position. Key points for me:
- Some of the cases were new to me: There were a number of good examples in the video that I hadn’t come across before, which made it very interesting.
- The focus on cases of people seeing things outside the room stood out: I found these especially compelling, particularly the one about the man in Iran (I think he was an Imman). This was a good angle for the film maker to take as the usual lazy explanation skeptics provide of the patient being semi conscious when they claim to observe things in the ER cannot possibly apply. It forces the skeptic to claim that the subject is being dishonest somehow.
- The sceptical pushback felt frustrating: What annoyed me was that the sceptics were allowed to argue against each case one by one, instead of having to deal with the cumulative evidence of hundreds, if not thousands of cases saying the same thing.
- The elucidation of Charlotte Marshall’s new study methodology was valuable: This is where I first learned about the method she is now using of filming the emergency room during the study to either confirm, or otherwise, claims made by patients during periods of unconsciousness. This may overcome the issue with objects on shelves or images on screens not being observed. It reverses the evidence process from the patient needing to confirm a specific item of a scene, to the video confirming observations unpredictable observations of the room. This is much more likely to provide scientific evidence if any of the patients in the study have an OBE.
- The thorough examination of the difference in quality of recall between people who say they’ve had out-of-body experiences when they weren’t actually near death vs those who were near death provides strong support to the validity of NDEs. NDEs are unique and can’t be reproduced using other techniques.
- As always the burden of proof is backwards: It’s annoying that people act as though near-death experiences or dualism have to be proven in order to challenge the current scientific view. For millennia dualism was the established consensus, and science has not provided any evidence at all to change that, and yet the physicalist assumptions of science are now regarded as the established paradigm requiring scientific evidence to challenge it. This is methodological materialism and it is biased. I understand why, and the value of this approach, but it creates a false understanding in the minds of the wider population.
- The point about the sheer number of cases mattered: The video does make this point near the end, but I think it needed to be aimed more directly at the sceptics in the interviews.
- Interesting new study idea. The filmmaker is involved in establishing a study called the ROSETTA study that seeks to validate observation from OBEs that occur in visitor waiting rooms. The rationale is that people are drawn to their loved ones when they first separate from their bodies and often report witnessing conversations or events etc that occur in waiting rooms. I have some doubts about the protocol, but at the same time support any research that seeks to understand and characterize this phenomenon better. I wish them luck.
On balance the film provided further support to the understanding that NDEs do not have a natural explanation. Definitely worth putting some time aside (and a bit of cash) to watch this even though it is in French (if you’re French, that will be a bonus, but most who come here are English speaking). It is available with subtitles or dubbed on Apple TV and Amazon.
(Disclaimer: I was given a free advanced viewing of the documentary by the filmmaker but this did not in anyway influence my review.)
Just watched the documentary. I enjoyed it
Yeah, it’s very good.
Hi, on the part of where you expressed your frustration on the skeptics, like where they faced each case one by one, where they arguing your typical style of explanations that have been debunked, Im guessing they tried to account for veridical OBEs but all have failed to account for it. And throughout the documentary it seemed to portray ndes dont have a natural explanation like it was pushing towards that. Thanks, hopefully im not asking too much questions.
What I mean it is easy to try to pick holes in each case and suggest how people might have seen or heard things, and if there was only one case, then there would be cause to treat it with deep suspicion, but when thousands are saying the same thing, and hundreds of doctors are saying it was impossible for the patient to have seen these things, then the weight of evidence is immense, and this was not put to the skeptics. I wanted the question asked “So do you believe that hundreds of highly trained deeply ethical, intelligent healthcare professionals are either lying or stupid?”
I’m not sure if I am putting a comment in the right section, but I just wanted to thank you for making me aware (ha, ha — actually, no pun was originally intended) of this interesting new documentary. I would very much like to see it, but my husband and I don’t have Apple TV, and we try not to give Amazon any business, if at all possible. (Jeff Bezos, the evil Lex Luthor look—alike, certainly doesn’t need any more money.) I will have to see if we can get hold of the film at some point. An even-handed, scientific, open-minded approach would be most welcome. The problem is that, while I would like to see some convincing evidence, I have a strong aversion to money-grubbing charlatans who seek to pull the wool over my eyes. Even Alexander comes to mind, particularly as I was just rereading last night some of the expose done on him years ago by Esquire magazine. Phony claims like his (I’m almost 100% sure that his NDE was a total fake) certainly tarnish things for me and fill the skeptical side of me with doubts.
I know what you mean about Even Eben 🙂
You can watch this through apple if you don’t subscribe but you have to pay a fee. I get nothing from it financially, and had nothing to do with the making of it. I watched it for free on request from the maker, but after seeing it I do think it is worth paying for as it is very well made, and very balanced and made by someone who has a genuine passion for understanding on this topic. The film maker has apparently been coming to this blog for a number of years.
Ultimately this would have cost tens of thousands, maybe more to make, and she’ll be lucky to get it back! I know from my own experience of writing where I have paid thousands on editors and cover designers and never ever recouped the cost from book sales. I make a loss on this blog too as I don’t do advertising.
Truth is everything, and the sacrifice is worth it.
Yes, I bought it on the strength of your recommendation, and enjoyed watching it; I agree it was fairly even-handed.
The experiencers’ narratives were open-minded; virtually all were non-English-speaking cases that had never made it to the English-speaking world – until now. But the same polarised views came from the “experts” who were interviewed: all in your perfectly isolated brain, or something leaves the body.
I enjoyed the filmmakers’ concentration on the many reports by experiencers of knowing third parties private thoughts, like Julie from Toulouse, who knew her brother’s unspoken thoughts at her bedside:
“I’ll drag you by the scruff of your neck if I have to – but you’re coming home.”
Or Amira from Tunisia, who knew that a woman in the room opposite was in pain. Or Catherine, who mentally asked her comatose partner to marry her, which she suggests he seemed to know about. Or Karinne (sp?), who knew the cold/stoic thoughts, feelings, and actions of her attacker.
Other interesting titbits were: Steven Laureys mentioning a Russian database of near-death experiences he has access to, where 50% of cases were distressing. A French hypothermic study which recorded zero experiences – suggesting brain function, but not normal function, *is* required. Julie, who saw her still-living great-grandmother in her otherworldly NDE – not just the dead. And Anna Siboni’s puzzling testimony of a congenitally blind patient under her care seeing colours during the veridical OBE, which doesn’t fit the evidence we already have… so I was a little stumped at that one…
I thought the pseudo-skeptic’s suggestion that they would change their mind with the right data was disingenuous. They all had access to ‘Jaytee’ the dog whilst he was alive, whose behaviour altered when his owner, Pam, was on her way home.
And as one would imagine for secular France… obvious religious interpretations really didn’t appear.
The Iranian TV program discussing, and investigating these issues was… quite a shock to me… I’d like to find out more about that, and when they started broadcasting such investigations.
Yes, I was surprised at Iranian TV being like that.
On the hypothermic issue, my thinking is different. I believe that what is happening in modern hypothermic techniques is that the way the body is bought into a state of medical death does not trigger the disinhibition pathway that Parnia describes…or “the brain packing its bags and leaving”. Just my thoughts on this.
ah… I see every episode of this TV program is on Youtube…
https://www.youtube.com/@Life_After_Life/videos
and they seem to be going back to the location of the OBE, with the experient blindfolded, and totally verifying the information… OMG!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym41GJd1e2o
You can grab the transcript for each video, and then translate it into English.
It was very compelling for me.
OK WordPress is blocking everything I’m trying to post…
But if you go to youtube, and enter:
‘ zendegi pas az zendegi ‘
You can view all these Iranian OBE TV episodes – 6 years worth! It’s apparently a hit TV show in Iran.
Youtube won’t allow Auto Translate. But you can grab the transcript in Iranian, then translate it into English with the timestamps, so you can read what they are saying at any point in the video.
The video I’m just randomly watching – broadcast 3 weeks ago (can’t link directly to it… ( but the ? v = Ym41GJd1e2o ) they have blindfolded the experient, and taken him back to the location of his out of body experience in the morgue, and they are verifying everything… OMG! That’s quite bizarre to watch…
This was something I was curious to hear about from you Mr. Wedgewood. In your personal opinion, what OBE or NDE do you find to the most challenging or hardest to explain for the materialist position up to this point in time?
There are a lot. The dusty 1985 quarter on top of the cabinet. The two serial number cases. Dr Rudy’s. Maria’s shoe. The list goes on. For me the most compelling were two people I actually knew…my father and a girlfriend I once. I had no reason at all to disbelieve them.
Those certainly are compelling examples, Dr. Wedgwood.
By the way, I find this WordPress quite confusing. If you can illuminate me on how to edit my posts and explain why I can reply to some posts, but not to others, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
You and me both. I hate it, but haven’t got the time or money to figure out how to fix it.
Dr. Wedgwood, my memory is failing me. I’m sure that you stated in a post at some point what kind of doctor you are, but I just can’t recall. Could you please tell me? Also, are you in Britain or in the States? For some reason, I have the impression that it is the former, rather than the latter.
Did you first become interested in NDEs because your father and your girlfriend had had this experience? Thank you.
Ph.D. organic chemistry, making and designing drugs. Now I work in medical science with preclinical science and clinical trials. I’ve lived in the UK, Canada, the US and now in New Zealand…British by descent. I first became interested because my father had one. I later dated a girl who’d had one. Both were very private about their experiences due to people’s scepticism…even family members.
Thanks so much for this information on your training and career. It sounds like you have done quite a bit in the field. You’re better off being in New Zealand now than in the U.S. with our very unfortunate political situation — sad to say. As for NDE experiences, it happens that I spoke briefly to a musician recently who said that he is sure that he had such an experience as an infant. That certainly struck me as unusual, since people usually can’t recall memories of events from such an early age.
https://youtu.be/Dm8GAwX7SrA?is=1Hlk9cQUl_HdVQ9O. Here’s à recent interview with Pim Van Lommel from the international association of near death studies or IANDS for short. Their website is http://www.iands.org
To what video are you referring? This link just gets me to a message about “paying members” getting access to more services, and after that I see a video advertised about Richard Feynman commenting on God as he was dying — and that looks to be AI quackery.
I think I had a similar idea about recording a video of the operating room as well. One draw back I see is that it may create some complications with patient confidentiality but I don’t know enough about that to say that definitively. The Rosetta study also sounds interesting. I think there were quite a few cases where patients were able to observe events happening to their loved ones.
Im looking forward to more from Sam Parnia. Haven’t heard anything from him in a while