Into the Light: Real Life Stories About Angelic Visits, Visions of the Afterlife, and Other Pre-Death Experiences

Great gift for someone who lost a loved one. I loved the comfort it provided me when I lost my husband.

Good reading and info on patients experience during near death. Thought some of the authors views were that he felt everyone was going to Heaven but my uncle had near death experience and survived and he professed to have visited Hell and it is real. Glad he made it back and it changed his life.

In browsing through some book suggestions on topics like "Near Death Experience" and "Life After Death" I was led to this book by Dr. John Lerma, and his second book, "Learning From The Light". They sounded interesting - a nationally respected hospice physician tells his accounts of deathbed experiences of angelic communication and out of body experiences. Having never heard of this author before I set the bar very low on my expectations.After reading these books I am pleased to share that I thoroughly enjoyed them both. I do not mean to boast but I am very well read in this area and have a library of hundreds of books on similar topics. I found Dr. Lerma to be honest, empathetic and professional. His experiences with his patients and their profound experiences have clearly shaken the foundations of his secular training.Dr. Lerma keeps the stories simple, without need for a lot of digression on his part. In large measure he communicates his patients experience, how it appeared to change them mentally, physically and spiritually and in turn how it affected both he and his staff. Most important and appreciated however is the information conveyed by his patients, either directly from angelic visitors and deceased relatives or from the experience of the patients in reconciling their experiences with their previous conceptions of life and what it is all about. These patients seem to calmly and sometimes even excitedly anticipate their impending death following the amazing experiences they have had.These books are just a simple collections of experiences by an open minded physician and his staff. These experiences have clearly changed their lives for the better in deep and powerful ways. Considering that the doctor and his staff regularly, on a day to day basis, deal with the death of people they have come to know and love, especially so many children, I find these stories and their implications both compelling and important. I highly recommended this book and "Learning From The Light" to anyone looking to find inspiration about life, death and meaning for everything that happens in between.

This account of visitations by angels and/or deceased relatives days or weeks prior to death is quite remarkable and very moving.I nevertheless have a few negative comments. Dr. Lerma sometimes emphasizes that he is a scientist, but as a neuroscientist myself I found several of his comments rather imprecise (e.g. on p.196). Also, I wondered about the selection of the patients: he mentions on p.227 that he interviewed more than 500 of them, so were the 16 described in the book typical, or were they selected as outstanding cases? I was also puzzled by apparent contradictions. On the whole the angels seem to be beings of light without wings, but in chapter 5 they have feathers and one left a large 8-10 inch feather that later shrank magically and finally disappeared. I find this hard to believe. I also think it is a pity there was no attempt to document independent witnesses of the same patients.But ultimately these problems may not matter much, because there seems to be sufficient independent evidence for such visitations. In the short final chapter Dr. Lerma mentions previous reports that broadly match his own, including a 1926 book by Sir William Barrett, a Dublin physics professor, and another in 1977 by Dr. Karlis Osis. I find it remarkable that there was good agreement on the overall percentages of visitations between the surveys of Osis (1961: 80%) and Lerma (2005: 75%). I find it quite amazing that so many people have visitations. Can it all be explained away as delusions due to brain disturbances at death? I'm still not sure, but the evidence mentioned (e.g. lack of correlations with fever and death) goes against this. Moreover, the sheer loftiness of some of the patients' accounts (e.g. 9 year old Matthew in chapter 1) seems hard to explain by brain dysfunction.I'm glad I bought and read this book.

Death certainly helps one to ruthlessly clarify their priorities. In the face of death, worldly distractions rapidly melt away and we get deep very quickly. Dr. Lerma does an excellent job of maintaining some objective and scientific perspective while he still affirms each patient's unique dying experience, and does not filter out what is most real to the patient, and what is most educational for those of us left here amidst the world's continued distractions in daily life. Dr. Lerma honestly acknowledges his own beliefs, yet does not impose those on anyone. He listens. He listens well. And he tells the patient's stories - not his own. Yet, he brings the science of our world into the very spiritual process of death.One must read it with open heart and open mind, or find it difficult to rise above the weight of the concrete logic that rejects all things spiritual. Dr. Lerma does not force it - only relays the messages to us in a very professional manner. And it is clear that he judges no one - not even those who do not believe. He knows that we will each get to our own dying experience soon enough. Thank you Dr. Lerma for bringing to light, the truly enlightening experiences of all these patients. And thanks to the patients for sharing.

I could not put this book down. Make sure you have a box of tissues with you because it will move you to tears. It is so comforting to hear about what happens when we transition into our spirit form. It actually takes the fear out of dying. I have a friend that has been dealing with cancer and other ailments and has come close to death several times. She LOVES this book and has read it several times.

Very comforting to have these experiences shared. I defiantly would recommend this book to anyone of any religious or non religious beliefs

This book is fab, and my guess is people buy it as we know we are all going to die (not a nice prospect for any of us!! BUT some of the critical views on this book is ludicrous, can we honestly say that what was written in this book is not true? how do we know, were we there to witness it? NO. The problem is even if some people seen it for themselves, they still find it hard to comprehend and believe it! Even Jesus had a hard time convincing others of the miracles he performed, yet people still disbelieved even though they were present at the witnessing of what was actually taking place. The trouble is some people cannot see any further than thier own noses, they find it hard to do a good turn for anyone, or even take the time to say thank you! BECAUSE THEY DON,T WANT TO!! as they have the free will to choose not to. So a book like this seems like a fairy tale, too absurd to be true, so they would rather be a doubting thomas!! It would be interesting to know how many people faced with death would only be too glad to have a glimpse of an angel and someone as compassionate as john lerma to take care of them, as believe me some of the staff today in the hospitals should,t be caring for a hamster as they have no empathy or compassion for anyone they just see them as a number, believe me i,ve witnessed it and it is VERY REAL!!!

Dr Lerma, really loves himself, he writes up about what his patients have experienced, but adds that either the patient or an Angel tells how wonderful Dr Lerma is!!!. this book is more about the self gratification of Dr Lerma. I'm sure that reading between his "Look at me I'm wonderful", Dr Lerma actually did write some truth, and I read to the end, only for that, so that I could read through the (gratifying) lines.

This book is a great read, what should be noted is that ignorant people wount ever understand anything and will always divert to other forms of explanations. This book should be highly appreciated as it from both ends of the spectrum, God and science.

I returned this as I couldn’t get into the style of writing or the author’s personal biases. There are much better books dealing with this topic which reflect the underlying human universality of this phenomemon and it’s message.

I found this book fascinating and extremely thought-provoking as I try to keep an open mind about such subjects but the similarityof different people's experiences is fairly convincing.