A reader surveying near-death experiences in a collection of 24 interdisciplinary essays interpreting and debating the phenomenon. The selections examine the experience from biological, psychological, philosophical, and religious points of view, offering insights from people who have "gone into the light," visionary evaluations from Jung and von Franz, and neuroscientific estimations of what other authors consider a mystical experience. Lacks an index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR