Some Accounts of Out-of-Body Experiences

 Using the search link below, you can search for references to particular topics that appeared in the British publication Psychic News.  

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2939726

Below are some interesting accounts that I got after searching for the phrase "out-of-body," as in "out-of-body experiences." (It worked much better to type the phrase in quotation marks rather than without them.) 

• A researcher who sent out a survey asking people if they had an out-of-body experience was surprised to find that 70 out of 110 people reporting such experiences reported them occurring more than once (link). 
• Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (a leading researcher on death) reported that she had a spontaneous out-of-body experience after one of her exhausting five-day seminars (link). 
• A woman who had been blind from birth had an out-of-body experience during surgery, and after the surgery was able to report details of the operation that should have been unknown to her (link, link). 
• A patient who had an out-of-body experience during a dental operation reported seeing two pennies on top of a high shelf while the patient floated above her body. The dentist got a ladder, and found that the two pennies were really there (link). 
• An actor named Richard Squires reported that while doing a frantic dance while playing a role on stage, he suddenly had an out-of-body experience, and began viewing the audience from high above them, from what is known in the theater as the rafters (link). 
• Anthony Chamberlaine-Brothers reported having a similar out-of-body experience during his acting performance, with an additional twist making the story more interesting (link). 
• Marcel Picard reported having an out-of-body experience in which he floated above his body, eventually reaching other apartments below his (link). 
• A retired army major named Derek Scull reported having two out-of-body experiences in which he viewed his body from outside of it (link). 
•  Barbara Lambert said that during a difficult labor she floated out of her body to the ceiling, and saw her body from above, temporarily thinking that the body below her was her twin sister (link). 
• A person being viciously beaten by the Nazis reportedly had an out-of-body experience in which he returned to his home, only to see his wife cavorting there with another man (link). 
• A man having an out-of-body experience said that he felt more alive than ever before (link). 
• A woman (W.H. Westley) said that at her son's funeral her heart fluttered, and she found herself high above the funeral attendees, addressed by the very son who had died (link). 
• Arthur Sanders said he had an out-of-body experience during an operation. He says he felt himself "floating up, away from my  body," and then found himself in an open landscape, glittering with light (link). 
• Ami Greenstead suffered from a rare illness causing many fainting experiences, but reported to her mother that she had out-of-body experiences during such events, going up to the ceiling and observing her body from above (link). 
• Bryce Bond reports that when hospitalized from an allergic reaction, he rose up out of his body to the ceiling, before traveling through a dark tunnel, and meeting a dead relative he recognized (link). 
• Psychologist E. E. Bernard claims to have left his body, and says he verified the accuracy of details given by someone reporting an out-of-body experience to a place he had never been (link). 
• A wheelchair-bound young celebrity reported out-of-body experiences that may involve traveling far away from her body (link). 
• A nurse claimed that three different times she had an out-of-body experience when one of her patients was dying, saying that she kind of mystically traveled with them towards some otherworldly destination, before being told she must go back (link).
• Dick Battista reported floating above the operating table during a transplant operation and watching the surgeons do their work (link). 
• The well-known movie actress Gloria Swanson reported an out-of-body experience (link). 
• A road accident victim recalled separating from his body and watching from a distance as medical workers tried to revive him (link). 
• While suffering a pulmonary embolism and days of unconsciousness in a hospital, Alan Cheek reported having an out-of-body experience in which he first saw medical workers working on his body and then encountered seeing his dead father and mother (link). 
• Jason Winters reported that during an operation "I was aware that I had left my body," and found himself on a misty bridge before turning back (link). 
• Soosie Holbeche reported that during a Caesarean section operation she found herself looking down on her body, feeling as if she had taken a dress off, later passing through a tunnel and having an expansion of consciousness before returning to her body (link, link). 
• Olivia Robertson reported having an out-of-body experience that included a "long, long tunnel" and an encounter with her deceased mother (link). 
• Young Kanta Smith reported an out-of-body experience while "dead" for 15 minutes before being revived. She described meeting a grandfather she had never even seen in a photo, and a parent says the description matched that of the grandfather (link). 
• Stefan von Jankovich reported having an out-of-body experience during a car accident in which his heart stopped for six minutes. He reports floating out of his body, having a great feeling of peace, seeing accident bystanders and even reading their thoughts, hearing someone claim  it was too late and that Stefan was dead,  hearing heavenly music and having a life review in reverse order (link). 
• Tommy Clack reported having an out-of-body experience when his legs and one of his arms were blown off during the Vietnam war. He reported looking down on his body as people gathered it for medical evacuation, and also reported communicating with soldiers who had died (link). 
• Virginia Falce reported having an out-of-body experience as doctors were massaging her heart for three minutes, trying to revive her. She reported "I felt this absolute sense of love and peace embracing me, pulling me from somewhere. I looked over and could see it was coming from a glowing circle of light." 
• German government official Annamarie Renger reported leaving her body, and said that when she returned, it was like passing through a small tube (link). 
• Marjorie Hall reported that she had an out-of-body experience during childbirth. She says, "I felt myself lift out of my body and float upward, " She reported seeing from above her body giving birth, at a height about 15 feet (about five meters) above the scene (link). 
• A student claiming out-of-body experiences reportedly described correctly the home of her professor, which she had never physically seen, but claimed to have visited in an out-of-body experience (link). 

On page 77 of the February, 1926 edition of The International Psychic Gazette, we have an article by William A. Reid entitled "Out of the Body." He describes out-of-body experiences by himself and others, some of which may be near-death experiences. Below are some excerpts:

"I would confine my attention to the claim made by living persons that they have been out of the body. Mr. Oaten, the respected Editor of The Two Worlds, in the issue of his paper for January 1st, 1926, writes, ' I remember seeing my body on that bed, and saying to myself, " That left arm will be stiff and sore when I wake up." '  Then he describes what he saw—green fields, wonderful flowers, etc...There is a very large number of good solid folks, still in the flesh, who assert that they have been out of their bodies, and say that they saw their bodies in full consciousness and came back to reoccupy them. They have no story to tell of wonderful spirit journeys and experiences, as in the above instances. They merely assert that they saw their own bodies. I have had this simple experience ; and give it largely because of its unpretentiousness....I was fully awake. I looked down on my body, and felt tremendously elated. I should not describe the feeling as ecstasy or rapture ; it was rather that of joy and intense satisfaction. I was in no sense carried away by the feeling. I thought I was dead, and said to myself, ' Well, it’s all over, and I’m very glad.' Now I know that some will find fault with me for, so to speak, entering the Other World with a jest in my heart; but so it was. I seem to have become startled almost at once, for the next thing I felt was re-entering my body, gasping and panting and coughing. I thought I should have choked; but gradually the trouble subsided. Now this experience not only gave me the satisfactory proof that I am a spirit living in a body, but also that when the spirit leaves the body it experiences an exhilaration and uplift."

Those having an out-of-body experience may report being up near the ceiling....

        ...or a journey to some mystical realm 

When Abiogenesis-Related Experiments Fail Dismally, the Science Press Hails Them as Glorious Successes

 For 70 years people have been told one of the most outrageous fictions of materialism: the groundless claim that lightning did something to "jump-start" life. This fairy tale began when the Miller-Urey experiment occurred.  Using a very specially constructed glass apparatus bearing no resemblance to anything that would have existed in the early Earth, an apparatus they filled with gases that did not match the atmosphere of the early Earth, Miller and Urey subjected the gases to intense levels of lightning-like electrical bombardment vastly greater than any part of Earth ever would have experienced billions of years ago.  Running this utterly unnatural contraption for a week, they succeeded in producing some amino acids, which are some of the components of proteins. 

Because of its utterly unnatural arrangement, the experiment did nothing to support the idea of abiogenesis, the idea that life can naturally arise from non-life. But materialists began hailing the Miller-Urey experiment as some great breakthrough showing that lightning could produce what they called "building blocks of life."  For the next seventy years, the science press told us the groundless fiction that the Miller-Urey experiment did something to show that lightning could have produced "building blocks of life."  The lies about the Miller-Urey experiment continued full blast, for many years after scientists reached a consensus that the early Earth had an atmosphere vastly different from the gases used in the Miller-Urey experiment.  That's how things go in the ideology-entangled world of science literature. When stories seem to provide useful talking points that help bolster some cherished dogma of scientists, the stories just keep being told year after year,  no matter how clearly the stories have been debunked. 

Recently the science press gave us additional evidence that it has no credibility when writing on topics related to the origin of life. Harvard researchers did an experiment trying to see what chemicals might arise from lightning strikes in the early Earth. The experiment was a dismal failure, failing to produce even one of the amino acids produced by the Miller-Urey experiment. The experiment produced no chemicals that are any type of building block of life, and produced only outputs very, very slightly more complex than its inputs. But the science press reported this failure as glorious evidence that lightning can jump-start the origin of life. 

The experiment is described in the paper "Mimicking lightning-induced electrochemistry on the early Earth." The paper is behind a paywall, but in a case like this you can very safely assume that the best results are described in the paper's abstract, which you can read here. The abstract states this:

"To test the hypothesis that an abiotic Earth and its inert atmosphere could form chemically reactive carbon- and nitrogen-containing compounds, we designed a plasma electrochemical setup to mimic lightning-induced electrochemistry under steady-state conditions of the early Earth. Air-gap electrochemical reactions at air–water–ground interfaces lead to remarkable yields, with up to 40 moles of carbon dioxide being reduced into carbon monoxide and formic acid, and 3 moles of gaseous nitrogen being fixed into nitrate, nitrite, and ammonium ions, per mole of transmitted electrons. Interfaces enable reactants (e.g., minerals) that may have been on land, in lakes, and in oceans to participate in radical and redox reactions, leading to higher yields compared to gas-phase-only reactions. Cloud-to-ground lightning strikes could have generated high concentrations of reactive molecules locally, establishing diverse feedstocks for early life to emerge and survive globally."

Don't be fooled by that last sentence, which is actually an indication of failure. When people doing origin-of-life experiments fail to produce anything interesting, they lamely appeal to "feedstocks," a term meaning raw material. The result described above is a failure to produce anything that encourages the idea that life could have arisen naturally from non-life.  We have no mention of the production of any amino acid, and the authors surely would have reported such a production in their abstract if any amino acids had been produced. We have no mention of anything other than the simplest chemicals. 

The "formic acid" referred to is a very simple five-atom chemical with a formula of CH202. The "nitrate" referred to is a very simple chemical with a formula of N03. The "nitrite" referred  to is a very simple chemical with a formula of N02. The "ammonium" referred  to is a very simple chemical with a formula of NH4. We can contrast these chemicals (each having five atoms or fewer) with amino acids. There are twenty types of amino acids used by living things. The simplest (glycine) has ten atoms, and has a formula of C2H5N02. The most complex amino acid (tryptophan) has a formula of C11H12N202, and has a total of 27 atoms.

So the experiment mentioned failed to produce any of the simplest components of living things, failing to produce any amino acids.  But how did the science press describe this failure? With utterly misleading headlines or with articles containing false claims about what the experiment produced. Newsweek gave us a phony headline of "Scientists Explain How Lightning May Have Kick-Started Life on Earth," along with the false claim that "a new study suggests that cloud-to-ground lightning might have been key in creating the building blocks essential for life on Earth from nitrogen and carbon."  Similarly, www.phys.org gave us an equally bogus headline of "Study suggests cloud-to-ground lightning strikes may have generated building blocks for life on Earth." An article on the experiment at www.space.com tells us the experiment "performed an updated version of the Urey-Miller experiment" and tells us incorrectly that the experiment "created the right building blocks for life." None of the chemicals yielded by the experiment can truthfully be called building blocks of life.  Even the simplest one-celled life is a state of enormous complexity requiring a very special arrangement of more than 100,000 atoms. The experiment produced only outputs very, very slightly more complex than its inputs.

None of the press stories on this experiment gave us the truth here: that the latest experiment trying to produce results like that of the Miller-Urey experiment has in fact completely failed to produce any of the amino acids produced by that experiment. The performance of science journalists in covering the "Mimicking lightning-induced electrochemistry on the early Earth" paper has been appalling. We are left with the impression of science journalists acting as the most careless cheerleaders. Their dismal performance was similar to their recent handling of a NASA announcement about a rock discovered on Mars.  There was zero evidence provided that the rock was any sign of life, but the science press parroted the groundless "potential sign of life" storyline, one that seemed to have been created to help drum up funding for a floundering Mars sample return mission. The failure to discover any amino acids on Mars makes the claim of "potential sign of life" unbelievable. 

The past seventy years of literature about origin-of-life research has been a literature filled with deceit and misleading statements. Never has so much boasting and hype been written by so many when the results were so minimal and meager. 

Next year's science headline?

Postscript: What I have documented above is science journalists following a senseless rule of "when an experiment fails, it can be reported as a glorious success." Another recent science news story provides evidence of a science journalist following an equally senseless rule, a rule of "when scientists speculate about something never observed, that can be reported as a discovery." The story discussed the groundless speculation that some other universe is influencing the expansion of our universe. The article had the headline "Scientists discover mysterious 'twin' could be behind rapid expansion of the universe." A groundless speculation about a never-observed mysterious "twin" of our universe is reported as a "discovery."

The Latest Geneticist Bunk About the Human Genome

The popular American English expression or meme "you had one job" or "you had only one job" refers to examples of incompetence when someone has a relatively simple task to do. For example, if you hire someone to paint a wall in your house, and he gets paint all over your floor because he failed to use a drop cloth to protect the floor,  you might cringe at such incompetence and say, "You had only one job!" We can use such an expression to describe the misrepresentations of geneticists in describing DNA and the genes in it. 

Ever since the Human Genome Project was completed around 2001, and the contents of human DNA and genes have been well-mapped,  it's pretty much been something like a "you have one job" situation for geneticists, the scientists who specialize in studying genes and DNA.  That job is for them to correctly inform the public about what DNA and its genes are.  At this simple job our geneticists have failed time and time again. Over and over again geneticists have told us the most outrageous fictions about what DNA and its genes are. 

Some of these fictions are described in a new science paper that itself is guilty of giving us baloney about DNA.  The paper is entitled "The Genomic Code: The genome instantiates a generative model of the organism." The title itself makes a bunk claim. The human genome is not any model of a human body or any of its organs or cells, and the human genome (DNA) is not any specification of how to make a human body. Nor is the genome a "generative model," which is a type of advanced high-tech software utterly unlike the genome. 

The paper starts out fumbling by asking, "How does the genome encode the form of the organism?" There has never been any evidence that the genome encodes the form of the organism. When biologists start out their papers asking questions such as this, they are acting as foolishly as when they start out papers by asking, "How does the brain create the mind?" There is no proof that the brain creates the mind, and there are very many weighty reasons for thinking that the brain cannot possibly be the source of the human mind. Similarly, there are many weighty reasons for thinking that the genome cannot possibly encode the form or structure of an organism. Just as nature never told us that brains make minds, nature never told us that genomes encode the structure of an organism. It was merely scientists who told us that the genome (DNA) encodes the structure of an organism, and scientists who told us that brains make minds. In both cases such scientists were making claims that were never warranted, claims contradicted by many facts. 

The main body of the paper starts out by giving us this very bad example of non sequitur reasoning, stating this:

"Cats have kittens and dogs have puppies. This is despite, in each case, new individuals starting out as a single, undifferentiated cell – the fertilised egg, or zygote. The complex form of the parents is thus not transmitted to their offspring – instead, it must be reconstructed in each new individual. Clearly then, the zygotes of cats and dogs must contain some substance – the genetic material – that is inherited from the parents, which somehow directs the development of the growing organism so as to produce a new token of the feline or canine type. The question is: how? What is the nature of this genomic encoding of form?"

No, the fact that dogs have puppies and cats have kittens absolutely does not provide any warrant for the claim that "the zygotes of cats and dogs must contain some substance – the genetic material – that is inherited from the parents, which somehow directs the development of the growing organism so as to produce a new token of the feline or canine type." Such a claim cannot be justified by any a priori armchair arguments, but could only be justified by the discovery of something in the genome that consists of such incredibly complex instructions. Nothing like any such instructions have ever been found in any genome or DNA or in any genes.  All that exists in DNA (the genome) is low-level chemical information, not high-level information such as how to construct anatomical structures, or how to build cells or any of the organelles that make up cells. 

Before introducing its groundless and silly claim that a genome (DNA) is a type of AI technology called a "generative model," the paper describes how previous claims about the genome (DNA) were untrue. We read this:

"Over the years, various metaphors have been used to conceptualise the nature of what we will call the genomic code – i.e., how the genome specifies the form of an organism (Keller 2020; Nijhout 1990). These include, among others, a codescript (Schrödinger 1944), blueprint (Plomin 2018), program (Keller 1999; Peluffo 2015), recipe (Mitchell 2018), or resource that the developing organism can draw on (Oyama 2000). One of the most enduring of these, especially common in popular science treatments, is the idea that the genome constitutes a 'blueprint'  of the organism (e.g., Plomin 2018). This metaphor conveys the idea of a detailed but miniaturised plan that can in some way be referred to, in order to direct the development or construction of a pre-specified final product."

Noting "the metaphor quickly falls down in several ways," the next paragraph starts to explain why the blueprint metaphor is inappropriate, but does a very bad job of doing so. A much clearer explanation would go something like this:

(1) Blueprints contain images of how the final output of some construction process should look, but nothing like any such images or specifications are found in the genome (DNA). 

(2) Blueprints specify the appearance of particular visible parts and the physical arrangement of such parts within a complex architectural structure, but there is no such specification to be found in the genome (DNA). 

The paper then tells us how claims were made since at least 1961 that the genome (DNA) is a "program" for making a human body. We read this discussion of why such a metaphor is inappropriate:

"The word 'program' also carries some unsupported connotations. Regarding the means by which the steps of development are encoded, 'program' is in modern times also defined as: “a series of coded software instructions to control the operation of a computer or other machine” (Oxford Languages). The usage of the term 'genetic program' may thus seem to imply a regular, explicit, and interpretable set of instructions, logically laid out and executed in series. As with a blueprint, it can be taken as implying a kind of isomorphism, this time between elements of the genome and elements of the developmental program. Moreover, it again suggests a kind of algorithmic determinism, with all the details somehow spelled out in advance. Neither of these properties is observed."

The genome (DNA) is in no sense a program for producing anatomical structures. DNA does not have a series of instructions to be executed to make a human body or any of its organs or cells. 

The paper then discusses the metaphor that the genome (DNA) is a recipe for making a human body, giving us some weak criticism (such as a criticism of vagueness) that fails to explain what a huge lie it always was to claim that DNA is a recipe for making a human. We hear nothing of the main reasons why such a claim is deceptive, such as the fact that recipes are only simple one-page instructions that only specify how to make very simple non-living things such as salads, soups and cakes, with human bodies being states of internally dynamic organization 1,000,000,000,000 times more complex than what is produced by recipes.  The famous biologists who told us that DNA is a recipe for making a human were therefore huge liars telling us a lie as outrageous as the claim that a tricycle is an interstellar starship. 

There are two types of recipes:

(1) A recipe may specify how to make a completely unorganized thing such as a soup, salad or drink. Referring to that type of recipe, the human genome (DNA) cannot be called a recipe for making a human body, as the human body is something enormously organized, with  many levels of very complex organization. 

(2) Other types of recipes may specify exactly how to position things when creating an ordered structure (for example, a recipe for making a 3-layer chocolate cake may specify how to make the layers, how to position the layers, how to separate them with frosting, and how to cover the layers with frosting and put pieces of chocolate and marshmallow on the top). That type of recipe includes specifications of the positions of particular items to achieve the final structure; and the human genome (DNA) has no such specifications, not doing anything to specify either the structure of a human body or the structure of any cell. 

Although the genome might be crudely compared to a chef's shopping list of food ingredients, the genome cannot truthfully be described as a recipe for making a human body or any of its organs or cells. 

Having discussed some of the big fictions that biologists and geneticists have told about DNA, the paper co-authored by a geneticist then gives us the latest in the long series of scientist bunk statements  about DNA: a silly claim that DNA is a "generative model of the organism." DNA is not actually any type of model of a human being, and is certainly not the type of hi-tech software model that is called a "generative model."

The term "generative model" refers to so-called "artificial intelligence" software systems that are able to train on a large body of supplied examples, and provide two-dimensional output like the examples.  So, for example, you might have a "generative model" for making pictures of dogs. You might train the "generative model" by giving it 10,000 photos of dogs, telling the model that those were dogs, as well as 10,000 photos that were not dogs, telling the model that those photos were not photos of dogs. You might then ask the model to generate a picture of dog, and the model might be able to generate a flat two-dimensional image, something looking rather like a dog.  Such a "generative model" typically requires an advanced type of software facility called a "neural net."  Nothing like that exists in the genome or even in any cell of the body. Even the human brain is not at all a "neural net" as that term is used by software designers, because a software "neural net" involves various things and characteristics not found in the brain. 

The paper then gives paragraph after paragraph of gobbledygook trying to draw some similarity between genomes and the "generative models" of AI systems, with the result sounding like someone trying to argue that his tricycle is really like an interstellar spaceship. Don't be fooled by all the digressions and jargon. The human genome bears no resemblance to the "generative models" AI systems use nowadays.

The "generative models" used by AI systems produce outputs such as two-dimensional images that fit on a particular computer screen. They do not produce complex three-dimensional structures. There is not an AI "generative model" in existence that can produce very complex tangible three-dimensional objects after training on examples of such objects. If such AI software is ever developed, it would have to have very complex hi-tech features unlike anything found in the genome (DNA). Today's most widely-used generative models require huge server farms taking up very many times more space than a human body. 

All that we have in the new paper is the latest in a series of bunk statements geneticists have made while describing genomes.  Always be very suspicious when biologists offer any type of analogy, and be particularly suspicion when a biologist offers any analogy regarding either evolution or DNA. There is a very long trail of profoundly misleading analogies made by biologists about DNA, and an equally long trail of profoundly misleading analogies made by biologists about evolution. 

An imaginary conversation

What would we find if we looked at the programming code for some "generative model" used by a software company? We would find code making abundant use of the conveniences and language constructs of modern programming systems: things such as if/then logic, "for" loops, "do while" loops, switch statements, function calls, C++-style classes, instantiation, variable assignment, numerical return values of functions, and so forth. No such things exist in DNA, which consists of simple lists of chemicals. So DNA cannot possibly be a "generative model" like that used in AI systems.  The web page here shows some Python code for a generative model. We see function calls, parameter passing, for loops, if statements, variable assignment, object-oriented classes and various other aspects of software programming unlike anything found in the human genome (DNA and its genes). 

A generative model is a type of computer program, as shown in the link above, which lists the code for a Python computer program that is a generative model. Very strangely, the paper authors have first spoken against the claim that the genome is a program, and have then given a type of computer program as what they think is a good description of the genome. That's as goofy as someone saying, "Of course, my skateboard isn't an automobile; it's a Cadillac," as if he didn't know that a Cadillac is a type of automobile. 

The outputs of "generative models" like those used to make the image below are static two-dimensional things such as images. A human body is something vastly different: a three-dimensional structure in which there occurs constantly the most complex fine-tuned dynamic activity. The ongoing marvels of fantastically complicated human biochemistry and the continual construction of protein complexes and vastly complicated cells are some of the reasons why a human body is a far more complex and fine-tuned reality than a 747 jet.  A corporation knows how to construct 747 jets, but there is not a nation or corporation in the world that could construct a living human body from raw materials.   "Generative models" like those used in AI systems typically produce their outputs instantly, which bears no  resemblance to the construction of a human body, which requires nine months and then continues for years as a baby grows to an adult.  

Two of the words most misused by scientists are the words "plausible" and "model." Scientists very frequently use the word "plausible" to describe scenarios ranging from likely to unlikely to all-but-impossible to downright impossible. The word "plausible" is used so carelessly and "at the drop of a hat" in scientific papers that it means basically nothing when a scientific paper calls something "plausible." Scientific papers misuse the term "model" just as frequently. The term is very often used for the vaguest hand-waving, to try and make vacuous verbiage sound more substantial. 

The dictionary defines a model as "a three-dimensional representation of a person or thing or of a proposed structure, typically on a smaller scale than the original." The genome is no such model of a human body or any of its cells or organelles or protein complexes. There are also mathematical models, which are centered around equations. The genome doesn't have any equations, and does not have any math. The genome is not a model of the human body or any of its organs or cells. DNA specifies which amino acids make up a protein, but does not even specify the complex three-dimensional shape of a protein molecule. How such shapes arise is the unsolved mystery called the protein folding problem. DNA is an inert molecule containing only very low-level chemical information, so spinning grand fictions about it is rather like saying your broomstick is a transatlantic crossing device. 

Why do geneticists keep making glaring misstatements about DNA? It's largely because they don't want to face the shocking truth: that a speck-sized human zygote somehow progresses to become the enormous state of organization and vastly fine-tuned dynamism that is the human body, without having any set of bodily instructions for how to organize anything bigger than a protein molecule. If they realized this shocking truth, they might be on the doorstep of understanding the folly of all bottom-up explanations for the origin of human bodies and human minds. 

Postscript: Two other scientists say this:

"We see no valid use for definitions of the genotype

and phenotype in terms of blueprints, programs, or

sets of instructions, and their realizations or

manifestation....The program/manifestation metaphor is factually misleading, because it suggests that the genotype uniquely determines an organism’s phenotype. However, as is well known, all it does is specify an organism’s norm of reaction to environmental conditions (Rieger et al., 1991, Lewontin, 1992)."

More Early Accounts of Out-of-Body Experiences and Near-Death Experiences

In the January 1894 edition of the publication Borderland, page 257, George Wlyde M.D. states the following:

"It has been long known that persons who have been all but drowned, so as to appear actually dead, but who—it may be after hours of manipulation—have been restored to consciousness, have sometimes declared that the process of drowning, after the first struggle, was mot agonising, but actually pleasurable. These individuals have sometimes said that the entire history of their lives has flashed before them as if photographed instantaneously, and that then they have seemed to ascend to heavenly regions and celestial felicity."

Wlyde then gives us an account of his personal experience of having an out-of-body experience. 

"The same results have often followed the use of chloroform, and I myself, one day, in the year 1874, while inhaling chloroform as a relief to the agony of passing a small renal calculus, suddenly, to my great wonder, found my ego,  or soul, or reasoning faculty, clothed, and in the form of my body, standing about two yards outside my body, and contemplating that body as it lay motionless on the bed. "

On the next page, Wlyde states this: "Mr. Stodart, dentist, told me he had met with many analogous cases, and at the Dental Hospital they told me that the patients under gas often saw visions and spoke of being out of their bodies." On the same page we read of this striking case reported by a Mr. Duguid:

"My wife’s mother, Mrs. Arnot, left us for the higher existence on Feb. 5th, 1880. There is a married daughter living at Banchory, three miles from this town; Mrs. Arnot died at eleven o’clock in the forenoon. The married daughter was very ill in labour, and the doctors in attendance thought it wise to administer chloroform... She passed under the influence thereof at twelve o’clock, noon, and while doing so told all those present that her mother was dead, for she saw her, and that the baby was with her mother. No tidings of the mother’s death reached the daughter’s house till four o’clock in the afternoon, and on no account was she told after coming from under the influence of the chloroform. It is noteworthy that she spoke of having seen her babe in the spirit world as well as her mother, which was quite consistent with fact, as the infant died in the doctor’s hands, and was in the spirit world while the mother was still under the influence of chloroform."

1n 1932 Mary M. Schulz wrote an account entitled "One hour and five minutes in eternity."  She stated this on page 22 of the June 1932 Forum of Psychic and Science Research:

"Many have had experiences 'in eternity.' I spent one hour and five minutes in the world eternal, where there is no death. It was on Sunday night, January twenty fourth, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, that I transcended the mystery of the grave. I was greatly worried over a lawsuit in which I was involved and could not sleep. I had been praying to the great Invisible for help when suddenly a strange 'quiver' went over my body and the next instant I was standing looking at myself. Then I heard the voice of 'something' say, 'Let’s go'.  And yet I could see my body and also the body of a friend who was sleeping soundly. Suddenly I found myself floating in space accompanied by a spirit friend who had come for me. It was a thrilling journey filled with varieties of scenery and climates— storms, ice and cold, and then miraculously, warmth and sunshine. We were surrounded by hundreds of planets, as it were. The guide bade us stop at one in particular which he said was 'Mario'. Its inhabitants were very cordial to us and made us welcome. But it was not for us to linger there. Our chief destination was the plane which is really the clearing house for all souls released from earth life. It was there I gained conclusive evidence that while mourners weep and say goodby to the soul claimed by death, friends 'over there' are greeting us and us and welcoming our spirit to its new home where life is eternal....This 'place' was peopled with the departed of earth— our dear ones—-and everything was similar to the planet earth, except more beautiful. Everywhere I saw happy faces free from the lines of worry and money problems. From my friends I learned that when the end of our earth experience occurs, through what is known as death, certain of our spirit friends and guides are told and are commissioned to come for us."

A similar tale was told in 1929 by a person who claimed to have spent  "minutes in eternity" after having what felt like a heart attack. He states, "I know that for a limited time one night last year out in California my spiritual entity left my body and went somewhere -- a concrete place where I could talk, walk about, feel and see; where answers were returned to questions addressed to physically dead people, which have checked up in in the waking world and clarified for me the riddle of earthly existence." 

In 1897 William H. Hamby told an account of a near-death experience and out-of-body experience, at a time when such terms were not in common use.  On page 71 of the June-November 1897 Metaphysical Magazine (Volume 6),  Hamby states the following:

"Early in the evening I had started to return to our cabin, but. soon discovered that I had completely lost my bearings. I had been feeling very cold, but seemed to be perfectly comfortable when I sank down behind the tree to rest, before again trying to reach camp....Soon the world seemed slowly fading away. I could hear thousands of the merriest silver bells ringing away off in the forest. Nearer and nearer they came until they were all around me ringing in the strangest, wildest way. Then I began to rise and without feeling the least surprise glanced downward and saw my body sitting by the tree. I felt perfectly content and considered the circumstance a matter of course. Then suddenly and without effort I saw my companions two miles away hunting for me-and could hear them talking. Neither did this seem in the least strange; I was conscious of them without any special effort. I watched them-or thought of them rather-until they found my body, and heard one fellow say, ' He is frozen.' They rubbed and worked desperately with my body for some time. Then the other said- ' It's too late, I fear, but let's get him to the camp.'....I was placed on the bed. Again I heard one of them say: ' He's dead.'  'I hope not,' replied his companion; ' maybe we can bring him to.'  They piled snow all around me, built up a large fire and continued to rub my hands and face. After a little they forced my mouth open and poured some brandy down my throat. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning, followed by a moment of keen pain; then I knew no more. About three hours later I became conscious of being on a very wet bed, with two scared men still pulling and hauling at me."

On page 237 of the June-November 1897 Metaphysical Magazine (Volume 6),  we have a similar account by another author.  W. A. Laufman tells us this:

"My strange experience dates from about two years ago when I took sick in Mankato. . . . On December 26, at I I o'clock in the morning, the doctor pronounced me dead and my body was turned over to M. Maui's undertaking establishment for preparation for shipment. My brother, C. H. Laufman, of Des Moines, Ia., was telegraphed for and came on to take charge of my remains.  

On that fatal morning I was suddenly aware of an indescribable sensation, beginning at my feet and snapping clear through my frame and out at the top of my head. I was then conscious of something like a ball of cotton released and spreading out, in form the size of a man at least three feet taller than myself. I was standing in the centre of the room and plainly saw my dead body lying on the cot. I started to leave the room and met one of the doctors. I wondered that he did not say something to me, but as he made no effort to stop me I went out on the street. 

I walked down Fourteenth street to the corner toward California avenue, and there met an old acquaintance from Mitchell, S. D., named Milt Blose. I attempted to strike him on the back by way of salutation, but my arm passed right through him. I did not speak to him, but struck at him again with the same result. I utterly failed to attract his attention., although I followed him at least a block. I distinctly saw him walk across the street and gaze at a miniature Ferris wheel in a window." 

After leaving Blose I went up to the hospital to see the body. I found the door closed, but as I could see into the room I passed through the door and gazed at myself for a while. I then went out and found the doctors and heard them discussing my case. I hung around with them until the arrival of my brother. I went in with him and the doctors and watched his anguish as he looked at my dead face. He remained at the hospital that night, as it was very late, and I went into the room with him and watched until he fell asleep.

I was laid out dead exactly thirty-seven hours and fifty-eight minutes. I stayed around with the doctors and my brother during all of the time, and heard and remembered every word spoken by them. The doctors wanted to make a post-mortem examination, but my brother objected.

Of course, you want to know how I got back into my shell, and it happened in this way: One of the specialists wanted to try some experiment with a new electric apparatus. My brother consented to it, and I accompanied them to my deathbed to watch the operation. The instruments were attached to my feet, and I distinctly felt the sensation while standing out in the centre of the room. I was next conscious of excruciating pains all through me, and I knew I was in my body again."

The link below takes you to a 1972 story that appeared before Moody's 1975 book was published:

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2962401?solr%5Bquery

We get the account shown below (click on the image to read it more easily).

The headline in the story is "BOY 'CAME BACK FROM DEAD' SIX TIMES." We read this:

"At no stage was the boy in the presence of the doctors and nurse other than when he was in a deep coma or clinically dead...His father...told Litchfield: 'It was if he had been watching everything from afar, as if another world. He was aware of everything those doctors had done for him, without anyone telling him.' " 

It sounds like another case of a veridical near-death experience, like those described in my post here. 

A typical account in a near-death experience