At Heaven's Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better by William J. Peters

A groundbreaking, authoritative exploration rich with powerful personal stories and convincing research-of the many ways the living can and do accompany the dying on their journey into the afterlife.In 2000, end-of-life therapist William Peters was volunteering at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco when he had an extraordinary experience as he was reading aloud to a patient: he suddenly felt himself floating in midair, completely out of his body. The patient, who was also aloft, looked at him and smiled. The next moment, Peters felt himself return to his body...but the patient never regained consciousness and died. Perplexed and stunned by what had happened, Peters began searching for other people who'd shared similar experiences. He would spend the next twenty years gathering and meticulously categorizing their stories to identify key patterns and features of what is now known as the ""shared crossing"" experience. The similarities, which cut across continents and cultures and include awe-inspiring visual and sensory effects, and powerful emotional after-effects, were impossible to ignore. Long whispered about in the hospice and medical communities, these extraordinary moments of final passage are openly discussed and explained in At Heaven's Door.