Researcher Kenneth Ring
Kenneth Ring (born in 1935) is Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut. He is a highly regarded researcher in the field of near-death studies. Ring is the co-founder and past president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) and is the founding editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. He has published several near-death experience related books, including Life at Death (1980), Heading Toward Omega (1985), The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, UFO Encounters, and Mind at Large (1992/2012), Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind (1999), and his most well-known and celebrated NDE book, Lessons from the Light (2000).
Bruce Greyson on Kenneth Ring (from the Foreword of Lessons from The Light):
“If any one person can claim to be an authority on near-death experiences (NDEs) without having had one, that person must surely be Kenneth Ring. After Raymond Moody sowed the seeds of modern near-death research by coining the term ‘NDE’ in his 1975 ‘Life After Life,’ it was Ken who watered and nurtured them till they grew into a self-sustaining phenomenon. It was Ken who was the first president of that band of scattered researchers who formed the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) 20 years ago. It was Ken’s office at the University of Connecticut that housed the organizations volunteers, phones, and growing archives for its precarious first decade. And it was Ken who founded the only scholarly journal for near-death studies and organized symposia on NDEs at annual meetings of mainstream academic societies.
“If anyone has interviewed more NDErs than Ken — and I don’t know that anyone has — then surely no one has done it with the depth, open-mindedness, and insight as he. For many years, Ken’s home was known to experiencers across the country as ‘The Near-Death Hotel,’ where itinerant NDErs trying to rediscover their place in this world could and did ‘drop by’ and end up staying however long it took. And each one to whom Ken opened his home in return opened his or her heart and added to Ken’s growing comprehension of the true essence of the NDE. No other researcher has been able to meld the large-scale controlled study with the passionate friendships, the philosophical theories with the intuitive understandings, the command of the scholarly literature with the personal stories. And more importantly, no other researcher has been able to transmit to the rest of us the true meaning and impact of near-death phenomena for our planet.”
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Chapter 2 – The Golden Rule Dramatically Illustrated
The video that this chapter is based on is located here. In this video Kenneth Ring is interviewed by Jeffrey Mishlove. The excerpt featured in this chapter comes from an informative five-part video series. You can watch the complete interview here.
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Chapter 46 – Aftereffects – Kenneth Ring
The list of aftereffects in this chapter comes from Kenneth Ring’s best-selling book Lessons from The Light, which is widely regarded as one of the best, most comprehensive and authoritative books ever written on near-death experiences.
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Chapter 49 – Everything Changed
An excerpt from Kenneth Ring’s best-selling book Lessons from The Light.
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Chapter 65 – Experiencers Are Still Human
The quote in this chapter comes from Kenneth Ring’s best-selling book Lessons from The Light.
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Links:
• Kenneth Ring’s Website
• Kenneth Ring’s Blog
• Kenneth Ring on Wikipedia
• Kenneth Ring on Near-Death.com
• Near-Death and UFO Encounters as Shamanic Initiations
• University of Heaven: Dr. Kenneth Ring’s Page
• When A Jew Goes To Germany (pdf)
• Medium Hot (pdf)
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Contact:
To contact Ken, write: theuniversityofheaven@gmail.com
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Books:
Lessons from the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-Death Experience
By Kenneth Ring (Author), Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino (Author), Caroline Myss (Foreword)
2000
Amazon Description:
While providing many accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from men, women, and children of all ages and backgrounds, Lessons from the Light is much more than just an inspiring collection of NDEs. In Lessons near-death expert Kenneth Ring extracts the pure gold of the NDE and with a beautiful balance of sound research and human insight reveals the practical wisdom held within these experiences. As Stanley Krippner states, “In this remarkable book, Ring presents evidence that merely learning about the near-death experience has similar positive effects to those reported by people who actually have had near-death experiences. Kenneth Ring is one of the few authors whose gifts include the capacity to transform their readers’ lives.”
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Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind
By Kenneth Ring
1999
Amazon Description:
This book investigates the astonishing claim that blind persons, including those blind from birth, can actually “see” during near-death or out-of-body episodes. The authors present their findings in scrupulous detail, investigating case histories of blind persons who have actually reported visual experiences under these conditions.There is fascinating evidence that the blind do “see” in these moments, but it is not sight as we think of it. Ring and Cooper suggest a kind of “transcendental awareness” they refer to as Mindsight. It involves seeing in detail, sometimes from all angles at once, with everything in focus, and a sense of “knowing” the subject, not just visually, but with multisensory knowledge.Human beings may be more talented than we think, gifted with amazing abilities of perception. This book is an opportunity to assess the evidence for yourself.
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The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, Ufo Encounters, and Mind
By Kenneth Ring
1992 / 2012
Amazon Description:
In his book, The Omega Project, Kenneth Ring demonstrated that there are startling similarities between persons claiming to have undergone alien abductions and those who have had a near-death experience. Many aspects of their childhoods as well as the changes they undergo following their experiences show uncanny parallels. In light of his findings, Dr. Ring posits the existence of an “encounter-prone personality” — a distinctive, spiritually sensitive and ecologically-oriented individual who, collectively, may represent the next stage in human evolution.
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Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience
By Kenneth Ring
1985
Amazon Description:
Heading Toward Omega breaks new ground in the field of near-death studies by focusing on the meaning of the near-death experience (NDE) for the survivor and for human evolution. Dr. Kenneth Ring’s intensive three-year study of more than one hundred experiencers found that NDEs cause a provocative pattern of very positive changes in outlook, values, and behavior — and are often powerful catalysts for spiritual awakening and psychic development. Moreover, deep NDEs frequently include strikingly similar visions of our planetary future.The depth and consistency of these life transformations — as well as the apparent widespread and increasing incidence of NDEs — lead Dr. Ring to a startling conclusion: Near-death experiences may be part of an evolutionary thrust toward higher consciousness for all humanity. Thus they may foreshadow the birth of a new planetary consciousness as we head toward Omega, the final goal of human evolution.
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Life at Death
By Kenneth Ring
1980
Amazon Description:
Beginning in May 1977, Dr. Kenneth Ring, a psychologist interested in altered states of consciousness, spent thirteen months tracking down and interviewing scores of people who had come close to death. He discovered that most near-death experiences seem to unfold according to a single pattern. What to make of this common set of elements associated with the onset of death is the central challenge of this book. Whether this experience can be interpreted in naturalistic terms is the overriding scientific issue raised.
In Life at Death, Dr. Ring, after interviewing more than a hundred near-death survivors, was not only able to confirm Moody’s basic findings, but extended them in important ways by establishing an empirical basis for the different stages of the near-death experience. He also showed that the aftereffects on the experience are consistent, dramatic and profound. The fear of death tends to vanish, and the total impact is akin to a spiritual rebirth.
