With the publication of Scott Rogo&apos;s miserably entitled but well written book, The Return from Silence, the field of near-death studies has finally gained a volume that competently introduces the general reader to the near-death experience (NDE). Though not strictly in tended as or written in the style of a textbook, Rogo&apos;s work neverthe less beautifully serves this function for the field, and for this all serious students of the NDE will be indebted to him. Prior to Rogo&apos;s book, we had only Howard Mickel&apos;s self-published introduction to the ND

Ph.D Kenneth Ring

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BOOK REVIEW
Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.  
University of Connecticut 
The Return from Silence: A Study of Near-Death Experiences, 
by D. Scott Rogo. Wellingborough, Northampshire, England: Aquar
ian Press, 1989, 256 pp., 6.99 (Distributed in the United States by 
Harper and Row, $10.95) 
With the publication of Scott Rogo's miserably entitled but well 
written book, The Return from Silence, the field of near-death studies 
has finally gained a volume that competently introduces the general 
reader to the near-death experience (NDE). Though not strictly in
tended as or written in the style of a textbook, Rogo's work neverthe
less beautifully serves this function for the field, and for this all serious 
students of the NDE will be indebted to him. Prior to Rogo's book, we 
had only Howard Mickel's self-published introduction to the NDE 
(Mickel, 1985), which, though not without its merits, was too skimpy 
and incomplete to fulfill the requirements of a general text on the 
subject; in addition, not being commercially available, Mickel's book 
could never reach a wide audience. Of course, we have long had two 
useful NDE anthologies, Craig Lundahl's (1982) and Bruce Greyson 
and Charles Flynn's (1984), but these collections are geared to the 
interests of professionals and not to the general public. Thus, Rogo's 
contribution to the study of the NDE fills an important niche that has 
until now been noticeably vacant. As a result, when someone new to 
the NDE phenomenon asks me what books I would recommend, hence
Dr. Ring is Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut. Requests for 
reprints should be addressed to Dr. Ring at the Department of Psychology, University of 
Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT 06269.
Journal of Near-Death Studies, 8(2) Winter 1989 
1989 Human Sciences Press 111
JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES
forth I can say: "Start with Raymond Moody's Life after Life (1975) and 
then read Rogo." 
Of course, even without knowing more about this book, you can 
already appreciate that it does suffer from an unfortunate handicap: 
its insipid title which, in the field of near-death studies, is the worst 
since Flynn's still unrivaled After the Beyond (1986). Not only is Rogo's 
title completely vapid, but it fails utterly to alert the prospective buyer 
to the subject matter of the book. Moreover, it is even misleading since 
in this volume Rogo himself emphasizes what most other writers on 
the NDE have neglected, viz., the role of transcendental music in these 
experiences.  
Before turning my attention to the contents of this book, I would like 
to insert one more prefatory comment. As an instructor for a university 
undergraduate course on the NDE, I was astonished at how closely 
Rogo's presentation of topics and his approach to the NDE in general 
parallel my own. His book, in fact, represents an excellent summary of 
the material and point of view I introduce my own students to during 
the first two-thirds of the course. Ironically, because there was so much 
overlap between us, I ultimately decided not to adopt Rogo's book as 
my text; he draws on so many of the same sources I do for my lectures 
that my professorial raison d'etre would be vitiated while my best 
stories would already be told if I were to assign Rogo's book! So I 
didn't-but to salve my conscience and not deprive Rogo of his just 
royalties, I adopted another probing book of his on a similar topic, Life 
After Death (1986).  
Now, as promised, let me review and comment on the contents of this 
book.  
The first chapter is concerned with defining the NDE and giving 
some examples of it. What is noteworthy and distinctive about Rogo's 
approach to the NDE is made clear at the outset of this chapter: he is at 
pains to define the NDE in a very strict-I would say overly strict
way. Rogo, of course, has long distinguished himself as a deep student 
of the out-of-body experience (OBE) (Rogo, 1978, 1983) and for him this 
is an absolutely fundamental component of the NDE. Not only must 
the individual have been close to or threatened by the prospect of 
death, but for an NDE to be said to occur: "the person should either 
experience him/herself out-of-body sometime during the experience or 
his/her observations should imply he/she is functioning in such a state" 
(p. 15). Rogo's justification for this "tight" definition of the NDE hinges 
in part on his dissatisfaction over what he sees as sloppy and imprecise 
usage of the term and in part on his wish to exclude experiences from 
NDE status that merely share some features with NDEs (e.g., being
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BOOK REVIEW
bathed in light) without being triggered by a near-death event. These 
are, to be sure, reasonable grounds to begin with and certainly as the 
book progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious why Rogo has insist
ed upon making the OBE aspect crucial to his definition of NDEs.  
Nevertheless, to my mind, whatever its virtues, it also has the 
drawbacks of a Procrustean solution. What Rogo has done, of course, is 
to rule out by definitional fiat many experiences that most investiga
tors would unhesitatingly want to call NDEs. Indeed, some of my best 
NDEr friends would be NDErs no longer by Rogo's criteria-despite 
their having been close to death, undergoing profound spiritual experi
ences while in that state, and exhibiting the transformative changes 
typical of NDErs afterward. To deny such persons NDEr status is of 
course not merely arbitrary-it is absurd. Rigorous use of Rogo's crite
ria would also mean that much of Albert Heim's historical NDE re
search and Russell Noyes's recent work now fall outside the pale, 
which again is ludicrous.  
Thus, in his well-intended effort to trim the somewhat unruly locks 
of the NDE, Rogo has inadvertently lopped off its nose and ears and in 
doing so, has simply made a mess of what he meant to clean up.  
Though I happen to agree with Rogo that the NDE is best conceived as 
a type of OBE, the way he wields his scissors is more dangerous than 
useful. Fortunately, I don't imagine most students of the NDE -to say 
nothing of NDErs themselves-are likely to endorse this "purified" 
definition of the NDE. Rejecting it, however, in no way prevents one 
from making use of the many valuable insights about NDEs that Rogo 
will offer throughout the remainder of his book.  
Chapters two and three deal with historical studies of NDEs and 
related phenomena. The first of these chapters is largely given over to 
a summary of Carol Zaleski's brilliant study of NDEs and similar 
visions associated with medieval Christianity. The next chapter is an 
extended discussion of what Rogo calls "secular reports" where he is 
mainly concerned to parade the important contributions made to the 
study of death related phenomena (e.g., deathbed visions) by psychical 
researchers. These studies set the table for modern NDE research and 
Rogo deservedly gives them a prominent place in his book. His argu
ment here also makes it evident that NDEs must be understood as 
having undeniable conceptual links with other death-related phenom
ena and that any general model offered to "explain" NDEs must sub
sume these factors as well-a point with which I fully concur.  
Chapter four brings us to the contemporary period of NDE research 
and features a review of the work of Moody, Kenneth Ring, Michael 
Sabom and Margot Grey. The general findings of these investigators
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JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES
will be known to most readers of this Journal, so I will only note that 
Rogo's treatment of his material is handled in his usual lucid manner.  
Beginning with chapter five and extending through the next four 
chapters, the form of the book changes. In effect, in dealing with 
selected aspects of NDEs, Rogo stages a debate of sorts between the 
critics of NDE research and its proponents. Rogo soon shows that he 
will side with its defenders, but he strives-and I think he succeeds-to 
let the critics and skeptics get their hacks in. Indeed, one of the 
strengths of Rogo's book is its thoughtful consideration of various 
conventional alternative explanations of the NDE and criticisms of 
NDE research. Throughout, Rogo displays an admirable willingness to 
entertain many divergent points of view about this phenomenon even 
when his own sympathies are evident.  
In this spirit, then, chapter five presents a topic of widespread cur
rent interest in the field-childhood NDEs. Here, Melvin Morse's early 
work (but not his more recent contributions) is considered, along with a 
few case histories reported by Glen Gabbard and Stuart Twemlow. In 
addition, the pioneering research by former LANDS executive director 
Nancy Evans Bush is discussed at some length.  
Chapter six explores the question of whether psychedelic drugs can 
induce NDE-like experiences (yes) and if so, what does that mean (take 
your choice). Interestingly, most of this chapter is devoted to the effects 
of a particular dissociative anaesthetic, ketamine. This substance, 
when used at sub-anaesthetic levels, brings about a very distinctive 
state of consciousness that some researchers have characterized as 
thanatomimetic-and therefore possibly similar to what is experienced 
during an NDE. But before you badger your local anaesthesiologist for 
an injection, let me advise you that personally, I am not so persuaded 
as is Rogo (whose overture to experience the effects of this drug himself 
was neatly squelched by one of Ronald Siegel's bon mots) about its 
comparability to NDEs. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to 
judge this matter for myself when I was a subject in a pilot project then 
being conducted by a Californian oncologist. At that time, he was 
working with terminally ill cancer and AIDS patients and wished to 
explore the possible value of ketamine in affording such patients a 
"rehearsal for death." His reasoning, following the approach of Stan
islav Grof and Joan Halifax (1977), was that if an NDE-like state could 
be induced by these means, it might significantly reduce his patient's 
death anxiety and thereby increase the chances of an easeful passage 
into death.  
For what it's worth, my own experience and those of others with 
whom I've since had a chance to compare notes incline me to emphasize
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BOOK REVIEW
ketamine's qualitative dissimilarities to NDEs. A better and more 
stringent test, of course, would be for an NDEr to take ketamine 
himself and speak to the comparability of these experiences. For me, 
though, the jury's still out on this one.  
One final note on this chapter. Oddly enough, Rogo scarcely men
tions, except in passing, the effects of (high dose) LSD sessions which, 
on occasion, can certainly bring about full-blown NDE-type states of 
transcendence. But since I have discussed this matter elsewhere (Ring, 
1988), I'll digress no further here.  
Chapter seven turns our attention to the thorny and persistent prob
lem of negative NDEs-an issue that Rogo thinks NDE research has 
unfairly neglected. His own review of these experiences is based 
chiefly on the tendentious and disputed work of Maurice Rawlings and 
secondarily on four case histories and a conceptualization of negative 
NDEs contributed by Grey. Nevertheless, there seems little doubt that 
negative NDEs do occur and that they merit more attention than they 
have yet received. Rogo has done us a service by suggesting that we 
might well deepen our knowledge of NDEs through the study of what, 
figuratively speaking, is their shadow side.  
Again a personal exception to one of Rogo's statements here: He 
asserts (p. 135) that only Sabom among mainstream NDE researchers 
has acknowledged Rawlings's work. This is not so. In Life at Death, I 
devote four full pages to a critique of Rawlings's research (Ring, 1980, 
p. 192-196), by which I still stand.  
In chapter eight, Rogo directly confronts the skeptics in considering 
and attempting to rebut a long list of counter-arguments to the notion 
that the NDE represents an objectively real phenomenon. The result of 
this interchange is not merely (at least in the author's eyes) Rogo's 
victory, but an enhanced appreciation for the complexity of this per
haps ever-elusive experience.  
The next chapter affords an opportunity for Rogo to dwell on various 
paranormal features of NDEs. He begins by reconsidering Sabom's 
important research on apparent paranormal OBE-based veridical per
ceptions in operating room settings in the light of a possible artifact
sensory cuing-and finds it insufficient to account for all of Sabom's 
results. Most of the remainder of this chapter consists of a straightfor
ward discussion of a variety of paranormal effects that other re
searchers have reported in connection with or in the aftermath of 
NDEs. Rogo concludes with an intriguing interpretation of his own for 
the apparent increase in psychic sensitivities following NDEs.  
The stage is now-finally! -set for Rogo's own general interpretation 
of NDEs, which he sets forth in his last two chapters. Here he distin-
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JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES
guishes between what he calls simple and eschatological NDEs. Sim
ple NDEs are essentially simple OBEs, which, after reviewing princi
pally the OBE research carried out in the mid-seventies at the Psychi
cal Research Foundation in North Carolina, Rogo concludes represent 
genuine (i.e., literal) separations of consciousness from the body. The 
OBE, then, is the real experiential foundation of the NDE -and so we 
see why it was necessary-if perhaps ultimately circular-for Rogo to 
define NDEs as he did in the beginning of his book.  
The OBE makes possible, however, a second visionary component 
that gives rise to the eschatological NDE, or what Zaleski has, with a 
disdain for unnecessary jargon, simply called "the otherworld journey." 
This more transcendental aspect of the NDE is a mixture of both 
objective and subjective elements and is overlaid with symbolic mean
ing. In Rogo's view, the eschatological NDE signals the existence of a 
spiritual Beyond and implies survival of bodily death. As such it is a 
realm that has of course been apprehended in many other ways than 
through an NDE - as the world's treasury of spiritual and religious 
literature discloses.  
On these matters, Rogo's thinking is very close to my own; accord
ingly, it will not surprise you to learn that I find his interpretive 
commentary not merely cogent but compelling and a fitting conclusion 
to his inquiry into the nature of the NDE.  
So this, then, is the gist of what you will find in Rogo's rewarding 
book.  
What will you not find? 
Well, you won't find much about much about the transformative 
effects of NDEs and you will find nothing at all on their possible 
evolutionary implications. These are major themes in the work of NDE 
authors such as Flynn, Grey, Michael Grosso, and Ring, but Rogo's 
own concern with the NDE is tightly focused on what it is and its 
implications for survival-not what it does or may mean in the larger 
worldly scheme of things.  
Similarly, you won't find any material describing NDErs' difficulties 
in coming to terms with these experiences afterward or with the 
personal and interpersonal dislocations they set into motion. These 
"applied" issues are likewise far from Rogo's sphere of interest in 
NDEs.  
Finally, I don't think you will sense from this book that Rogo himself, 
despite his evident and wide-ranging knowledge of NDEs, has a good 
"feel" for NDErs themselves. My impression is that he has relied more 
on second-hand written accounts of these experiences than first-hand 
contact with NDErs. This is a book that, at least to me, reflects an
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BOOK REVIEW
effort at intellectual rather than empathetic understanding of the 
NDE. On its own terms, it is very successful and most worthwhile; but 
its own terms can offer the basis only for a partial understanding of the 
phenomenon Rogo seeks to elucidate. It is for this reason that I would 
recommend coupling this volume with Moody's first book for anyone 
just getting acquainted with the NDE.  
I've saved my most niggling criticism for last. Unfortunately, Rogo's 
book betrays signs both of highly selective reading in near-death 
studies and of carelessness (or haste) in composition. For example, he 
spells Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's first name incorrectly (with a z); he gets 
David Bohm's last name wrong; he has Craig Lundahl at Eastern 
(instead of Western) New Mexico University; he botches the name of 
The American Journal of Diseases of Children; and so on. Only a 
pedant would care, of course, but we professors love to brandish our red 
pencils whenever we get the chance. One hopes these and other errors 
will be corrected in a re-titled American edition.  
My final comment, however, would be to ask you to value my praise 
more than my cavils. For all its minor flaws, questionable statements 
and regrettable omissions-not to mention (again!) its inept title-this 
most welcome book is unquestionably a major contribution to the field.  
We should feel darn happy to have it and lucky that Scott Rogo took 
the trouble to write it. Frankly, I don't know of anyone who could have 
done it better.  
References 
Flynn, C. (1986). After the Beyond Englewood-Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.  
Greyson, B., and Flynn, C. (Eds.) (1984). The Near-Death Experience. Springfield, Illinois: 
Charles C. Thomas.  
Grof, S., and Halifax, J. (1977). The Human Encounter with Death. E.P. Dutton.  
Lundahl, C. (Ed.) (1982). A Collection of Near-Death Research Readings. Chicago: 
Nelson-Hall.  
Mickel, H. (1985). The Near-Death Experience. Witchita, Kansas: Theta Project.  
Moody, R. (1975). Life After Life. Covington, Georgia: Mockingbird Books.  
Ring, K. (1980). Life at Death. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan.  
Ring, K. (1988). Paradise is paradise: reflections on psychedelic drugs, mystical experi
ence and the near-death experience. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 6(3), 138-148.  
Rogo, D.S. (1978). Mind Beyond the Body. New York: Penguin.  
Rogo, D.S. (1983). Leaving the Body. Englewood-Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.  
Rogo, D.S. (1986). Life after Death. Wellingborough, Northampshire, England: Aquarian 
Press.
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