How I Came to Spend My Life Among the Once Nearly Dead: Ken Ring s Story

This paper provides an overview of Kenneth Ring’s autobiography, as well as his major scientific contributions to the formation of the now well-known, field of near-death studies. This article is a delightful and personally engaging story written directly by the author, which will both profoundly touch the reader and tickle his/her sense of humor. Ring discusses how he first became interested in near-death experiences (NDEs) following a life-altering experience with LSD. From there, Ring caught the “benign virus”, as he eloquently calls it in his book, Lessons from the Light (1998), and dedicated the next few decades of his life to scientifically establishing the legitimacy of NDE research – establishing him as one of the pioneers in this field, next to Raymond Moody, Bruce Greyson, and a few others. Although his life-long work is much too extensive to overview in this small article, he has written five major books on this topic, has conducted numerous studies, written scores of papers, and travelled the globe lecturing and teaching about NDEs.