The Induction of After-Death Communications
Dr. Allan Botkin's new discovery

Dr. Allan Botkin is a clinical psychologist with over 15 years of experience in the treatment of psychological trauma (PTSD) and grief. About four years ago, he began to experiment with variations of a relatively new and very powerful psychological treatment-- Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). He discovered, by accident, that one variation of EMDR reliably induced an experience that almost all patients believed, regardless of their prior belief system, was authentic spiritual contact with the deceased.

Guggenheim and Guggenheim describe after-death communications (ADCs) in their book Hello From Heaven (1995). ADCs occur spontaneously in about 20% of the population, and are now recognized by a number of authors and many professionals in the field as emotionally transforming and very healing experiences. Just as near-death experiences (NDEs) convince those close to
death in the continuation of life at death, ADCs convince survivors that the deceased are still very much alive.

Raymond Moody, M.D., who sparked the public's interest in near-death experiences with Life After Life (1975), was the first to purposely induce ADCs with any success. He describes the results of his technique in Reunions (1993). His 50% success rate with highly motivated individuals indicates that we do have some control over the production of the ADC experience. Dr. Botkin's discovery is simply a method, based upon a variation of a new and very powerful psychological technique (EMDR), that induces ADCs in a much more reliable (98%) manner across a more heterogeneous population.

Moreover, since the ADC induction procedure provided by Dr. Botkin's method provides greater control of the experience, they are generally more elaborated than either the spontaneous variety, or those induced by Dr. Moody's procedure. These more elaborated experiences not only result in a more complete resolution of grief, they are also more NDE-like (i.e. going through a tunnel and towards light, seeing beautiful and rich landscapes, etc).  Dr. Botkin cogently makes the argument that ADCs and near-death experiences are essentially experiences of the same phenomenon, although clearly from different points of view. If true, then all  arguments that near-death experiences are nothing more than the physiological by-products of a dying brain, can be seriously questioned. Dr. Botkin's patients routinely experience nearly all of the same components of NDEs, and they are, in almost all cases, very healthy and not near-death.

Dr. Botkin argues that the most important aspect of this discovery is its clinical application: it simply works, and offers hope that we will be able to ameliorate a great deal of suffering. From a scientific and philosophical point of view, however, we also now have a means to study ADCs, and logically near-death experiences as well, in laboratory settings. The results of these efforts, which will hopefully be multi-disciplinary, may answer some questions humans have had ever since we evolved to the point that we had the brain capacity to consider our ultimate fate.

Dr. Botkin's article will appear in the spring issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies.