Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience

by Kenneth Ring

Book Overview

In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688039103
• ISBN13: 9780688039103
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic read !

This book was great , easy read , lots of interesting information, I read the whole book over a weekend , great book to add to my collection.

Excellent, thoughtful treatment

Even though it has been several years since I read it, I still find Ring's book[s] inspiring. Heading Toward Omega is an excellent, provacative read, and contains as much information as one could hope to glean from such an abstruse experience as an NDE.

Best book I ever read on the subject!

I read this book over ten years ago and have never forgotten it! It gave acounts from so many and made me feel as though I were sitting in on the interview. I have read many books on this subject, but I cant wait to read it again! Now if only I could just find it!

Well written but too subjective.

This book serves it purpose well as an introduction to the NDE. The book is very well organized and well written. As a writing exercise, I would give this book very high marks.However, I do have one serious problem with this book. The author goes to great pains to present his material in an objective fashion, but this comes off as nothing more than wishful thinking on his part. These experiences, by their very nature, are utterly subjective, and therefore beyond the scrutiny of science. At the end of the book, the author presents a hypothesis to explain NDE's which I find to be frankly ridiculous. It is a wish based on an assumption which is founded on whimsy. This is not science, this is good karma.

Arguably one one the most important books in the field.

Dr. Ring was my advisor at school (Connecticut) and being ableto see him at work and pick his brain on a regular basis, I can saythat he is greatly underappreciated as a scholar and scientist (albeit a "social" scientist, with all of the stigma that such a title undeservedly carries). Heading Toward Omega and The Omega Project are tremendous contributions to the literature of the Near Death Experience in particular and Consciousness Studies in general. Although the dire predictions of global change in the later chapters of H.T.O. seem a bit goofy from our 1998 vantage point, Ring nevertheless forged new ground with this book that remains, I believe, the best "second" book to read on the subject (after Moody's Life After Life). It is intellectually challenging, thought-provoking, life-affirming and just a darn good read...on every page, no less. High praise, deserved high praise. Not to mention, you'll pick up a few dozen groovy vocabulary words along the way.

Intriguing introduction for those unfamiliar with NDEs

This book is fascinating and uplifting, and is still applicable even if it seems dated. There is one topic that Blackmore hasn't seemed to speak to: McDougall and his experiment.