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 A Conversation with...
Dr. Raymond Moody
by Aaron Thunder Hart
I was lucky enough to be asked to spend a day with Raymond
Moody in preparation for an article to be titled "A Day In The Life Of Raymond
Moody". During that day, and the days that followed, I accumulated an abundance of
material that touched my heart. Far too much to be included within bounds of the one
article I was asked to write. Dr. Moody, I discovered, is not only a prolific writer, but
a captivating speaker as well. Contained in the following conversation is material
exclusive to New Beginnings - the Spiritual Endeavors Newsletter ~Aaron
Thunder Hart.
Raymond Moody: Hello! Hello!
BTH:.: Hello Raymond. We came to visit with
you, but you weren't here. So we've been gathering information from Linda. (Up to this point, Linda Jones, UNLV Management Assistant ll, was
providing background information on the endowment from the Bigelow Foundation and how the
Chair Of Consciousness Studies came into being. In short, an endowment from the foundation
enabled the University to create the Chair in August 1997. Dr. Moody is the second person
to hold this prestigious seat, and will be staying for a second term extending into the
year 2000. This will enable Dr. Moody & UNLV to reach out further into the community
by offering more classes allowing individuals to gain credits applied to the continuing
education requirements in their respective fields. New classes begin January 12th... on
“Altered States of Consciousness”, Philosophy and the Afterlife”, and
“Humor, Nonsense, & the Mind”. Call 895-3391 to register.)
ATH:: : Hi Raymond. How was class?
Raymond Moody: Good. Very Good.
ATH:: : You know, I was on the Internet last night
looking up something or other and I came across a symposium you'll be doing up in Canada
next year. Of course, seeing your name I had to look a little deeper into it, and I
noticed that they said you were three times a best selling author. Life After Life, I know
was a best seller all over the world, but which of your other books made the… I
believe it was the New York Times… Best Selling List?
Raymond Moody: I didn't know that. I can't say if that's true
or not.
BTH:.: How many books have you written,
Raymond?
Raymond Moody: Hmmm. Let's see. Life After Life, Reflections,
Laugh After Laugh…
ATH:: : Laugh After Laugh? Surely you jest!
Raymond Moody: Oh no, that was one of my favorite books. It was
done in 1978 and a friend suggested the title. It was about the medical and psychological
effects of laughter and the sense of humor. And then I did a couple of books with Paul
Perry… One was called The Light Beyond, and another was Coming Back… I think
they're out of print now, but they were just kind of… well they wanted something more
popular than what I usually write. Paul took my research and wrote it up in a more
journalistic fashion. That was about 10-15 years ago. I got fascinated with doing those
past life regressions and I did them with a lot of my students and colleagues. As you know
my interest in this in not exactly like that of a parapsychologist …
Then about 1990 or so I did one called Reunions,
and I have a new one on the way out; The Last Laugh. That again is not my title. I'm not
good at titles.
ATH:: : When is it due out?
Raymond Moody: I'm not really sure. You know how
publishers can be. But I've got a proof of it here I'd like you to read. I'll give it to
you before you leave.
BTH:.: What about your book on
scrying? When did you do that?
Raymond Moody: Oh, I forgot about that. Let me
see if I have a copy of that. I'd like you to have one of those if there's one here. (He
starts digging through a large box pulling out various books and video tapes he has done.)
Hmmm. Do you have Reunions in your library?
BTH:.: No. The S-E library just
has Life After Life and Reflections.
Raymond Moody: Well here, take this, this is a
galley proof of that book? (Looking Closer) Oh, wait a minute, this is to my wife? (Pauses
and reflects as he reads the hand written dedication)
ATH:: : Raymond by all means, please do
not give away something like that. I can guarantee that it would be something that you'd
regret life after life.
Raymond Moody: (Laughing) Oh no. I don't know
how that got in there. (Still digging in the box) Okay, here's another one. There were
other books here and there, but as you must know by this point in our relationship, I'm
not very good at remembering things like that.
BTH:.: It's safe to say you've
written quite a few.
Raymond Moody: (Smiling) I'm a prolific writer.
And before I forget, this is the copy of The Last Laugh. Now remember, this is just the
first proof. It's right off the computer, definitely first draft stuff.
You know besides Life After Life, and Reunions, I really have no idea what the third could
be.
Now if we're going to have a relationship,
you're going to have to realize that practicality is beyond me. I mean I'm just totally?
(waving his hands and making funny faces. For some reason we all fell into hysterics about
it.)
ATH:: : I know. I know. I know exactly
what you mean. If you haven't realized it yet, Bree is my practical side.
Raymond Moody: Now Cheryl, she's the one.
(Cheryl Moody, Raymond's lovely wife and the mother of Carter, their 3 month old child)
ATH:: : That reminds me, I brought
these for you... (copies of NB & Psychic Fair fliers)
BTH:.: To give to Cheryl.
ATH:: : If we make it tonight, I'll be
sure and give her copies too.
Raymond Moody: Please… can you come to the
lecture tonight?
BTH:.: We're trying to
re-arrange our schedule so we can.
Raymond Moody: There's going to be some mind
boggling stuff from Diane Archangel. She's a Hospice Chaplain and she's been working with
the psycomantium down in Texas…
ATH:: : That's the room that you had in
your facility in Alabama… described in Danion Brinkley's book… where people
experience reunions with their departed loved ones?
Raymond Moody: Exactly. And she's has had a much
better success rate with it than I did, back when I was working with it.
ATH:: : And basically, a psycomantium
is?
Raymond Moody: It's a small darkened room… dark colored
walls… very dimly lit with indirect lighting - 3 to 5, maybe 7 watt bulb at
most… which sets behind a chair. On the wall in front of the chair, just above head
height… so the person can't see themselves in it… is a mirror. That's it.
It’s really pretty simple.
BTH:.: And people see apparitions of deceased
loved ones in the mirror? That's like scrying!
Raymond Moody: Yes. Diane has a great success rate. Much
better than I did. (at her lecture, Diane reported 96% have reunions) And it's just not in
the mirror… it's just absolutely mind boggling… just absolutely mind
boggling…
ATH:: : Raymond, how did you get started in all
this?
Raymond Moody: I started out fascinated by astronomy as a
kid. Went to the University of Virginia to become that - an astronomy major. I had always
been interested in philosophy too, but immediately realized that that's where the kind of
astronomy I was interested in was… the conceptual, rather than what was actually out
there.
BTH:.: What was out there…
Philosophically speaking, rather than the study of stars and such.
Raymond Moody: Yes. Exactly. So I got my Ph.D. in Philosophy
pretty quickly. I was… let's see… 24 years old. Then I went to East Carolina
University and taught philosophy there for three years. And I really loved it. I love
teaching. But having gained my degree so early, and being the kind of person that's
motivated by curiosity, I felt that there was so such more that I wanted to know. I really
wanted to move my knowledge out into other areas, so I decided I wanted to go to medical
school. And I did. I received my medical degree in (glancing at the diploma on the wall)
'76, and then did my psychiatry training. That was another 4 years.
ATH:: : And how did all this lead you to write Life
After Life?
Raymond Moody: Well, we have to go back to 1965 and a
philosophy professor, John Marshal for that. I was what they call a honor student at the
University of Virginia. We had pretty much free reign; a tutorial once a week, and we
could take any of the graduate or undergraduate courses in philosophy that we wanted to.
And in one of those classes, Professor Marshal was talking about what is called the
mind-body problem - which is an old philosophical dilemma - how it is that the
consciousness and material substance of the body are related. And in this discussion
Professor Marshal mentioned that there was a psychiatry professor, Dr. George Ritchie, who
had had a profound experience years before when he had actually been pronounced dead. So I
was fascinated by that and took that opportunity to listen to Dr. Ritchie's experience.
And then about 4 years later... about 1969 I was teaching -
At East Carolina - a class on Plato's Phaedo in which he talks about life after
death.
BTH:.: Plato talked about life after death?
Raymond Moody: He does talk a little about that, but this
dialogue is about the possibility of life after death, and I was dwelling on the logic
that Plato uses. After class, this boy came up and he said? I remember his words exactly,
"Dr, Moody, I wish we could talk about life after death in this class." And I
said, "Why would you want to talk about that?”
Now, I should explain to you that my interest in philosophy
was more along the lines of what they call philosophical analysis. And from that point of
view, the notion of an afterlife… that's kind of like how many angels dance on the
head of pin.
So I asked why he wanted to talk about that, and he said
"About a year ago I had a terrible accident and my doctor said that I died. I had an
experience that has just totally changed my life, but I haven't anybody that I can talk
about it with."
You can imagine how I felt when the experience he told me was
almost identical to what I head 4 years earlier from George Ritchie. It was at that point;
that's when I really got hooked.
I gave a couple talks at the Jarvis Methodist Church in
Greenville, North Carolina, and as anyone who does this knows, if you give a talk on
something like this, people come up and talk; "I've never told anybody this before,
but…”
By the time I went to medical school I had about a dozen
cases of this. And obviously medical school gave me a great opportunity to talk with
people who had been resuscitated. In April of 73 they asked me at the medical school to
give a talk on this because the professors there had been hearing this from their own
patients, too.
BTH:.: So you began speaking on this in 1973?
Raymond Moody: Well actually, I had given a number of talks
back in Greenville but this is where it moved to talking to the medical profession. At one
of these medical meetings, there was, unbeknownst to me, a reporter present. That was the
basis of an article in the Atlanta Constitution… which led to a follow-up, and then
another one. A publisher called up and said that this would be the making of a good book.
I already had some stuff I was writing up, so the book was finished in 74 and published in
75.
ATH:: : And the rest is history… Raymond, I'd
really like to get into scrying, or mirror gazing, a little deeper with you, but I know
you're getting ready for the lecture tonight….
Raymond Moody: Ya'll will be able to make it tonight, won't
you?
BTH: We may be late, but we'll be there.
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