Biola philosopher and apologist Sean McDowell recently interviewed Kennesaw State University philosopher of religion J. Steve Miller on the “Top 5 VERIFIED Near-Death Experiences”(February 4, 2025) at YouTube. Miller is the author of a number of books on philosophy of religion topics, including Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven (2012)

In this discussion of the fourth portion, we will look at #2, an experience that a prominent early 20th century physicist found hard to account for.

2. 42:09 Sir William Barrett: Respected Physicist’s Report of a Deathbed Vision

This video is set to play at 42:09.

Sir William F. Barrett (1844–1925), a professor at the Royal College of Science in Dublin, was known for his expertise in optics and electrical engineering: “Barrett’s research and experiments on the creation of new metallic alloys, particularly silicon-iron alloys known as Stalloids, were of great practical significance in the production of early telephones and transformers. He was a pioneer in the field of entoptic optics, and his research led to the discovery of the entoptiscope and a new model of optometer.” (Biographs)

He also had an unusual experience which caused him to take an interest in a variety of concepts around life after death.

As Miller recounts, Barrett’s s wife was a doctor who recorded the deathbed visions of women who were dying in childbirth. These patients reported seeing visions of deceased relatives comforting them. He became particularly interested in one such tragic case in 1924:

Miller: He’s a scientist he goes and interviews not [43:54] just his wife but the attending physician and a family member that was there and … the most important evidence she gave was the following account: Her husband was leaning over her speaking to her when, pushing him aside, she said, “It’s so beautiful” and then she said, “Oh and there’s Vida,” referring to her sister — of whose death three weeks previously she had not been told…

This is a special type of experience that’s been studied where [44:29] someone that they see on the other side they were never told of yet [is dead].

When Dr. Barrett interviewed the patient’s mother, it came out that the family had not told her of her sister Vida’s death, fearing that it would only add to her depression and grief.

McDowell added,

What’s fascinating about that is that it’s not just the only case [45:19]. Again, if there were only one, I’d be like, “Ah, you know, maybe somebody told her, that we didn’t know… But you’ve documented cases of people… coming back and saying, “I saw my twin.” And the parents never told them that in childbirth, their twin had passed away. Or, “I saw my biological [45:48] father.

In some cases, the child did not know that he had been adopted.

As a result of this and other experiences that he researched, William Barrett wrote Deathbed Visions (1926) and two similar books.

What to make of all this?

First, we should situate the cases historically. Today, we are more likely to learn of verifiable (technically, veridical) near-death experiences than of verifiable deathbed visions. A century ago, some desperately ill people spoke briefly and profoundly — and then fell silent because medicine could do nothing more. Today, people with the same medical conditions are pulled back from the brink — and some of them report near-death experiences.

University of Virginia psychiatrist Bruce Greyson has researched recent cases where a near-death experiencer sees someone who was not known to be dead. Greyson, author of After (2021), recounts one such experience:

A young nine-year-old boy named Eddie was seriously ill in a hospital. Recovering from a thirty-six-hour fever, Eddie immediately told those in the hospital room that he had been to heaven, recounting seeing his grandfather, an aunt, and an uncle there. But then his startled and agitated father heard Eddie report that his nineteen-year-old sister Teresa, away at college, was in heaven too, and she told Eddie that he had to return. But the father had just spoken to Teresa two days prior. Checking with the college, the father found out that his daughter had been killed in a car accident the previous day.

Greyson, Bruce. (2010). Seeing Dead People Not Known to Have Died: “Peak in Darien” Experiences. Anthropology and Humanism. 35. 159 – 171. 10.1111/j.1548-1409.2010.01064.x.

Greyson cites a number of similar examples in the linked open access paper. But Eddie’s is perhaps one of the most striking ones because his parents (and medical caregivers) didn’t know that Teresa was dead either. Most likely, the college had not been able to reach the parents with the news because they were unexpectedly away with Eddie. So no one could have primed Eddie by telling him this.

The question of deathbed visions no longer seems far outside the bounds of conventional psychology either. Psychology Today ran a two-part series on the topic by clinical psychologist Marilyn Mendoza in 2016 (here and here).

From Part I:

Mothers tend to be the most frequently appearing figure in deathbed visions. Many times it is the mother who comes to retrieve her child, no matter how old that child may be. Perhaps it is true when they say that a mother’s work is never done. Nurses have reported to me that when the dying start to call for their mothers that death is not far behind. (October 5, 2016)

From Part II:

The mystery has always been how these things happen and what do they mean. There are three basic theories as to how and why these events occur. The first is the body-based explanations in which changes in the dying brain and body produce these experiences. The lack of oxygen, the release of endorphins and other chemicals are said to account for these visions. The second is the psychological explanation in which the fear of death is what creates the experience. It is a form of wish fulfillment where the person sees what she wants to see as a way of providing comfort when dying. Pleasant visions are a psychological defense against dying. Lastly, there is the spiritual theory in which these events indicate that there is a soul and an afterlife. (November 28, 2016)

Deathbed experiences that include knowledge of information not otherwise communicated to the experiencer would seem to rule out the first two, naturalistic explanations. That leaves the third, which we are told is outside the bounds of science. That thought, of course, brings us to #1, the Pam Reynolds case.

Next: 5.The enduring mystery of the Pam Reynolds case

You may also wish to read:

1.When actual experiences challenge the viewpoints of skeptics. Sean McDowell recently hosted J. Steve Miller to talk about his top five believable near-death experiences. Mark Twain and Michael Shermer each had an anomalous experience that he could not explain but would not deny.

2.When information from a near-death experience is confirmed… A seven-year-old girl who was a near-fatal drowning victim reported things that she saw during a state of clinical death that were later confirmed. The pediatrician who wrote up her case for a medical journal did not himself believe in life after death and sought an explanation for NDEs in the brain.

3.A cardiologist encounters a near death experience. Dr. Aufderheide hardly expected the patient, who was in prolonged cardiac arrest, to tell him what he had been doing — and thinking — when he was in the patient’s room!