Academic neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander III, whose career includes decades as a physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School and revered teaching hospitals, was once staunchly committed to the materialist world view — the belief that the physical world is all that exists. His scientific belief system was altered by a 2008 transcendental near-death experience (NDE) in which a bacterial infection severely damaged his brain as he fell into a week-long coma during which he experienced an odyssey into another realm. Despite a bleak medical prognosis, Dr. Alexander awoke to make an inexplicable return to full health. In September 2018, the severity of Dr. Alexander’s medical case, and the shocking nature of his complete recovery were validated in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease by physicians uninvolved in his 2008 care. His story was also featured in a series of peer-reviewed medical articles about near-death experiences (NDEs) in Missouri Medicine (2015), now published as the book The Science of Near-Death Experiences (edited by John C. Hagan III, 2017). It concludes with his chapter, “Near-Death Experiences, The Mind-Body Debate, and The Nature of Reality.”
Since his NDE, Dr. Alexander has been reconciling his rich spiritual experience with quantum physics, cosmology, and the philosophy of mind. The leading-edge scientific study of consciousness posits that consciousness is primordial and the physical brain its filter. Dr. Alexander speaks around the world to educate about the role that consciousness plays in wellness and recovery, citing the mounting wealth of scientific data on spontaneous remissions in which thousands of patients have made startling recoveries despite supposed “terminal” medical conditions. His teachings include the vital practice of achieving expanded states of awareness, through differential-frequency audio recordings or centering prayer, to fully express our higher soul’s free will, including extraordinary healing.
A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader, Dr. Alexander was named to the prestigious Watkins Mind Body Spirit List 2020 (alongside the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, Eckhart Tolle, and Desmond Tutu), a list on which he has appeared numerous times since 2013. Dr. Alexander has been featured in more than 400 media interviews including for ABC-TV’s Good Morning America and 20/20, The Dr. Oz Show, Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, Larry King Now, Fox and Friends, Discovery Channel, Biography Channel, and numerous international radio, digital and podcast interviews.
Dr. Alexander’s books are available in more than 40 countries and have been translated in nearly as many languages. His most recent book, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Heart of Consciousness (2017, co-authored with Sacred Acoustics co-founder Karen Newell) has garnered accolades from scientists around the world who probe the mind-body-spirit question and seek to unlock the nature of consciousness. Dr. Alexander’s earlier books, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (2012) and The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife (2014), have collectively spent more than two years atop the New York Times and international bestseller lists.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Alexander received his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine in 1980. He taught neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston for fifteen years and has performed over 4,000 neurosurgical operations. During his academic career, he authored or co-authored over 150 chapters and papers in peer-reviewed journals, authored or edited five books on radiosurgery and neurosurgery, and made over 230 presentations at conferences and medical centers around the world. Since his NDE, Dr. Alexander has dedicated himself to sharing information about near-death experiences and what they teach us about consciousness and the nature of reality. He continues to promote further research on the unifying elements of science and spirituality.