Near-death experiencers are the best dancers. I could identify which attendees at the annual conference of the International Association for Near-Death Studies have been to the brink, because they moved their bodies with un-self-conscious abandon, ripping up the floor of a tent on the grounds of a suburban Chicago Hilton.
The dance party, which took place on the penultimate night of the conference, was dominated by longtime members of the organization. There were over 700 people at the conference and around 300 at this celebration. I recognized many of their faces from the jackets of the books sold at the conference’s bookstore and from the panels I attended.
You could walk up to any one of them, and they would matter-of-factly tell you about how they almost died. Evan Mecham, the president-elect of IANDS, had an archetypal near-death story, which he started telling me a few minutes after we met. He had been driving on an icy mountain road at night when a deer appeared. He swerved, saving the deer’s life but almost losing his own. He nearly bled out waiting for medical help after a semi truck hit his driver’s side.
“All the pain left me, and if death was a warm blanket, it drew itself up over me, and I crossed over. I let go. I had an incredible experience of talking with another dimension, and I died with gratitude and love for a creator and for my life and for family,” Mecham told me. It changed his life permanently. “I became kinder. I became a vegetarian.” He became a more mindful spouse and father... nyt
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