The IANDS Education Committee set a goal earlier this year to expand our program to include community-based presentations supported through Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). One of our members is now making this a reality. Rhode Island Group Leader Benjamin (Ben) C. Riggs, Jr. will include Near-Death Experiences: The Essentials as part of his OLLI presentation at the University of Rhode Island November 26, December 3, 10th and 17th.Ben has been sharing near-death related materials since 2016 at various venues. He has an excellent background when you combine his IANDS Support Group Leader functions with the fact he lives with an experiencer! Ben and his wife, Lee Thornton , have lived in Newport, RI since 2000. In 2014 she published her book, Through Heaven’s Gate and Back, sharing her life altering near-death experience during childbirth in 1973. That NDE set her on a spiritual path of healing from the aftereffects of a troubled childhood. More details on her book are found at 
The IANDS Academic and Research Committee (ARC) recently considered the logistics and cost of producing the Journal. For more than 10 years, the cost of IANDS membership and Journal subscriptions has not changed. For several logistical reasons, the ARC recommended to the IANDS Board to reduce the number of Journal issues each year from four to three, while not increasing membership or Journal subscription fees.
How close is the nearest IANDS sharing small group to you? With a webcam and microphone, now it can be as close as your computer or internet-connected device!!!
A new study by European researchers has found one in 10 people have undergone a “near-death experience.”
The findings were presented at the fifth European Academy of Neurology Congress by researchers hailing from Danish specialty hospital Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and the Center for Stroke Research in Berlin, and the Norwegian University of Technology in Trondheim, Norway.
The study analyzed 1,034 people from 35 countries and found that 289 people reported a near-death experience with varying spiritual and physical symptoms. This included out-of-body experiences, seeing or hearing hallucinations, time distortion and racing thoughts.
Of those 289 people, 106 of them reached the threshold for a “true” near-death experience as quantified by the 16 points in the Greyson NDE Scale, which “measures the depth of an individuals’ near death experience.” An experience reaching 7 on the scale is considered “true.”
The Greyson NDE Scale is the most widely used standardized tool to “identify, confirm and characterize” near-death experiences.
