This morning, The New York Times published an opinion story featuring IANDS and, more specifically, IANDS Conference 2025. It’s a thoughtful exploration of grief, meaning, and society’s search for spiritual community in the face of declining involvement with organized religion.
Times Opinion writer Jessica Grose attended IANDS Conference 2025 in Chicago this past summer. And her piece offers a fresh perspective not only of the Conference itself, but of IANDS as an organization and our mission to normalize conversations involving near-death experiences and related phenomena.
The New York Times Explores the Extraordinary
In her essay, titled My Long Weekend with 700 People Touched by Death, Grose discusses the exodus of millions of Americans departing from organized religion over the past half-century. And she posits that IANDS could, for some, “fill a much-needed gap for people who are unsatisfied by the strictures of mainstream observance and who aren’t fulfilled by the loose ties of a virtual and vague spirituality.”
Grose’s essay discusses the academic roots of IANDS, the history of near-death sciences, and the institutional polarization of conversations involving near-death and related experiences. Notably, Grose discusses her own personal experiences with after-death communication, and acknowledges that she felt the benefits of sharing those experiences with others.
Grose’s essay explores the IANDS Conference as a place where people come together from a broad range of backgrounds. Experiencers, grievers, and spiritual explorers can meet with scientists, researchers, and medical clinicians in an openly inviting and nonjudgmental environment.
The broad theme of the essay revolves around our need for community formed around shared experiences, and how IANDS offers that in the absence of a formal unifying doctrine.
You’ll find the full essay, My Long Weekend with 700 People Touched by Death, in the New York Times Opinion section. Those interested in learning about future conferences may want to read about IANDS Conference 2026.
