The Near Death Experience of Prof. Dr. Johannes Hagel
What Researchers Found
The Story
Professor Hab, a 21-year-old physics student at Gratz University of Technology in Austria, had a near-death experience in 1977 due to a car accident. He was biking to a lecture when a speeding car hit him at an intersection, causing him to fly through the air and hit his head on the sidewalk. During the experience, he floated five to ten yards above the scene and saw his body on the ground. He observed the shocked driver, a physician, checking him and calling for help. He saw mirrored images of himself to the north and south, which he interpreted as symbols of repeated lives. A pleasant feeling of returning home came over him. A male voice communicated telepathically, telling him it was not his time to die, to return and accomplish his tasks, help others, and abandon fears from his strict Catholic upbringing about hell and punishment. The voice explained life is about growth and optimization through repeated existences, not testing and punishment. He returned to his body instantly. After the NDE, his fear of the afterlife disappeared. He embraced a worldview of loving acceptance and evolutionary growth continuing beyond death, influenced by Teilhard de Chardin. He sees earthly and spiritual realms converging. A second brief NDE at age 40 during a mountain climb reinforced a sense of protective guidance, leading him to live more responsibly. He advocates expanding scientific views to include transcendence to reduce death's taboo.
“many options back then and I was never a was this fear that I should forget this”
The account features a brief out-of-body experience during a head injury from a high-speed accident, observing a predictable roadside emergency scene from an elevated vantage, but lacks specific, verifiable details, any reported verification attempts, or timely pre-verification reporting. No confirmed perceptions elevate its evidential value.
Score reflects verifiable perceptions reported. A low score indicates the experience was primarily spiritual or subjective, not that it didn't occur.
Score reflects transformation as described. Domains scored 0 indicate the topic was not discussed, not that no change occurred.
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These accounts were gathered because death may not be the end. Thousands of people have experienced something beyond — and come back to tell us about it.
What Researchers Found
The account features a brief out-of-body experience during a head injury from a high-speed accident, observing a predictable roadside emergency scene from an elevated vantage, but lacks specific, verifiable details, any reported verification attempts, or timely pre-verification reporting. No confirmed perceptions elevate its evidential value.
Score reflects verifiable perceptions reported. A low score indicates the experience was primarily spiritual or subjective, not that it didn't occur.
Score reflects transformation as described. Domains scored 0 indicate the topic was not discussed, not that no change occurred.