In 2000, end-of-life therapist William Peters was volunteering at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco when he had an extraordinary experience as he was reading aloud to a patient: he suddenly felt himself floating in midair, completely out of his body. The patient, who was also aloft, looked at him and smiled. The next moment, Peters felt himself return to his body…but the patient never regained consciousness and died.
Perplexed and stunned by what had happened, Peters began searching for other people who’d shared similar experiences. He would spend the next twenty years gathering and meticulously categorizing their stories to identify key patterns and features of what is now known as the “shared crossing” experience. The similarities, which cut across continents and cultures and include awe-inspiring visual and sensory effects, and powerful emotional after-effects, were impossible to ignore.
Long whispered about in the hospice and medical communities, these extraordinary moments of final passage are openly discussed and explained in At Heaven’s Door.
In our conversation, we will explore questions like:
What can explain theses shared death experiences?
How can we increase our likelihood of having one?
What do these experiences tell us about what lies beyond?
And, most importantly, how can they help take away the sting of death and better prepare vus for our own final moments: How can we have both a better life and a better death
“Brilliant and fascinating…removes the conventional myth of death’s finality and shows how love binds us together beyond the material realm.”
– Eben Alexander, MD, Neurosurgeon and New York Times bestselling author of Proof of Heaven
“This book will change your view of dying in a profoundly positive way.”
– Maggie Callanan, author of Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying
“Offers moving and tender accounts that validate and affirm the great mystery that who we are is consciousness.”
– Jack Kornfield, author of Guided Meditations for Difficult Times: A Lamp in the Darkness
“A well-researched look into what exists beyond the threshold.”
– Dr. Raymond Moody, author of Life After Life
William Peters, is the founder of the Shared Crossing Project and director of its Research Initiative. Recognized as a global leader in the field of shared death studies, he has spent decades studying end-of-life experiences. Previously, Peters worked as a hospice volunteer with the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco and as a teacher and social worker in Central and South America. A practicing grief and bereavement therapist, he holds degrees from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and UC Berkeley. His work on end-of-life is informed by his therapeutic work with individuals and families, personal experiences with death and dying across cultures, and his family’s own end-of-life journeys.
Visit www.sharedcrossing.com