Raymond Moody facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Raymond Moody
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| Born | June 30, 1944 Porterdale, Georgia, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author, doctor of medicine |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 20th century |
| Genre | Philosophy |
| Subject | Near-death experiences |
Raymond A. Moody Jr. (born June 30, 1944) is an American philosopher, psychiatrist, physician and author, most widely known for his books about afterlife and near-death experiences (NDE), a term that he coined in 1975 in his best-selling book Life After Life. His research explores personal accounts of subjective phenomena encountered in near-death experiences, particularly those of people who have apparently died but been resuscitated. He has widely published his views on what he terms near-death-experience psychology.
Contents
Early life and education
Moody was born in Porterdale, Georgia, the son of an agnostic surgeon. He earned a BA (1966), an M.A. (1967) and a PhD (1969) in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He also obtained a PhD in psychology from the University of West Georgia, then known as West Georgia College, where he later became a professor in the topic. In 1976, he received an M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia.
Career
Early career
After obtaining his M.D., Moody worked as a forensic psychiatrist in a maximum-security Georgia state hospital. In 1998, Moody was appointed chair in Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Near-death research
While an undergraduate at the University of Virginia in 1965, Moody encountered psychiatrist, Dr. George Ritchie, who told Moody about an incident in which he believed he had journeyed into the afterlife while dead for nearly nine minutes at the age of 20 (which Ritchie would later recount in his book, Return From Tomorrow, published in 1978). Moody began documenting similar accounts by other people who had experienced clinical death and discovered that many of these experiences shared common features, such as the feeling of being out of one's body, the sensation of traveling through a tunnel, encountering dead relatives, and encountering a bright light. In 1975, Moody published many of these experiences in his book, Life After Life, in which he coined the term "near-death experience".
Later research
Inspired by the Greek psychomanteums where the ancient Greeks would go to consult the apparitions of the dead (which Moody had read about in classic Greek texts that he encountered while a student at the University of Virginia), Moody built a psychomanteum in Alabama, which he calls the Dr. John Dee Theater of the Mind. By staring into a mirror in a dimly lit room, Moody claims that people are able to summon visions of spiritual apparitions (see mirror gazing).
Moody has also researched past life regression and believes that he personally has had nine past lives.
Personal life
..... In an interview in 1993, Moody stated he was placed in a mental hospital by his family for his work with mirror gazing.
See also
In Spanish: Raymond Moody para niños
