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When I was in Holland and Germany two years ago, I met Andreas Liptay-Wagner and was very impressed at what he is doing in the way of training others to do near-death research and gathering case studies in both Hungary and Germany. (Please refer to Column #15.) Although this article was published in "Vital Signs" for IANDS, I think it is important that all my readers be aware of what is happening in other countries and how the near-death phenomenon is regarded. Thanks to the International Association For Near-Death Studies (IANDS) for giving me permission to reprint this article:

Budapest Friends of IANDS : start in 2000, actions of 2001

We inaugurated our group in February 2000 with about 35 people. One experiencer was there, as well. A friendly annotation (as SPR in GB), founded in 1871 and revived in 1994, gives us itäs facilities in downtown of Budapest. There was a strong interest for NDE in Hungary, due to the fact that the book of R. Moody was published in 1989 in Hungary (hundreds of people were queuing up front of the bookshop of the catholic editor. Ringäs book came out in 1990 (at the end of the communist supression), further the famous Hungarian writer Peter Mueller admitted in 1990 having had a NDE, and three young MDäs published a dissertation about 45 NDE cases in 1992. But no steps towards organised research, no lectures, no clubs for experiencers. NDE was not a subject for TV. The yearly 20 % inflation of these years allowed only a hard live for the 10 Million inhabitants of the country.The first push was a promise from Raymond Moody that he comes gladly March 2001 to Budapest to give a lecture for MDäs and psychologists and for the first Hungarian NDE conference as well.

So we had to establish for our FOI - the "REVITAL Foundation" - to manage fundings and administration for these actions. Leaders: 2 MDäs, one psycholgist, a theologian and Andrew Liptay-Wagner, PhD. There is a "Counceling Board" of 20 people, including hospice experts, a "religion patology" expert, a physicists, a psychologist of the Victor Frankl Institute, novelists, translators, and a "sceptic"(who experienced a powerfull paraphenomena, and wants to understand it). We started a NDE-lecture tour in Hungary in 7 towns (on a university as well), gave interviews, wrote over 15 articles. We registerd abt. 20 NDE-experiencers. We started from November 2001 an NDE-school for 30-40 people in Budapest, who can qualify for volunteers, if the number of new experiencers grow: to help by aftereffect-problems or to become a researcher. We repeat it in 2002, as well.

We got a great help from IANDS during the Philadelphia-Conference in July 2000: many good ideas, how to handle this delicate subject, what are the basic books for NDE, who are the clear minded, pluralistic or scientific thinking experts and finally we got many examples of the Journal of ND Studies and Vital Signs i.e. a treasury of comparisons and syntheses of the "state of art" of NDE. We are grateful for this "starting capital", and hope to ad to this knowledge pool our experience too.

P r e p a r a t i o n s for the conference in March 2001: 6 articles in different periodicals, 3 ads and 3000 direct mail invitations over associations of cardiologists, family doctors and all hospitals. Flyers for esotheric groups and universities and to 2 religious papers.

P r o g r a m of the congress on the University of Medical Sciences (SOTE), in Budapest the 16th March Friday, 2-5 pm: Lecture of Prof. Raymond Moody for mostly medical staff, invited by direct mail and articles in 3 medical papers. About 600 participants. There were some 40 experiencers.

the conference site

17th Saturday: from 10 to 8 p.m. Lectures from: Prof.R.Moody, Dr.Glanz from Zurich (psychiatrist with 2 NDEs!!); a Hungarian psychiatrist, who made a scientific paper abt NDE in 1990; a C.G.Jung- psychiatrist specialized on religion-patology, and experience in NDE-aftereffect treatments; Liptay-Wagner spoke about research findings of NDE in Germany and Holland, incl. mind-body research. German video with M.Sabom/P.Reynolds. Finally a "revolutionary" theologian (translater of a German NDE-book) spoke about historical NDEäs and explained the points of view of the religions. 2 Hungarian experiencers spoke about their NDE.

The leader of IANDS-Slovenia (an experiencer) and Mr. Ludwig DeVocht from IANDS-Belgium talked about their activity. There were about 900-1000 visitors (now not only medical staff). In the lunch-break helpers talked about 30 experiencers. It was a pity, but due organisational problems, not all discussions were protocolled.

18th Sunday: from 10 to 7 p.m.: 16 lectures (50 minutes each) about spiritual, religious, historical and parapsychological aspects of NDE. Medical people were not informed about this conference day (organised by the Ass.of Spiritual Researchers). Here 6 experiencers spoke about their accounts. About 600 visitors, so alltogeather abt. 2000 visitors in 3 days. The entry fees were abt. 10 -15 $/day (which is considered as high in Hungary, as the average monthly salary is about 260$). Inspite of that the conference had more expences as earnings, but we achieved a break-thru for the subject of NDE in Hungary.

The presence and lecture of Prof. Moody was very important, as only his name was known in Hungary, due his first book, which was reedited 8 times by a catholic publisher. He spoke very diplomatically and so the newcomers were not shocked with too far reaching concepts.

Prof.Dr.Raymond Moody and A.Liptay-Wagner Phd., REVITAL Foundation for NDE in Hungary.

After the lectures Raymond talked with many people, who partly presented a12 years old example of Life after life, saying "this book changed my life". Raymond had 4 TV interviews and 3 other interviews. A famous talk-show master of the main TV station prepared a 2 hour programm about NDE with experiencers and and their families, several MD-s, 3 members of our foundation and with Dutch NDE-researcher Pim van Lommel, cardiologist (prospectiv research in 10 hospitals and aftereffects-controll in 2 and 8 years, see on www: LANCET, Dec.15, 2001) and brain-mind researcher Romijn (an enhanced concept of Eccles-Margenau-Pribram) and a long interview with Prof.Moody. Only 3 days after the congress could the talk-show be presented on the TV. About 10% of the country have seen it.

We prepared 1000 pieces of a 112-pages (DIN A5 size) booklet with about 20 short extracts about NDE, just for a starter for newcomers. 450 were sold during the conference (price: 2 $). From the content of the booklet: what is NDE; what does IANDS do; extracts from Life after Life and from George Ritchieäs book; consciousness studies of Stanislav Grof; from K»bler Ross; ideas about the values of NDE for the experiencer and for the society; findings of the NDE research in Hungary in 1990; results of the Dutch researchers; Loganäs story and Kateäs account from Melvin Morse; extract from the lectures of PMH Atwater, presented in Holland and from "Children of Milleneum"; the story of a Hungarian nurse; 2-3 cases from C.Zaleskiäs study; report about a dogma of Vatican from 1979, an unusual subject: "immediate activity of a spiritual element (NOT soul!) after death" (some people say: NDEäs provoked Vatican for this declaration.This dogma is almost unknown for the world).

"Aftereffects" of the congress: The chief of the central countrywide rescue service promised to write a letter on all resuscitated pacients that they should contact us if they had experience (itäs a pity, but nothing happend till Feb.2002). Abt. 70 people intended to work with us, or visite our next NDE lectures. Abt 50 experiencers have already filled a short questionnaire. 6 of them are MDäs or nurses !!! A FOI club was organised for experiencers in our office in downtown . Now every third month there is a lecture day about NDE for 60-100 people, and a club-like chat in the last 2 hours. Our www.revital.negral.hu has more hits as before. We had about 10 reports in the newspapers. We hope that NDE became a part of the paradigma of the Hungarians.

Please do not hesitate to contact us, if you need our "how to start" experiences. We are from a poor country, but with people of a warm heart and this is the most important - do almost all experiencers say.

iands-budapest@mail.datanet.hu or andreas@liptay-wagner.de

More information about the Budapest Friends of IANDS

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