A recent phone call shook me up. A woman who had lost a close family member to suicide, called to speak of the tragedy and of how much solace she had received from a facilitator of a near-death group when that individual had told her, "All suicides go to heaven. Research proves this." I had to tell her she had been misinformed. This crushed both of us.

An experiencer may say this, making clear that such a statement comes from his or her understanding of what was revealed. In fact, more and more experiencers are becoming outspoken about the revelations they received while on the Other Side of death. And most of them repeat again and again that the Light is unconditionally loving and forgiving, and is there for all of us, equally. Revelations like this are wonderful and they uplift and comfort and encourage the masses. Near-death experiencers are like "missionaries" in the field of death and dying and hospice, carrying with them the good news about God and about love. And this is great. Experiencers, though, can only speak for themselves. They cannot say their claims are based on research, no matter how convincing the research.

I straddle both "sides," as must of you know. The revelations given to me during my near-death episodes were lengthy and detailed. The majority are in my book, Future Memory. As a researcher, though, I am not free to make such claims. No researcher is. And neither is the International Association For Near-Death Studies, or any of their Friends of IANDS groups. As an experiencer, I can console people like this woman and give her hope. As a researcher, and certainly as a representative of IANDS, I can only say there are no findings in near-death studies to prove who goes where after death or at all. We honestly do not know how "the big picture" works. We can only publish our findings as verified. Interpretations are up to each individual."

Perhaps we are becoming a "victim" of our own success.

Near-death research has now reached a point where even skeptics find it hard to argue with the findings, there are so many now, and all of them first-rate. Our conference in Houston, Texas, at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, October, 2006, establish near-death research as on par with any other medical research; the stories experiencers tell, very healing and incredibly important. It took us thirty years to get to this point. Now, perhaps in excitement for what has been accomplished, words are being put in researcher's mouths and accredited to IANDS that do not belong there. We can now establish that the near-death experience is real and valid, a state to be reckoned with, but we cannot prove or even say with any degree of certainly, what it means, what causes it, or why it occurs, or even what any of this says about an afterlife and who goes to heaven and who does not.

Whoever told the woman that the young man who committed suicide is guaranteed a spot in heaven is guilty of spreading an untruth, perhaps even false hope. None of us have the right to do that, no matter how motivated we are to give solace and comfort to one who grieves. Experiencers can share their own personal stories, their own conviction based on their stories, but they cannot lay claim to interpretations as authentic fact.

While we're on the subject, some near-death groups are requiring guests who attend meetings to wear color-coded badges that label people either "Non-Experiencer" or "Experiencer." This sets up a cult-like atmosphere of specialness that most experiencers find uncomfortable. Any one can be an experiencer. Near-death episodes do not make one "special." People come to meetings to learn and to share, not to be set-apart or put on a pedestal. That sense of oneness that most experiencers come to feel, includes, not excludes.

No one is an expert on what the near-death experience means, although there are a lot of folks who think they are. Truthfully, the near-death experience reveals more about life than it does death, and what it reveals brings into question how we define ourselves as human beings and the range of our faculties and our mind. What speaks so powerfully to me, is the comment the vast majority of experiencers say after their episode – four words: "Always there is life." If this is true and I believe it is, then how can there be an afterlife or a before life? Suggested here is that life is continuous, in some form, somewhere, somehow.

Research cannot validate this, but when thousands and thousands of people across this blue marble called earth say the same thing – we have to stop and listen. Notice that those four words do not indicate destination. To me, they make a statement far more important, they affirm a sense of reality that is unending. That is the real solace and real comfort we can all benefit from.