Book cover of To Die is Gain: Near-Death Experience and the Art of Dying Before We Die

Book description

"If dying is not oppression, my knowledge that I am going to die will no longer oppress me. Instead of making me feel melancholy it will expand and deepen me."


Simultaneous with Raymond Moody's landmark book Life After Life, Johann Christoph Hampe independently "discovered" near-death experiences in the 1970s. Though…

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Why read it?

1 author picked To Die is Gain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This long-lost early book on near-death experiences was written around the same time as Raymond Moody’s classic Life After Life, but totally independent of any knowledge of that more famous work.

Hampe was a German philosopher, and while the book made a huge splash in Germany it’s practically unknown to the English-speaking world, even though an excellent translation was published in the 1970s (finally now reprinted).

Hampe is a deep thinker though has a very engaging style. Knowing that he had his own NDE makes the book poignant and moving to read. What I find most interesting about it is…

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The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

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