During his many years researching the NDE, Dr. Kenneth Ring was concerned with answering the question, "What is it like to die?" In this book of fifteen sparkling and delightfully witty essays, his question becomes more personal, "What is it like waiting to die?" More specifically, what is it like for an octogenarian who has spent half his life studying and writing about NDEs to face his own mortality? Laced with humor, these essays are not morbid or morose, but highly entertaining and edifying. They are not just full of an old man's droll complaints about his wayward bodily decay, but also contain serious reflections on life and insights from his work on death and a possible afterlife. In addition, Ring reflects on what other literary figures have written about death, and he delves into subjects like psychedelics and their possible use with the dying. All his essays trace his sometimes surprising, and occasionally antic, journey along the road whose terminus is certain but unknown. They let the reader glimpse into what it has been like for one elderly, but still lively, man waiting to die who has so far failed to reach his goal, though he is convinced he will get there in the end.

While providing many accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from men, women, and children of all ages and backgrounds, Lessons from the Light is much more than just an inspiring collection of NDEs. In Lessons near-death expert Kenneth Ring extracts the pure gold of the NDE and with a beautiful balance of sound research and human insight reveals the practical wisdom held within these experiences. As Stanley Krippner states, "In this remarkable book, Ring presents evidence that merely learning about the near-death experience has similar positive effects to those reported by people who actually have had near-death experiences. Kenneth Ring is one of the few authors whose gifts include the capacity to transform their readers' lives."

Heading Toward Omega breaks new ground in the field of near-death studies by focusing on the meaning of the near-death experience (NDE) for the survivor and for human evolution. Dr. Kenneth Ring's intensive three-year study of more than one hundred experiencers found that NDEs cause a provocative pattern of very positive changes in outlook, values, and behavior -- and are often powerful catalysts for spiritual awakening and psychic development. Moreover, deep NDEs frequently include strikingly similar visions of our planetary future. The depth and consistency of these life transformations -- as well as the apparent widespread and increasing incidence of NDEs -- lead Dr. Ring to a startling conclusion: Near-death experiences may be part of an evolutionary thrust toward higher consciousness for all humanity. Thus they may foreshadow the birth of a new planetary consciousness as we head toward Omega, the final goal of human evolution. 

In his book, The Omega Project, Kenneth Ring demonstrated that there are startling similarities between persons claiming to have undergone alien abductions and those who have had a near-death experience. Many aspects of their childhoods as well as the changes they undergo following their experiences show uncanny parallels. In light of his findings, Dr. Ring posits the existence of an “encounter-prone personality” – a distinctive, spiritually sensitive and ecologically-oriented individual who, collectively, may represent the next stage in human evolution.

This book investigates the astonishing claim that blind persons, including those blind from birth, can actually "see" during near-death or out-of-body episodes. The authors present their findings in scrupulous detail, investigating case histories of blind persons who have actually reported visual experiences under these conditions. There is fascinating evidence that the blind do "see" in these moments, but it is not sight as we think of it. Ring and Cooper suggest a kind of "transcendental awareness" they refer to as Mindsight. It involves seeing in detail, sometimes from all angles at once, with everything in focus, and a sense of "knowing" the subject, not just visually, but with multisensory knowledge. Human beings may be more talented than we think, gifted with amazing abilities of perception. This book is an opportunity to assess the evidence for yourself.

Beginning in May 1977, Dr. Kenneth Ring, a psychologist interested in altered states of consciousness, spent thirteen months tracking down and interviewing scores of people who had come close to death. He discovered that most near-death experiences seem to unfold according to a single pattern. What to make of this common set of elements associated with the onset of death is the central challenge of this book. Whether this experience can be interpreted in naturalistic terms is the overriding scientific issue raised. In Life at Death, Dr. Ring, after interviewing more than a hundred near-death survivors, was not only able to confirm Moody’s basic findings, but extended them in important ways by establishing an empirical basis for the different stages of the near-death experience. He also showed that the aftereffects on the experience are consistent, dramatic and profound. The fear of death tends to vanish, and the total impact is akin to a spiritual rebirth. 

Many books have dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Israeli perspective. However, few reflect the Palestinian point of view. Letters from Palestine offers an American audience a rare opportunity to listen to actual Palestinian people as they describe what it is like to live in the occupied territories of the West Bank or Gaza, or to grow up as a Palestinian in the U.S. Their accounts are lively, poignant, searing, and tragic, yet often laced with touches of surreal humor. By showing Palestinians in all their humanity, Letters from Palestine enables American readers to see beyond the usual stereotypes.

In these lively and often witty essays, Dr. Kenneth Ring best known for his pioneering work on near-death experiences, reveals his talents as a Kenny-come-lately humorist and would-be man of letters. Now in his mid-80s, this book shows he has lost none of his verve for writing on a range of subjects as diverse as they are entertaining. But quite apart from his gift for the droll phrase, the reader will find that Ring also touches on and often goes into depth on serious topics, such as dealing with the COVID pandemic, the right-to-die movement, and the epidemic of loneliness. He also spends some time describing how he became interested in near-death experiences, his explorations with psychedelic drugs, and his one extraordinary and mind-blowing reading from a medium. A lifelong lover of classical music, Reflections in a Glass Eye contains three sparkling and hilarious essays on composers, musicians, and their patrons. The book ends with some touching and moving accounts of Ring's remarkable love life, which will give the reader a sense of how rich and wondrous has been the life of the author.

Ken Ring claims to spend most of his days whimpering, his farewell to writing, as his final essays will demonstrate, certainly goes out with a bang. As he veers unsteadily toward eighty-seven, Ring has lost none of his verve or literary panache. As always, his essays sparkle with his usual wit, but mainly reflect Ring's more serious concern to address some of the topics that have engaged him during this last phase of his life.

Still, the book begins in a more lighthearted way with his reminiscing about his early life with his absent father ("my father, once removed," he calls him) and about some of the other things that shaped his character, such as the greatest movie ever made that few people have heard of. He also devotes several essays to largely unknown facets of Helen Keller's extraordinary career, including "The Sex Life of a Saint." But most of the rest of the book is devoted to Ring's careful study of the lives of animals and considerations of animal welfare and the movement for animal rights. And it concludes, fittingly enough, with a number of essays that distill what Ring believes are the most important lessons that people should take from his many years of researching near-death experiences—all of which was foreshadowed by that film he saw as a youth that changed his life and foretold his destiny..

Beginning with a hilarious account of the foibles and follies of a body that has expired before the author has, renowned NDE researcher, Kenneth Ring, in this collection of essays takes the reader on an exhilarating ride on the train whose destination is death—yet the journey is anything but morbid or depressing. On the contrary, in these genial, entertaining, and often witty essays, Ring invites us to ponder not just the hardships of facing death (he does not shy away from the anguish of dying), but what we can learn about how to live fully before we die. He even considers ways to ease the transition into death by the use of psychedelics. But much of the book distills what Ring has learned from his long career of researching near-death experiences, and the promise they hold out for us of a life beyond this one.

Dr. Kenneth Ring states: "I gave my book a somewhat whimsical title: Pastrami on Rye: A Potpourri of Pieces from the Life of a Jewish Apostate. But the book isn’t really humorous. I wrote it not just to entertain my kids (and whoever else might read it) but to tell them about my own Jewish past as well as what Jews had contributed culturally to our world. As I explain at the beginning of my book, it is the story of how I grew up Jewish and how I grew old only to forfeit my sense of Jewish identity. And what happened in between my youth and old age to bring about this radical change. The book has three main sections: (1) My life as a Jew; (2) Jewish contributions to the world of music and entertainment; (3) Israel.