An untrustworthy NDE account?

Several years ago, I posted a quotation from George G. Ritchie, M.D., regarding the near-death experience that he purported to have had in 1943, when he was twenty years old and serving in the military:

“What did you do with your life?
It seemed to be a question about values, not facts: What did you accomplish with the precious time you were allotted?
How much have you loved with your life? Have you loved others as I am loving you?  Totally?  Unconditionally?
I have shown you by the life I lived.  I showed you by the death I died.  And if you keep your eyes on Me, you will see more. . . . “

“Death is nothing more than a doorway,” Dr. Ritchie insisted, “something you walk through.”

One critical reader, responding to that quotation, took me to task for giving any credence to Dr. Ritchie, a Virginia physician and psychiatrist who died in 2007 at the age of 84.  Dr. Ritchie, he said, claimed to have been told by Jesus during his near-death experience or NDE that Armageddon would occur in 1988.  Plainly, it didn’t and it hasn’t yet.  So Dr. Ritchie stands discredited.

I responded that, while my copy of Dr. Ritchie’s book Return from Tomorrow wasn’t (and still isn’t) ready to hand, I recalled no such claim.  And I think that it would have stood out in my mind, because I read the book after 1988.

So, in support of his claim, the critic offered this:  “Ritchie’s NDE occurred in 1943 when he was shown visions of Earth’s future. Jesus informed him he had 45 years to accomplish his mission in life. That would be 1988:  ‘It is left to humanity which direction they shall choose. I came to this planet to show you, through the life I led, how to love. Without our Father you can do nothing, neither could I. I showed you this. You have 45 years.’ – Jesus’ words to George Ritchie.”

Now, I still haven’t looked again at Dr. Ritchie’s book.  My copy is inaccessible.  And it doesn’t seem that the critic ever actually looked at the book, either, since he always cited secondary sources.  Moreover, I notice that the quotation above doesn’t actually say that “Armageddon” would occur within forty-five years.  It talks about Dr. Ritchie’s “mission in life.”

The critic also cited this summary, from a website that’s obviously sympathetic to Dr. Ritchie’s claim:

“Ritchie saw increasing natural disasters on Earth (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes); families splitting and governments are breaking apart because of people thinking only of themselves; and armies marching on the U.S. from the south. He also saw explosions occurring all over the world of a magnitude beyond our capacity to imagine. He was told that if they continued, human life as we have known it will not exist.”

But the website, which I presume was launched after 1988 — are there any websites that predate 1988? — seems to make no connection between the quoted 45-year deadline and those natural disasters.

Still, puzzled by the critic’s assertion, I contacted my friend Martin Tanner, who is the host of KSL Radio’s program Religion Today , who very capably oversees the weekly Interpreter Radio Show, and who is currently vice president of the  International Association for Near-Death Studies.

It turns out that Martin had been a good friend of Dr. Ritchie, and he went out of his way to tell me by telephone that he regarded Dr. Ritchie as completely honest, sincere, and credible.  (Dr. Ritchie does indeed seem to have had a decent professional reputation, judging even from just the internet:  Among other things, he served as the president of the Richmond [Virginia] Academy of General Practice; chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of Towers Hospital, in Charlottesville, Virginia.)  And, furthermore, Martin sent me the following email:

Dan,

Last night I looked over both of George Ritchie’s books, Return From Tomorrow and My Life After Dying.  There is nothing about 1988 in Return From Tomorrow.  As I began to re-read My Life After Dying, it all became clear.  There is a reference, on page 30, which is no doubt the source.  I have attached it in pdf format.  Here are my comments about it:

1.  On page 30 of My Life After Dying, Ritchie says Jesus told him at the end of his NDE in 1943 “You have 45 Years.”  Forty-five years after 1943 would be 1988.

2.  I understood from George Ritchie himself, that he understood from Jesus’ comment that he was given 45 years to share his experience with the world, which he did by publishing his book Return From Tomorrowin 1978, 10 years before the deadline given by Jesus.

3.  Why didn’t Jesus want Ritchie to publish his experience immediately?  Ritchie said he was just 20 years old and without adequate writing skills.  Plus, nothing was known about NDEs at this time, so not later than 45 years, put sharing his experience at a time when people would understand and accept it.

4.  Ritchie, on pages 28-30 of his book describes what I have heard from many, many people who have had NDEs – alternative visions of the future.  The terrible vision happens if humanity chooses evil.  The good vision happens if humanity chooses good.

5.  The evil potential, possible future mentions armies marching on the U.S. from the South.  Ritchie thought this was the onslaught of illegal aliens, damaging this country, taking its resources and not understanding the ideals and opportunities of freedom the divinely inspired constitutional form of government as given by the Founding Fathers offers, thus moving towards socialism and communism.

6.  The only source I’ve been able to find which says Ritchie had 45 years, until 1988, until he would die or the Second Coming would happen, is the Skeptic Forum website at this link:http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=215387.  The Skeptic Forum is riddled with errors, misstatements and innuendo not justified by Ritchie’s own writings.  It is filled with bad grammar and typical of ad hominem, poorly reasoned and unfair attacks.

8.  Ritchie published My Life After Dying in 1991.  If he had either made up his NDE or genuinely had one and thought Jesus was coming by 1988 or he would die by then, he would have left the “you have 45 years” quote out of the book entirely or cited it and said he was puzzled by it.

9.  He did neither.