Foundation announces new research center to study near-death experiences

The Taiwan Near Death Experi-ence Research Center (台灣瀕死研究中心) -- the nation's first research center for near-death experiences (NDE) -- was officially launched at a press conference held in Taipei yesterday morning.

Sponsored by the Chou Ta-kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation (周大觀文教基金會), the center was formed to promote the study of NDEs in Taiwan.

NDEs are usually triggered by life-threatening traumas, when the soul of a person reportedly temporarily leaves the body. Some people also call this phenomenon an "after-death experience."

People who have had such experiences report that they had been outside their bodies -- traveling through a tunnel toward a source of white light.

According to statistics released by the foundation, over 120,000 people in Taiwan may have had such out-of-body experiences.

Chou Chin-huar (周進華), founder of the foundation, said that his son, Chou Ta-kuan, had six such experiences before he passed away in 1997 at the age of 10 from a rare form of cancer known as Rhabdomyosarcoma.

The boy wrote 42 poems while he was hospitalized, describing the physical and mental ordeals he

endured in his struggle for survival.

According to Lin Keng-hsin (林耕新), a psychiatrist at Kaohsiung?Kai-Suan Psychiatric Hospital, about 30 of his patients have reported having NDEs. So he believes the number of people in Taiwan who have had NDEs must be quite large.

"Those who have had an NDE usually don't talk about it, because they worry that other people may laugh at them," said Lin, adding that most of those who had the experiences became more positive about their lives afterward.

The foundation thought it would be desirable to sponsor the new center to further study NDEs.