AbstractIn the past decade, medical and behavioral scientists have published reports of over 3,000 documented cases of near-death experience. The scientific study of near-death, circumthanatology, has progressed from the collection and description of the raw data on the near-death experience to more sophisticated data collection and analysis, new study techniques, and the formulation of concepts, generalizations, and theories. Beginning the decade of the 1980s, near-death research is moving in three directions. The major thrust is toward ongoing accumulation of knowledge on the near-death experience through scientifically derived studies. The most controversial and least supported of the other two directions is the movement toward the examination of the question of postmortem survival. The third direction is the movement toward the clinical application of the findings of near-death research.