Ealexander3

Potential conflict of interest

I noticed your edits to Eben Alexander (author). Are you Eben Alexander, the author of Proof of Heaven? Vzaak (talk) 17:15, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident in which you may be involved. Thank you. Vzaak (talk) 18:22, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

August 2013

Hello Ealexander3, and welcome to Wikipedia. Your addition to Eben Alexander (author)‎ has had to be removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. While we appreciate your contributing to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from your sources to avoid copyright or plagiarism issues here.

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It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Dougweller (talk) 18:36, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

This account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because the username, Ealexander3, matches the name of a well-known, living person.

If you are the person represented by this username, please note that the practice of blocking such usernames is to protect you from being impersonated, not to discourage you from editing Wikipedia. You are welcome to continue to edit under this username, but we ask the following:

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If you feel that you were blocked in error, you may appeal this block by adding below this notice the text {{unblock|Your reason here}}, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first. Dougweller (talk) 21:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

This user's request to be unblocked to request a change in username has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without a good reason (see the blocking policy). Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Ealexander3 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • autoblocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Requested username:

Ealexander3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Request reason:

I am truly Eben Alexander III MD and need to be able to edit Wikipedia - unclear why I have been blocked

Decline reason:

In that case, please provide evidence via the method explained at WP:REALNAME. Everybody could say they are the real Eben Alexander III; I apologize for the inconvenience, but this is ultimately meant to protect you from being impersonated by someone else. Huon (talk) 15:52, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Unblocked

@Huon: He emailed me and I'm satisfied. I've reminded him about WP:COI. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Ealexander3 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

your unblock request reason goes here

Decline reason:

I'm afraid we can't do anything about a block on an IP address unless you tell us what IP address it is. Please post a new unblock request giving us that information, which will be given in the message you see when you try to edit. Alternatively, if for any reason you prefer not to make your IP address publicly visible, you can request an unblock through the Unblock Ticket Request System. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Wikipedia please help, I am told I have been unblocked, yet I still hit a block (16 Jan 2017), possibly because my IP address is blocked. Help!

Your most recent edit and conflict of interest

That's exactly the sort of edit you should not be doing but proposing on the talk page. Your earlier edits were appropriate and unexceptionable although unsourced. If you do suggest it on the talk page you need to use reliably published sources as defined at WP:RS, and that pdf does not qualify. Doug Weller talk 18:50, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Doug Weller: I appreciate your help in trying to get a more neutral, objective version of facts about me out to Wikipedia's audience. I cannot tell you how frustrating this has been for me in trying to set the record straight against numerous blocks on my editing.

The Esquire article by Luke Dittrich was a fabrication and distortion of many facts about my life, that paints a most destructive image of me and tries to destroy my credibility. Luke's own demise since publishing it is the strongest evidence that the publishing world came to realize he had fabricated it, resulting in the destruction of his career in "journalism". A most thorough and professional rebuttal of his article (by Robert and Suzanne Mays, two researchers associated with IANDS, or the International Association of Near-Death Studies) is widely available on the IANDS web site:

The Esquire article contains a number of gross inaccuracies and outright distortions of the facts, as described by psychologist Robert Mays of the International Association of Near-Death Studies, who concluded: "So Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven turns out to be quite the opposite of what Luke Dittrich portrayed or implied—namely, a story concocted out of the hallucinations of a sick brain coming periodically out of sedation and embellished with fanciful stories of rainbows and dramatic shouts for help. Rather, Proof of Heaven turns out to be an honestly portrayed true story of a dangerously close brush with death, a genuine near-death experience of love, healing and heavenly revelation, and a miraculous physical healing. Proof of Heaven is, most importantly, a story of love—of a love that could reach across dimensions to unite a sister and brother who had never met, and of the bond of love between a father and son that brought Eben Alexander back from death’s door."[4]

Ref: https://iands.org/ndes/more-info/ndes-in-the-news/970-esquire-article-on-eben-alexander-distorts-the-facts.html

Ref: https://iands.org/images/stories/pdf_downloads/esquire%20article%20on%20eben%20alexander%20distorts%20the%20facts.pdf

Other scientists have published similar views supporting the truth behind my story, utterly damning not only the shoddy reporting of Dittrich, but the fact that his version of my story was intentionally malicious in its very purpose and handling by Esquire:

Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven and Rudolf H. Smit came to similar conclusions about the Esquire article in their landmark book, The Self Does Not Die (Durham, NC: IANDS Press, 2016). In discussing attacks on Alexander’s case, they reiterated many of the outrageous distortions perpetrated by Dittrich: “These feeble but nonetheless mean attempts to damage Alexander’s reputation were surpassed by a long and harshly critical article in Esquire magazine by Luke Dittrich… the recipient of important journalism awards, suggesting that he is a fine journalist. Yet it seems that with this article he was doing his best to throw his reputation as an objective writer out the window… After the publication of Alexander’s article in Newsweek stirred up enormous controversy, Dittrich decided to find out all he could about the case, apparently with the aim to expose Alexander as a fraud. It is hard to surmise otherwise after having read the article that resulted from his ‘research,’ because the facts were so clearly concealed, distorted or misrepresented.”

Ref: Rivas, Titus, Anny Dirven and Rudolf H. Smit. The Self Does Not Die (Durham, NC: IANDS Press), 2016, pp 246-259.

Neal Grossman, PhD, associate professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Illinois, made the following observations about Dr Alexander’s case in his review and enhancement of The Self Does Not Die:

In Chapter 5: After-Death Communication With Strangers, the authors presented cases in which, during an NDE, the experiencer communicated with a being unknown to her or him but later discovered that the being was a real historical person. For example, a child met a “nice lady” who befriended her and then much later identified that lady from old family photos as his mother’s grandmother. Or a child met a sibling she did not know she had, because the older sibling had died in childbirth and the parents had said nothing of it to the child. Alexander’s experience could be included in this chapter: Adopted as an infant, he had met his biological sister during his NDE but did not know who she was until his birth parents sent him photos several months after his NDE.

Regarding the title of Chapter 8: Miraculous Healing, at first I did not care for the term “miraculous” because of its religious connotations. I thought the word “spontaneous” or “unexpected” might be better. But as I started reading, I found that the doctors themselves used the word “miracle” to describe such cases. “There’s no question about it. It is a miracle that he’s alive, that he is talking with no brain damage” (p. 172). So I guess it’s OK that the authors also used the term. Well-known NDEr Anita Moorjani is featured in this chapter. But Alexander’s case also belongs in this chapter, as his medical prognosis prior to coming out of his coma was either death or permanent vegetative state. Each of the 10 cases presented in this chapter is well-documented by medical records and statements from physicians.

In Chapter 11: How Skeptics Attempt to Explain Away Near-Death Experiences . . . and Fail, co-author Smit discussed in detail fundamaterialists’ responses to three well-known cases: those of Alexander, Reynolds, and the Dentures Man. The former case has been extremely worrisome to the materialist ideologues, because Alexander is a brain surgeon who, according to them, should know better than to believe that his consciousness is independent of his brain, no matter what the evidence to the contrary provided by the details of his case. So it is perhaps not entirely surprising that they singled him out for vicious and slanderous attack. Again, I will refrain from commenting on any of the details except to say, as above, that I agree completely both with their responses to the fundamaterialists and with their overall conclusion that, indeed, “the self does not die.”

Ref: Journal of Near-Death Studies, 34(4), Summer 2016 © 2016 IANDS DOI: 10.17514/JNDS-2016-34-4-p233-250.

My third book, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into the Heart Of Consciousness (co-authored with Karen Newell, published by Rodale Books (10/17/17) is the true sequel to Proof of Heaven, and is a deeply scientific assessment of the nature of consciousness, especially in light of the measurement paradox in quantum physics and extraordinary examples of human experience that have been scientifically studied. Following are some of the scientific endorsers of the new book, and their specific support:

Similar to Einstein, Eben, a man of science, delves into the Spiritual Oneness. He realizes that there are many paths up the mountain and they end up in the same place. As a result of understandings that Eben encountered during his coma, he succinctly conveys familiarity with many planes of consciousness, and the way he demonstrates this awareness is fascinating. Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now

Numerous books have been written about consciousness, mind, soul, and love, but nobody has put them together in such an ingenious way as Dr. Eben Alexander. His book LIVING IN A MINDFUL UNIVERSE will bring its readers a road map for life that is desperately needed in these times of stress, conflict, and confusion. It not only deals with life after death but how to live a more meaningful existence right here and right now. Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Saybrook University co-author Personal Mythology

Having previously accepted the philosophy of 'scientific materialism' as the ultimate truth, Dr. Alexander found that his life-transforming near-death experience during coma had shattered all of his former beliefs about the nature of consciousness, the roles of the mind and brain, and the meaning of life and death. His emergent understanding, which parallels much of the awakening in the modern scientific community, is presented in Living in a Mindful Universe, which illuminates the many steps he took to expand his understanding of a much larger, richer, and deeper cosmos.

Bill Guggenheim Coauthor of Hello From Heaven!

Dr. Eben Alexander’s case history is one of the most important in the history of medicine. The fact that he physically survives his illness is astonishing, but his account of a journey during his coma to a resplendent domain that operates according to the principle of boundless love is even more surprising. Alexander’s experience shows that the dismal, vacuous view of materialism, which guarantees total annihilation of consciousness with physical death, is almost certainly wrong. Newell’s contributions are a valuable addition, making possible a practical blueprint by which one can realize transcendent insights and spiritual growth without experiencing the dangerous trauma of Alexander’s journey. Their collaboration makes Living in a Mindful Universe vital reading as we struggle to recover direction, purpose, and meaning in modern life. Larry Dossey, MD Author: ONE MIND: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters Executive Editor: Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing

Living in a Mindful Universe is a valuable, practical blueprint by which one can realize transcendent insights and spiritual growth; vital reading as we struggle to recover direction, purpose, and meaning in modern life.

A very important book, with rich stories illustrating a world beyond the limits of materialistic science and one neurosurgeon’s quest to rethink everything he has learned. Dr. Alexander’s humbleness, along with the wise counsel of Karen Newell, is a roadmap for those wishing to bridge science and spirit and enter into a life of wonder and magic. And, it’s a great read!

William Arntz, Creator of What the BLEEP Do We Know!?

Living in a Mindful Universe is a compelling introduction to a vitally important and rapidly unfolding paradigm shift in science. It highlights the decline of a nihilistic worldview held by scientists for centuries, where consciousness was a meaningless side effect of brain activity, to the rise of a far more comprehensive worldview where consciousness is the fundamental "glue" that defines reality itself.

Dean Radin, PhD - Chief Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences deanradin.com - Distinguished Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies ciis.edu - Co-Editor-in-Chief, Explore, an Elsevier journal explorejournal.com

With a background in neurosurgery and having had direct experience of non-ordinary aspects of reality, Eben Alexander is a unique and valuable cultural asset in our efforts to develop a more mature understanding of the nature of self and world. In this delightful and mind-opening book, Eben and Karen take us with them on their journey of exploration subsequent to Eben's NDE. They show that the insights they have had are accessible to any one of us, and that sane, coherent, non-materialist views of reality not only exist, but are no longer fringe. Bernardo Kastrup, PhD, author of Brief Peaks Beyond and Beyond Allegory

Living in a Mindful Universe goes beyond Dr. Alexander’s previous books in showing how science and spirituality are coming together to give us a more complete understanding of consciousness, meaning, and purpose in the universe -- and in describing how we can realize our role in it. Bruce Greyson, MD, Carlson Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences, Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia, co-editor of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences

In this third book based upon his extraordinary experiences during a coma induced by bacterial meningitis, Eben Alexander provides new information about the coma and its aftermath, connects his experiences with world-wide and world-old mystical traditions, and links experiences of this sort with modern developments in physics. He then goes on with his partner Karen Newell to survey a variety of practices and technologies that may enable others to access these expanded states of consciousness and the normally latent human potentials associated with them. Many other such possibilities undoubtedly remain to be discovered, and time will tell which of the lot work best, and for whom. An exciting new journey of scientific self-discovery is certainly underway. Edward F. Kelly, PhD is a Professor in the Division of Perceptual Studies, Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia, and lead author of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (2007) and Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality (2015).

In this impressive book Eben Alexander gives us a frank and very personal account of the life-changing transformation following his deep-coma experience. He shares with us his complete flip away from scientific materialism, and his newly obtained insight in the mystery of the Collective Mind. He explains the importance to make contact with this high-ordered consciousness by practising conscious awareness on a more daily basis. Our picture of the world will change fundamentally by the insight that it is all about consciousness. This perspicuously written book will bring deeper understanding of the nature of the human spirit, and gives us all a greater knowledge about the nature of reality. Highly recommended.

Pim van Lommel, MD, cardiologist, author of Consciousness Beyond Life

In Living in a Mindful Universe, Eben Alexander and Karen Newell explore the worlds of both science and spirit. They offer clear explanations of findings that challenge the Supreme Illusion of everyday physical reality, along with frank accounts of their own efforts to connect more with the Collective Mind. The result is a work filled with wisdom and compassion.

--Jim B. Tucker, MD, Director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, and New York Times bestselling author of Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives

While eloquently telling us about the Mindful Universe, Eben Alexander and Karen Newall skillfully and beautifully drive home a timely and important message: You are not just part of a self aware and ever evolving universe, you are the one that gives it awareness and is evolving it! You are your universe. The authors make the compelling case that the future of our world and the future vision for our universe lies directly in our hands and in the choices we make.

Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi, Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and New York Times Best Selling Author of Super Brain and Super Genes

Eben Alexander and Karen Newell, two of the brightest and most sensitive people I know, have written a truly wonderful new book. Their book is both a personal journal of their spiritual quest and a practical manual for the care, education and nourishment of the soul. I love their brilliant, in-depth thinking and analysis, which sheds exciting new light on near-death experiences and other phenomena of the spiritual life. Raymond Moody, MD, PhD, author of Life After Life and Glimpses of Eternity

In this important book, Eben Alexander and Karen Newell lead us on an unforgettable journey that opens our hearts to a deeper understanding of consciousness. As a neurosurgeon previously steeped in materialism until his beliefs were shattered by a near death experience, Alexander is in a unique position of being able to provide a more comprehensive description of the true nature of reality than conventional science or spirituality can offer, which he delivers with great elegance within the pages of this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in gaining a deeper understanding of our true nature; especially those who are not afraid of breaking down the boundaries between our scientific and spiritual beliefs. "Living in a Mindful Universe not only shatters conventional boundaries that traditionally separated science from spirituality, but also provides us with important insights on how to apply this understanding to our lives, which is much needed and so important in the fearful world we seem to be living in today!" Anita Moorjani ~~ New York Times Best Selling Author of Dying to be Me

I have great admiration for Dr. Eben Alexander, because he didn't ignore something that science cannot (currently) explain—namely, a detailed near-death experience when his brain was clinically incapacitated. In his latest book, Living In A Mindful Universe, he shares with us what he has discovered about the nature of human consciousness since awakening from his coma, and also gives readers tools they can use to deepen their own consciousness. Highly recommended for anyone looking to harness the power of the human mind!" −Kelly Turner, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds

Do not make another edit to the Wikipedia article about you, without proposing it on the t/p and gaining affirmation from other editors.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 09:39, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave}: I propose that the following statement be removed: "Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. He settled five malpractice suits in Virginia within a period of ten years.[13]"

This is a fully inflammatory, slanderous and libelous statement that has no truth to it. It implies Dr Alexander was at fault for leaving two institutions, when in fact the conflicts resulted from offenses by a Neurosurgical Chief (at Brigham & Women's Hospital) who was later himself terminated for issues related to Alexander's firing (the Chief's financial improprieties with departmental funds), and a Surgical Chief (UMass Memorial in Worcester) who released 14 other surgeons over a year or so (again due to departmental financial issues), including Dr Alexander, and including 3 of the other 4 neurosurgeons, and was then terminated himself. Dr Alexander was never found guilty of malpractice. Neurosurgeons are sued more than any other specialty, and a NEJM report in 2013 revealed that on average a neurosurgeon in the US can be expected to be sued every five years. As to alteration of medical records, three state medical boards and the American Board of Neurological Surgeons investigated those allegations and found them to be spurious, fully restoring his license in all three states and his board certification. Please help delete these misleading statements from this article. These fake facts are there to distract people form the main features of Dr Alexander's story -- they do a great disservice to the world by being injected as more inflammation to Dittrich's sadly self-destructive reporting. Note that Dittrich might have been an award winning journalist leading up to his hatchet attack on Dr Alexander, but that he has become a pariah in the publishing industry, barely able to get any significant stories published since he left Esquire. This can be understood by reading the charges against him leveled in Dr Robert Mays' investigation of Luke around his attack on Dr Alexander:

"Great journalism or journalistic malpractice?

"To Esquire's Editor in Chief David Granger, Luke Dittrich's story is great journalism.

"To me the Dittrich article is shoddy and irresponsible journalism—shoddy because of Luke Dittrich's and his Esquire editors' evident failures:

"failure to consider alternate explanations (rainbow), failure to check with the cited witnesses (Phyllis and Betty Alexander), failure to verify information with additional witnesses (Holley Alexander, Michael Sullivan and others), failure to check with medical experts (on the likely cause of coma), failure to check again on crucial testimony of the sole cited witness (Laura Potter), failure to read the book carefully (Dr. Wade’s statement about Alexander’s coma), failure to verify conclusions via other witnesses (Holley Alexander and Sylvia White), failure to exercise care in asserting erroneous facts (use of drugs was not mentioned in the book), failure to exercise care in quoting and interpreting recorded remarks (Dalai Lama), and failure to exercise common sense in interpreting the meaning of statements (Dalai Lama).

"And Dittrich's article was irresponsible because of the impact—the real harm—the resulting distortions have caused. I am sure Luke Dittrich and his editors felt completely justified, based on what they felt was a solid case against Eben Alexander. They probably also considered the negative effect that Dittrich's article and its conclusions would have on Alexander and others, and similarly felt justified. In their minds, Eben Alexander is a complete fraud and deserves to be exposed as such.

"But did Luke Dittrich and his editors exercise sufficient care in building their case? In my opinion they did not: the facts presented in the article were distorted or completely wrong and the conclusions are totally unwarranted. And the result has been devastating to those people who know the facts and how utterly wrong they were portrayed in the article. They include all of the people I mentioned two paragraphs above, especially Dr. Laura Potter whose statements were misrepresented and distorted by Luke Dittrich to establish the central fact of his case. Even His Holiness the Dalai Lama would be quite dismayed that his warm, supportive statements to Eben Alexander have been so cleverly distorted into the exact opposite of his meaning.

"But the person most harmed is Dr. Eben Alexander, whose reputation has been severely damaged on the basis of Dittrich's erroneous, distorted judgments. From now on, many people will associate Eben Alexander with altering records, embellishment, fabrication and delusion. Eben Alexander's response seems all the more relevant now that the facts are a little clearer:

"'I wrote a truthful account of my experiences in Proof of Heaven and have acknowledged in the book both my professional and personal accomplishments and my setbacks. I stand by every word in this book and have made its message the purpose of my life. Esquire's cynical article distorts the facts of my 25-year career as a neurosurgeon and is a textbook example of how unsupported assertions and cherry-picked information can be assembled at the expense of the truth. (emphasis added)'

"And what of the other allegations insinuated or leveled at Eben Alexander? He deserves to have his side of these cases heard as well. Dr. Alexander’s 25-year neurosurgical career included over 4,000 surgeries. Luke Dittrich does not have a good track record with the truth with respect to Eben Alexander: one cannot trust Dittrich's portrayal of the facts.

"The most serious of the cases Dittrich cites, that Dr. Alexander altered medical records in a case of wrong-level spine surgery, similarly distorts the truth, according to Dr. Alexander. The patient in question had excellent relief of his symptoms after Dr. Alexander's surgery, delaying Alexander’s discovery that surgery had been performed at an unintended level. Dr. Alexander corrected the record to reflect the newly learned facts of the case, and disclosed the surgical error to all parties after follow up revealed a genuine surgical benefit. After full investigation by three state medical boards and the American Board of Neurological Surgeons, Dr. Alexander continued to practice medicine without restriction, with his board certification intact.

"From his investigative work, Luke Dittrich knows something about malpractice. In professions like medical and legal practice, malpractice involves negligence or incompetence on the part of a professional. This would entail the failure to exercise the degree of skill, prudence and diligence ordinarily expected of a member of the profession. Malpractice is not ordinarily used for journalistic practice. However, there are certain informal ethics and standards of behavior that apply, particularly within a given publishing organization.

"The content of Luke Dittrich's article certainly raises the question as to what standards were applied to it by Esquire. In my opinion, Mr. Dittrich's actions in investigating and writing the article and Esquire's unabashed endorsement of it rise to the level of malpractice."

ref: https://iands.org/ndes/more-info/ndes-in-the-news/970-esquire-article-on-eben-alexander-distorts-the-facts.html

Your use of the word "libelous"

Please read WP:NLT and confirm that you have no intention of taking legal action, or encourage others to take legal action, in regards to your Wikipedia article. You confirmation needs to be very clear and explicit. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 14:19, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Doug Weller -- Dr Alexander currently has no intention of taking legal action. Wikipedia's assistance in presenting a fair and objective assessment of Eben Alexander helps in preventing legal action. Thanks for your help in providing the most truthful view possible to Wikipedians. talk

I am currently writing an article for the mainstream press about some of the problems in media coverage of paradigm-shifting scientific ideas, and my current experience of difficulties trying to bring objectivity and fact to my Wikipedia page will be a major part. Thus any help from Wikipedia editors in trying to correct prior deficiencies will be reflected in that article. Thanks again for any help you can offer.

Along these lines it is definitely time to remove the following:

"Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. He settled five malpractice suits in Virginia within a period of ten years.[13]"

I need the help of Wikipedia editors to do so. Please respond. talk

Noticeboard where you can complain about your article

See WP:BLPN. Doug Weller talk 14:20, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• I have three quick takes:--
  • IANDS, an organisation whose primary field of activity is Near-Death Studies and a stated goal to support and assist near-death experiencers (NDErs) and people close to them is not a suitable source as a rebuttal of criticism of your experiences in nearly the same field.
  • Dailymail is almost always unreliable.See WP:DAILYMAIL.
  • I will definitely look into your above-quoted positive reviews of your works and see whether they are suitable for inclusion.Regards:)Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 16:32, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

who are you

I unblocked under the understanding you were indeed Eben Alexander, the subject of the article. Now you are talking as though you are speaking for him. Doug Weller talk 17:10, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Doug Weller: I am Eben Alexander III MD. I am still learning the ropes on these Wikipedia edits. Any statement referring to myself as "Dr Alexander" would involve text I might have intended to be posted on the actual page (as opposed to referring to "me" or "I" on such a posting).

Responding to:

• I have three quick takes:--
  • IANDS, an organisation whose primary field of activity is Near-Death Studies and a stated goal to support and assist near-death experiencers (NDErs) and people close to them is not a suitable source as a rebuttal of criticism of your experiences in nearly the same field.
  • Dailymail is almost always unreliable.See WP:DAILYMAIL.
  • I will definitely look into your above-quoted positive reviews of your works and see whether they are suitable for inclusion.Regards:)Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 16:32, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I offer the following appeal concerning the Esquire article:

From Eben Alexander: Thanks for your feedback. However, I believe that Esquire and Dittrich are not an objective, reliable source, and all reference to his article should be removed from Wikipedia, for the following reasons:

The first part of my argument is the Mays article, the most important part of which I included in the post above (Your most recent edit and conflict of interest). Even if you disallow it as a source, its points are strong and well-documented. I point out that the International Association of Near Death Studies (IANDS) is primarily made up of physicians, psychologists and other scientists who study these cases -- they do not give blanket support, but are very discerning in their scientific investigations. Detailed review of Mays' rebuttal, especially given his reference to primary data available on the internet (like the Maitripa College discussion between myself and the Dalai Lama) is most damning of Esquire and Dittrich. Please be sure to read through Mays assessment.

Alex Tsakiris of Skeptiko (an objective and intelligent source) interviewed Mays and corroborated the disturbing hatchet-attack nature of Dittrich's article, in a post entitled "Esquire Magazine caught lying. Dr. Eben Alexander’s NDE account prevails: Interview with Robert Mays reveals a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation and distortion in Luke Dittrich’s Proof of Heaven expose published in Esquire Magazine."

Skeptiko tried to set up a debate between Dittrich and Dr Alexander, but Dittrich refused (as Sam Harris did when Tsakiris tried to set up a similar debate between Dr Alexander and Harris).

http://skeptiko.com/220-esquire-proof-of-heaven-expose-debunked/

Similarly, in Daily Grail, a reviewer of the actual video referenced by Dittrich is surprised by the obvious distortions Dittrich made:

"The event at which these comments were made was filmed, and you can watch it via the video at the top of this story (the relevant section starts around the 45 minute mark). What is interesting about it is that Dittrich does not directly quote the Dalai Lama after he “wags a finger in Alexander’s direction”. This might be because the words he would have had to quote were (as best I can make out): “and in this particular case, there seems no reason to lie”. Which would seem to change the entire vibe of that passage in Dittrich’s article…

"Strangely, also, where Dittrich finishes by saying “he [the Dalai Lama] changes the subject, starts talking about a massive project to translate ancient Tibetan texts” – he doesn’t. The Dalai Lama actually talks for about 10 minutes at that point on the dialogue in recent years between himself/Buddhism and science on the topics of mind and emotions (in which he says the gap between them is due to one being about individual knowledge, the other about universal knowledge). I’m not sure why Dittrich described it differently.

"It does seem though that Dittrich certainly made the DL’s comments seem a whole lot more accusatory than they actually were…"

In other words, twisted to the exact opposite of what the Dali Lama actually said. It must be horribly embarrassing for Dittrich to have this concrete evidence of his deception out there for anyone who takes the time to check it out.

ref: https://www.dailygrail.com/2013/07/esquire-expose-has-its-own-selective-editing/

A week after Dittrich posted The Prophet, he posted a blog on Esquire supporting his use of Dr Laura Potter as his main source that my coma was due to sedation, and not to meningitis (a case I made in Proof of Heaven through the Appendix statement by Dr Scott Wade that I was in coma due to meningitis). He was facing backlash from people, and trying to shore up his position through Dr Potter's interview.

Ref: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a18992/proof-of-heaven-potter/

However, Dr Potter made this statement, reflecting Dittrich's shoddy and malicious tactics:

"I am saddened by and gravely disappointed by the article recently published in Esquire. The content attributed to me is both out of context and does not accurately portray the events around Dr. Eben Alexander’s hospitalization. …I believe Dr. Alexander has made every attempt to be factual in his accounting of events.*"

Ref: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonreligion/2015/01/does-eben-alexander-prove-heaven-sort-of/#HVf1iYGpxApr0eMJ.99

Defending against further backlash, 6 weeks later Dittrich posted this blog, maybe feeling a tinge of guilt about the lie he used to interview me in the first place, concerning my father's close relation with his grandfather as neurosurgeons active in the 1950s and later:

"For the rest of our interview, the encyclopedia sat on a coffee table between us. At times, it felt to me like a silent accusation. The contours of the story I was working on were already clear. I'd already gathered more than a thousand pages of documents from four courts in two states, and had spoken with a host of Alexander's former colleagues and friends. My reporting was beginning to make it pretty clear that Alexander's bestselling book, Proof of Heaven, was a stew of factual inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions. But that wedding gift [from Luke's grandfather to me, Eben Alexander III], sitting there heavy as a brick, weighed on me. It was a reminder that Eben Alexander wasn't just a character in a story. He was real. You could almost call him a family friend. And this article I was working on, well, it didn't look like it was going to be a friendly one. There's no good way to resolve that sort of tension."

He could have resolved it easily by abandoning his distorted attack piece and paid more attention to the many facts that supported the truth of my story. The problem was that he had made up a sensationalist story that would probably work wonders in cashflow for Esquire through the paywall (see below), and had no interest in wrecking that fragile structure with facts. I always thought it odd that he never asked my former spouse, Holley, nor my 15 year old son Bond (both home with us during the interview - Holley served him coffee and snacks) any questions at all for clarification during the two hours or so he spent in our home. Specifically, one of his main attacks on my book was the rainbow that some meteorologist said could not exist - Holley could have easily confirmed the accuracy of that whole story to him (as could my sister Phyllis, and my mother, Betty, who all witnessed the rainbow, but he never tried to contact any of them). During the interview in our home, he never brought up any of the inflammatory and contentious issues that I was later shocked to find in the actual article, but only gathered additional history from me in a comfortable, friendly setting. During one final Skype interview weeks later, he started to show more of his cards, that in fact this was going to be a very "unfriendly" article. I advised him, as a friend (because I had adopted that view of our relationship during the interview in our home), that he was making a grave error in publishing such an attack article that had major hints of fabrication and distortion (even though the actual article was far worse than I realized even then), that he should not publish it before substantial review and correction, in his interest -- I knew that even what he had shared with me at that point would inevitably result in serious damage to his career as a journalist. He misinterpreted that warning as my begging him, as a friend, not to go forward with the story, for my own sake. Some of what he said in that final interview suggested he did not even believe his own story, but that that was irrelevant to his ultimate purpose. In retrospect, Luke knew his concoction was very fragile indeed, and he didn't want to introduce facts that might upturn it.

Concerning all of Dittrich's concerns around legal issues, he fails to mention the outcome of those cases, but takes the original accusations as final verdicts. Note that a NEJM article in 2013 found neurosurgeons to be the most sued specialty, and on average a US neurosurgeon can expect to be sued every five years [1]. Given my involvement in many high risk cases, that number might be expected to be a bit higher. In fact I was never found guilty of malpractice. Any case in which I was involved has been thoroughly investigated by 3 state medical boards (Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina) and all cleared me of any wrongdoing and left my license to practice medicine completely intact. Likewise, the American Board of Neurological Surgeons investigated any cases in question, and cleared me of any wrongdoing. My board certification remained intact.

Small and average payouts are common in resolving such malpractice issues by insurers, and no one in medicine takes such payouts as evidence of guilt. They are a cost of doing business for the malpractice insurance industry, to avoid the potentially catastrophic losses in jury trials. For all the hoopla Dittrich raised around the $3,000,000 suit I faced at one point, he fails to mention that that patient actually had a good outcome from my surgery. The insurer authorized a 20% payment on that $3M demand, simply because I reported to the patient that I had operated one level off the intended level (he had 3 adjacent levels of disease). Hard to even use the word "malpractice" given his good result, but such is the sad state of the malpractice industry in the US.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a24463/dittrich-prophet-revisited/

Ad week reported that Esquire was experimenting with making money via a paywall for the first time with this Dittrich article. Thus they were into sensationalist reporting and clickbait, nothing more objective. It was clear they had major profiteering foremost in their mind, hoping to reap financial rewards by attacking a successful book that had sold 2 million copies:

"For the first time, Esquire is dipping its toe into the realm of paid Web content. This morning, the Hearst Magazines title published “The Prophet,” a feature from its August issue, online—and rather than offering the entire article for free or posting a teaser to get readers to buy the magazine itself, Esquire is asking readers to pay $1.99 for the privilege of reading the article online."

ref: http://www.adweek.com/digital/esquire-experiments-online-paywall-150979/

ref: http://www.adweek.com/digital/the-new-cost-of-longform-journalism-at-esquire/

Doesn't sound like the paywall was very successful in trying to pay Dittrich and Esquire:

"In a note about the paywall, David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, explained that the story took months to produce — and that such journalism doesn't come cheap."

"Granger tells Mashable "The Prophet" sold several thousands copies, but that it was "probably a wash, revenue-wise."

http://mashable.com/2013/10/11/magazines-paywalls-esquire-sports-illustrated-atlantic/#CDqy8sH4KZqf

Medium questioned Esquires motives, and again I believe one cannot view this as standard reporting with journalistic integrity: they were focused on sensationalism, so distortion of facts (as detailed by Mays) was acceptable, given the main goal of trying to simply make a windfall in profits.

https://medium.com/@noahchestnut/questions-for-esquire-4ad8e4803c8a

Dittrich's approach to journalism, as revealed through some of the reaction to his book, Patient HM, is hardly what one might call objective:

On Powell's Books website, Dittrich confesses to an alarming view of himself as a journalist (lobbing a grenade and causing pain):

"I’ve done a lot of investigative journalism in the past, which means I’m used to causing pain. Usually, that pain is inflicted from a distance. I’ll do my reporting, then lob the result like a grenade into somebody else’s life. This was different. Some of the lives most affected would be the people I most care about, my mom included."

That interview started with this:

"I remember standing in my kitchen, phone in hand, listening to the ring. I’d just finished talking with my agent, who’d informed me that he’d negotiated my first book deal. It was exciting, life-changing news, and I was about to share it with the person who’d always been my biggest fan.

"My mom picked up, and I told her.

“'Oh no,' she said."...

"My mom’s dad. My grandfather." was the subject of his next book, and his Mom said "Oh, no" because she knew that Luke's style of "investigative reporting," just by involving his own maternal grandfather, was cause for great concern. She knew the grenades could be very painful, and this was her own deceased father whose reputation would be smeared.

ref: http://www.powells.com/post/original-essays/patient-h-m

In an Esquire post, he tells of how his grenade throwing even involved trashing his grandfather, my neurosurgeon father's friend, through his six decade later retrospective judgment concerning the surgery on patient HM (my father was a globally renowned neurosurgeon of that same era, and of course I have spent a life in neurosurgery - the kind of "Monday morning quarterbacking" Luke did in criticizing his grandfather's choices in operations back in the 1950s is a most unfair attack from someone without any knowledge [Luke] of the deeper facets of such decision-making):

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a27037/amnesiac-brain-0114/

200 Scientists, many from MIT, wrote letters of protest around serious problems in Dittrich's book, Patient HM, further questioning his abilities as an objective journalist or author, as reported in Scientific American:

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology brain sciences department and, separately, a group of some 200 neuroscientists from around the world have written letters to The New York Times claiming that a book excerpt in the newspaper’s Sunday magazine this week contains important errors, misinterpretations of scientific disputes, and unfair characterizations of an MIT neuroscientist who did groundbreaking research on human memory."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mit-challenges-the-new-york-times-over-book-on-famous-brain-patient/

I submit that if one compares the factual accuracy of Mays' report (including extensive documentation of primary source material) with Dittrich's record of reporting around these kinds of issues, one can only conclude that Dittrich is unreliable, even malicious, due to his intentional distortion of facts with the end goal of a sensational story. Mays and Tsakiris are far more objective sources than Dittrich.

The following objective material support the Mays article, and might be a strong objective addition:

Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven and Rudolf H. Smit came to similar conclusions about the Esquire article in their landmark book, The Self Does Not Die (Durham, NC: IANDS Press, 2016). In discussing attacks on Alexander’s case, they reiterated many of the outrageous distortions perpetrated by Dittrich: “ These feeble but nonetheless mean attempts to damage Alexander’s reputation were surpassed by a long and harshly critical article in Esquire magazine by Luke Dittrich… the recipient of important journalism awards, suggesting that he is a fine journalist. Yet it seems that with this article he was doing his best to throw his reputation as an objective writer out the window… After the publication of Alexander’s article in Newsweek stirred up enormous controversy, Dittrich decided to find out all he could about the case, apparently with the aim to expose Alexander as a fraud. It is hard to surmise otherwise after having read the article that resulted from his ‘research,’ because the facts were so clearly concealed, distorted or misrepresented.”

Their 14 page coverage details and justifies their conclusions about Dittrich being a most unreliable source.

Ref: Rivas, Titus, Anny Dirven and Rudolf H. Smit. The Self Does Not Die (Durham, NC: IANDS Press), 2016, pp 246-259.

Luke's career took a nosedive after Esquire. For such an award winning journalist before "The Prophet," his astonishing fall from grace and the absence of any recent articles reflects that he has made himself a pariah in the world of journalism - untrustworthy, sensationalist, distorting and malicious. Not a worthy source for Wikipedia.

Wikipedians should be able to base their conclusions on facts, and not on sensationalist, grenade throwing, clickbait prostitute hucksters like Dittrich, David Granger and Esquire. Given the controversy and evidence for Dittrich's unreliability as a journalist, I propose eliminating Dittrich's entire piece from Wikipedia. It only tarnishes your reputation, Wikipedia, to have such sensationalist inflammatory and biased material as a "source."

Thanks again for your help. Best, Eben Alexander III MD

• Do not cast defamatory personal attacks on any living person.That will most likely get you blocked.Will be adding something soon.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 07:57, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Godric on Leave - I appreciate your help in clearing this up. Please help me bring some truth to this Wikipedia page, based on my argument above. Looking forward to a favorable resolution. Waiting patiently... Thanks, Eben Alexander III MD

{{adminhelp}}

November 2017

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Eben Alexander (author). Your edits appear to be disruptive and have been reverted.

• If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, please discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
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Please ensure you are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and please do not continue to make edits that appear disruptive. Continual disruptive editing may result in loss of editing privileges. Thank you.
Note: Your most recent edit was marked as minor when it was clearly not; and your edit summary appeared dishonest - your edit did not remove a word but added a number of promotional sentences about yourself. Melcous (talk) 22:36, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Note: Thank you for pointing out the error minor when it was not - I will not make that mistake again; my edit summary was not meant to be dishonest - will delete all self-promotion. Ealexander3 (talk)

I am seeking deletion of any reference to the Esquire article through demonstration that the journalist, Luke Dittrich, was a most unreliable and distorted source (full argument above). I also propose adding the following paragraph as the initial introduction at very top of Wikipedia page:

Eben Alexander III (born December 11, 1953) is an American neurosurgeon and the author of the book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (2012), in which he describes his 2008 near-death experience and asserts that science can and will determine that the brain does not create consciousness and that consciousness survives bodily death. Dr. Alexander's achievements include driving advances in linear accelerator-based stereotactic radiosurgery, illustrating the role radiosurgery could provide in managing brain metastases (a frequently utilized application globally for this technology), participating in the development of an intraoperative MRI system , and directing research for developing focused ultrasound surgery as head of brain research for the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation, the position he held when he suffered his meningitis-induced near-death experience in 2008. He has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals, over 50 invited chapters, and nine books.

In general, Esquire is a reliable source subject to editorial oversight. The article in question was published more than four years ago, plenty of time for Esquire to retract or correct it if the article were faulty. If there's something wrong in the article, you can contact Esquire and ask them to publish a correction. The proposed chages to the article are not based on independent sources; Wikipedia content should be a summary of what reliable third-party sources have reported about the subject, not of what the subject says about himself. Huon (talk) 21:29, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

critique to Sam Harris' denial of non-local consciousness, directly addressing Alexander's case, from Bernardo Kastrup (Scientific American)

{{adminhelp}} {{help me}} Wikipedia editors keep telling me to edit by posting proposed edits on this talk page, yet none of the administrators help me to accomplish the goals I am proposing. I thus assume I must return to editing the page directly -- correct?

Computer scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup challenged Sam Harris's accusation with a viewpoint supporting the scientific relevance of Alexander's argument. "I believe there to be a couple of faulty assumptions in Harris' argument. The most glaring one is reflected in this segment of his post: 'His experience sounds so much like a DMT trip that we are not only in the right ballpark, we are talking about the stitching on the same ball.' The implicit suggestion is that, because of similarities between a psychedelic experience -- DMT is a psychedelic compound that occurs naturally in the human body -- and Alexander's NDE, the latter was likely generated by brain chemistry and, therefore, mere hallucination. Underlying this suggestion is the completely unsubstantiated assumption that no valid transcendental experience can be initiated by physical means, like alterations of brain chemistry...So Harris' assumption that a physical trigger cannot lead to a perfectly valid NDE seems to completely miss the point in contention... Therefore, Harris' comparison does not at all refute the validity of Alexander's NDE... The potential similarities of his experience with a psychedelic trance rather corroborate the reality of Alexander's NDE, since the mechanisms involved should indeed be analogous. After all, both Alexander's meningitis and psychedelics reduce brain activity...

"The more regrettable aspect of Harris' criticism is an overt attempt to discredit Alexander's capacity to judge whether his NDE could be explained by traditional neuroscience. This is embedded in a quote from his UCLA thesis advisor that Harris adds to his post: 'Neurosurgeons, however, are rarely well-trained in brain function. Dr. Alexander cuts brains; he does not appear to study them.' The claim here seems to be that Alexander, a then-practicing neurosurgeon and former professor at Harvard Medical School, does not understand what part of the brain does what, or what level of injury is sufficient to impair those brain regions. How plausible is this? What motivates this kind of argument?...

"Scientism activists casually take the liberty to throw all scientific caution to the wind when peddling the notion that consciousness is generated by the brain, even though nobody has the faintest idea how that can possibly be the case. Their activism flies in the face of reason, passing speculation and hypotheses for fact. It aims directly at convincing lay people of a particular agenda, rather like politicians do during electoral campaigns. Harris' thinking seems to be like this: 'Since the reports of NDEs are such that I can eliminate all theoretical possibilities I can think of, then NDEs can only be delusions and confabulations, despite all evidence to the contrary.' Well, this thinking doesn't say much about NDEs; it speaks only to Harris' ability to devise theoretical alternatives. In conclusion, whether Eben Alexander's 'trip to heaven' was a valid experience or not, Sam Harris' arguments against it simply don't hold up to reason, empirical honesty and clear thinking.

This discussion about Alexander's case prompted Kastrup to further elaborate on evidence indicating failure of the assumption that consciousness depends on the physical brain in two postings on Scientific American, entitled "Transcending the Brain: At least some cases of physical damage are associated with enriched consciousness or cognitive skill", and "Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think".

References

There is a place for scientific discussions or for rebuttals of Harris. Wikipedia is not the place. This content is unsuitable for an encyclopedia article about you, and your talk page is not the place to propose changes to the article in the first place. Further misuse of the talk page will lead to a revocation of talk page access. Huon (talk) 16:47, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

You were mentioned on the ANI board

Hello,

You were just mentioned on the ANI board. Feel free to respond to this. W.K.W.W.K...^{Toss a coin to the witcher, ye valley of plenty} 14:36, 14 August 2020 (UTC)