Akiane Kramarik is an extraordinarily gifted young artist. Her work has been featured on ABC, Fox, CNN, and international television. She has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, Diane Sawyer, Lou Dobbs, Craig Ferguson, and Peter Jennings. Her story is an interesting one. She allegedly grew up in an atheist household with absolutely no exposure to Christian dogma, yet her work became famous for the realistic religious imagery she has translated into art. Nevertheless, I'd never heard of her until I was reading the book Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo. A friend lent me his copy, being well aware of my keen interest in learning about the near death experience. In this instance, the book recounts an NDE experienced by four-year-old Colton Burpo, who almost died after the doctors at the hospital misdiagnosed his burst appendix and failed to treat it for several days. His story affirmed my belief that NDEs are not merely pleasant hallucinations produced by ketamine reaction in a dying, strictly materialist brain.  Todd Burpo hammered home that Colton had accurately conveyed new memories obtained while his physical brain was literally separated from his obviously still-functioning mind. He apparently gained new knowledge of information to which he could not possibly have had access while undergoing a life-saving medical procedure. Colton accurately recounted where his mother and father were during his surgery and what they were doing while he could not possibly have known by observation. His physical body was in surgery in a different part of the hospital at that time. He … [Read more...]