Join Hawaiian IANDS Tuesday, Aug 4th at 7pm for a fascinating journey through some of the most influential Near-Death Experiences recorded throughout human history with Martin Tanner, JD, president and co-founder of IANDS of Utah.
Register for a zoom link here.
Beginning with an extraordinary account from approximately 375 BCE, Martin will explore how stories resembling what we now call Near-Death Experiences have appeared across ancient philosophy, early Christianity, Catholic Church records, medieval writings, nineteenth-century accounts, and the modern era.
Drawing upon his decades of research into near-death experiences, religion, history, and spirituality, Martin will discuss accounts spanning:
- The ancient Greek world and one of history’s earliest recorded journeys beyond death
- Near-Death Experiences from the first century AD
- Accounts preserved by Catholic popes and other religious authorities
- Remarkable experiences documented during the Middle Ages
- Influential nineteenth-century NDEs
- Modern Near-Death Experiences that have transformed lives and challenged conventional beliefs about consciousness and death
Together, these accounts reveal that many familiar elements of modern NDEs—including separation from the body, encounters with spiritual beings, journeys into other realms, life-changing insights, and a return to earthly life—have appeared in human testimony across vastly different cultures and historical periods.
This thought-provoking presentation will invite us to consider what these experiences may reveal about the survival of consciousness, the afterlife, and humanity’s enduring search to understand what happens when we die.
Martin Tanner, JD, is president and a member of the Board of Directors of IANDS of Utah, which he co-founded in 1990. It is the second-oldest local IANDS chapter in the United States. He also served as vice president and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Near-Death Studies from 2019 through 2026.
Martin is the host of Martin Tanner’s Religion Today podcast, where he explores Near-Death Experiences, science and religion, biblical archaeology, comparative religion, the history of the Bible, and other subjects at the intersection of faith, scholarship, and spiritual experience.
His work with NDE experiencers has deeply influenced his own understanding of religion and the continuation of consciousness. He has shared and discussed numerous transformative accounts, including experiences involving encounters with deceased loved ones, glimpses of souls waiting to be born, profound life reviews, spiritual callings, and dramatic changes in a person’s beliefs and fear of death.
His NDE work has also been featured in interviews such as BYU radio’s What Can We Learn from Near-Death Experiences? and his Religion Today podcast episode, Learning From Eight Compelling Near-Death Experiences.
Martin earned a Bachelor of Arts in Finance, with a minor in Japanese, from the University of Utah and a Juris Doctor from Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. He has appeared in debates and discussions on television, university campuses, podcasts, and radio programs and has spoken to IANDS groups throughout the United States.
iandsofutah.org 