Review written by Michael Sabom criticizing a magazine article that challenges the claims in Eben Alexander's Near-Death Experience in his book, "Proof of Heaven."

Abstract: Spiritually transformative experiences (STEs) may sometimes present with the symptomatology of psychiatric disorders. Transformational crisis may even occur within the context of a psychiatric hospitalization. Such STEs are at odds with the medical model of Western psychiatry that emphasizes pathology. Yet a coherent approach yields no absolute differentiation between spiritual emergence and what health professionals diagnose as mental illness. A historical perspective begins with the presumed differentiation between authentic spiritual experience and psychiatric illness. A more functional approach to spiritual emergency takes into account the perspective of experiencers, their communication and meta-communication skills, and the integration process itself. One case from the popular literature and two cases from the author's psychotherapy practice are presented to demonstrate that the list of causative experiences for STEs can include what is diagnosable as a psychiatric condition, specifically, bipolar disorder.