With respect to a NDE this is important. Because NDEs purport to be actual movement either around the hospital where one dies, to heaven or to some other place. Yet, the old problem of Paul still manifests itself. Are we in the body or out of the body? We simply can’t know.

Now, with NDEs I agree that it seems more likely that it is an actual movement, given the control one has over events and the fact one is moving around the hospital. Yet many NDEs are visits to heaven or to meet with ones dead relatives. Some NDEs, I am told, sometime include visits with people as if dead who are not dead at all. Obviously that is evidence against them being a real visit and for them being either false or at least visionary.

I should add that I don’t think that just because something is visionary that it is “false.” I just think we have to make a distinction between the “how” of the experience and the content of the experience. The content of a virtual experience can, after all, be quite true even if the experience isn’t a real trip as such.

This is somewhat tangential, but Meridian Magazine ran an article on remote viewing a while back. I found it rather odd myself, but after reading your measured response to NDEs, I can see how some LDS might not have an issue with it.

As a sidenote it includes the instantly classic line: “Remote viewing is no substitute for the priesthood.”