In a remarkable 1988 article, the British atheist philosopher A. J. Ayer, architect of a philosophy known as logical positivism, recounted his own near-death experience (NDE)., Ayer choked on a piece of smoked salmon, causing his heart to stop beating for four minutes. But Ayer astonished his medical team by recovering and then telling them about an extraordinary experience. “I was confronted,” he recalled, “by a red light, exceedingly bright, and also very painful even when I turned away from it. I was aware that this light was responsible for the government of the universe.”

One might expect that such an experience would prompt an atheist to reconsider views on God’s existence. But not Ayer—at least not publicly. “My recent experiences,” he wrote, “have slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death, which is due fairly soon, will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be. They have not weakened my conviction that there is no god.” He was ready, in other words, to admit the universe might be more complex than he originally thought, but not to the point of questioning its supposed godlessness.

Yet in a curious twist, another account suggests that Ayer did reconsider the question of God’s reality. Jeremy George, the attending physician, later reported that Ayer had told him privately, “I saw a divine being. I’m afraid I’m going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.”