Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Return from Tomorrow


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Merge Return from Tomorrow; keep George G. Ritchie. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:25, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Return from Tomorrow

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non-notable book. Also co-nominating George G. Ritchie the non-notable person who wrote the book. Obvious products of advocacy concerning Near-death experience; fails WP:GNG Jytdog (talk) 03:22, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * as discussed above. This person also fails WP:GNG. Jytdog (talk) 03:25, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete Both Fail WP:GNG. I could not find any reliable sources for the book offering significant coverage, and no reliable independent sources covering the author. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sam Walton (talk) 22:10, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in reliable sources.  The book notes: "George Ritchie, M.D., had a near-death experience in 1943, during his World War II Army service. It was a milestone NDE, because it was the first NDE account heard by Raymond Moody. Ritchie's story opened the door to contemporary near-death studies. Moody dared to begin research on NDEs in part because Dr. Ritchie, who affirmed the reality of the near-death experience, had such a solid reputation as a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Dr. Ian Stevenson, at the same Medical Center, expresses the same respect for Ritchie's reputation in his foreword to Ritchie's book, My Life After Dying, from which we have excerpted part of the original experience. Dr. Ritchie first published the account in his book, Return from Tomorrow, which sold over 200,000 copies. The more recent book tells how the near-death experience has affected his life. Dr. Ritchie now has a gift for healing that involves faith as well as medicine. George Ritchie, M.D., is now retired from his practice at the University of Virginia Medical Center."  The book notes: "In Return from Tomorrow, George G. Ritchie tells the story of his own death in an army hospital at the age of twenty in 1943. If, as Raymond Moody says in the foreword to Ritchie's book, one defines death as 'that state of the body from which no restoration of function is possible,' then George Ritchie was not really dead. Yet, for nine minutes Ritchie's vital signs went flat, and what he saw and heard while 'gone' changed his life. He leaped up, turned around, and found the body of a young man in the bed where he had been. The body was his. Now out of his body, he began to float, then fly, 'as if thought and motion had become the same thing,' first over moonlit rural landscape, then down into an industrial city teeming with people. So many people, in fact, they seemed to be occupying the exact same space. Two men bore down on the same stretch of sidewalk and, amazed, Ritchie watched them walk right through each other. Once aware that he had lost his ability to grasp things, or make contact or be seen or heard, Ritchie realized that his predicament was being shared by the frenzied glut of disembodied beings he saw milling about him, straining to be noticed by the living, snatching after cigarettes, begging for foregiveness, yapping advice, and being thoroughly ignored. 'Disembodied beings, completely unsuspected by the living, hovered right on top of the physical things and people where their desires were focused,' Ritchie writes."  The article notes: "The next major advance in our understanding of NDEs occurred when an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia named Raymond Moody attended a talk given by the university's psychiatrist, Dr. George Ritchie. During this presentation, Ritchie described an experience that happened to him during World War II. In 1943, Ritchie developed severe pneumonia while undergoing army basic training at Camp Barkeley, Texas. His condition deteriorated rapidly and while awaiting a chest x-ray, he grew weak and collapsed. After regaining awareness, Ritchie flew through the air, 'traveling faster, in fact, than I had ever moved in my life' (Ritchie, 2007, p. 46). He tried talking to others, but they ignored him, as if he were not there. After returning to the hospital, Ritchie met a being of light that emanated unconditional love. He then went on a second journey, this time with the being of light. Communication between Ritchie and the being of light occurred by thought instead of speech (Ritchie, 2007, p. 63). They traveled to distant cities together and witnessed people going about their daily lives. Ritchie then returned to the hospital a second time. When he opened his eyes, he discovered the bed covers had been pulled over his head. Although alive, Ritchie suffered from delirium. Several days later, when he regained clarity, he learned that after collapsing in the radiology department, he had grown increasingly ill. The ward boy had found Ritchie without a pulse. He summoned the doctor, who pronounced Ritchie dead. Nine minutes later, Ritchie was checked again and for a second time was pronounced dead. Then, following an injection of adrenaline, Ritchie's heart began beating again. Ritchie made a full recovery. He later attended medical school, became a physician, and then worked as a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, which is where Moody heard his story."  The article notes: When Dr. George G. Ritchie Jr. retired from his psychiatric practice in 1987, one of his goals was to complete his second book. That book, "My Life After Dying: Becoming Alive to Universal Love," has just been published, but not without some difficulty. ... Eventually, Ritchie chose to tell his own story in his first book, "Return From Tomorrow."  ...  Last month, Ritchie was one of several people who appeared on the Joan Rivers television show to discuss life-after-death experiences.  Born and raised in Richmond, Ritchie entered the premedicine program at the University of Richmond with plans to become a doctor.  He remained in the inactive reserves while in school, but in 1943 volunteered for active duty. It was during his training in the United States that he had his brush with death and his short incursion into the afterlife. Later, when he had recovered his health, he saw service overseas with the U. S. Army in Germany. After the war, he returned to his medical studies and received his doctor of medicine degree from the Medical College of Virginia in 1950. He completed his internship there in 1952. From 1952 to 1964, Ritchie practiced family medicine in the Richmond area. Ritchie and his wife, Marguerite, have two grown children, Bonnie, 38, and John, 36, and two granddaughters. His interests in children have extended well beyond his own.   The article notes: "In 1943, during World War II, George Ritchie was pronounced dead at an Army hospital, only to wake up nine minutes later. Ritchie went on to become a psychiatrist and write several books about those nine minutes, in which he claimed to tour the devastation of hell in the company of Jesus Christ. “Everywhere spirits were locked in what looked like fights to the death, writhing, punching, gouging,” he wrote in Return From Tomorrow, originally published in 1978. “Even more hideous than the bites and kicks they exchanged, were the sexual abuses many were performing in feverish pantomime. Perversions I had never dreamed of were being vainly attempted all around us.” Ritchie’s story inspired Raymond Moody, who coined the term “near-death experience” and published the runaway 1975 bestseller Life After Life."  The article notes: "Dr GEORGE RITCHIE'S STORY All George Ritchie wanted to do was get home for Christmas and begin his training to be a doctor. Instead he found himself in a United States Army hospital coughing up blood from a chest infection and running a fever. As his condition worsened he was taken for an X-ray. He blacked out. Ritchie said later: 'Faintly I heard the Captain shout to the nurse and ambulance driver, 'Grab him'.'    ...  Later Ritchie discovered that he had been pronounced dead but a young ward attendant had argued that he had seen Ritchie's chest move.  A doctor agreed to inject adrenalin into Ritchie's heart and it started to beat again - at least eight minutes after it had first stopped.  Ritchie recovered and, 10 months later, driving through Vicksburg, Mississippi, he saw the white cafe with the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign he had seen for the first time during his near-death experience."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow George G. Ritchie to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 10:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * I have no opposition to merging Return from Tomorrow to George G. Ritchie since I have found some coverage of the book but not substantial enough to justify a standalone article. Cunard (talk) 10:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge book to George G. Ritchie. Artw (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge book to George G. Ritchie per Cunard. Also, transfer the refs above to the talk page of that article so they can be incorporated. ··· 日本穣 ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 08:38, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge to George G. Ritchie. The coverage of Ritchie and his claims are well-established (thanks to ).  Coverage of this book itself is lacking.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.