{{short description|American psychologist}} {{for|similarly named people|Ken Ring (disambiguation)}} thumb|Ring in 2019'''Kenneth Ring''' (born December 13, 1935) is an American psychologist, born in San Francisco, California. He is the co-founder and past president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) and is the founding editor of the ''Journal of Near-Death Studies''.<ref name=lessons>Author biography in Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino, ''Lessons from the Light: What we can learn from the near-death experience'', Needham, MA: Moment Point Press (1998).</ref> He currently lives in Kentfield, California.<ref name=lessons/>
==Biography==
Among his first publications was the book ''Methods of Madness: The Mental Hospital as a Last Resort''. The book was released in 1969 and was co-authored with Benjamin Braginsky and Dorothea Braginsky.<ref name="Waxler">{{Cite journal |last=Waxler |first=Nancy E. |date=1970 |title=Review of Methods of Madness: The Mental Hospital as a Last Resort. |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2093343 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=35 |issue=5 |pages=951–952 |doi=10.2307/2093343 |jstor=2093343 |issn=0003-1224|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Wax">{{Cite journal |last=Wax |first=John |date=1970 |title=Review of Methods of Madness: The Mental Hospital As a Last Resort |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23712602 |journal=Social Work |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=121–122 |jstor=23712602 |issn=0037-8046}}</ref> Ring's book ''Life at Death'' was published by William Morrow and Company in 1980.<ref name=bass/><ref name="Asher">Asher, Catherine G. Book review: Ring, Kenneth. Life at Death: a scientific investigation of the near-death experience. ''Library Journal'', September 15, 1980, page 1870</ref><ref name="Hamby">Hamby, Warren C. Reviewed Work(s): Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience by Kenneth Ring. ''Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion'', Vol. 21, No. 3 (Sep., 1982), pp. 289-290</ref> In this book Ring presented the ''Weighted Core Experience'' Index, a psychometric instrument constructed to measure the depth of a near-death experience.<ref name="Greyson 1983">Greyson, Bruce. The Near-Death Experience Scale. Construction, Reliability and Validity. ''Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease'', Vol 171, No. 6, 1983, pp. 369-375</ref> In 1984, the company published Ring's second book, ''Heading Toward Omega.''<ref name="Buehler">Buehler, David A. Book review: Ring, Kenneth. Heading Toward Omega: in search of the meaning of the near-death experience. ''Library Journal'', August 1984, page 1455</ref> Both books deal with near-death experiences and how they change people's lives.<ref name=bass>Sharon L. Bass. [https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/28/nyregion/connecticut-q-a-kenneth-ring-you-never-recover-your-original-self.html You Never Recover Your Original Self] ''New York Times'' August 28, 1988.</ref>
In 1992 he published ''The Omega Project: Human Evolution in an Ecological Age'', a book that dealt with near-death experiences and UFO-encounters.<ref name="Shields">Shields, Maureen R. Book review: Ring, Kenneth. The Omega Project: Human Evolution in an Ecological Age. ''Library Journal'', April 1, 1992.</ref> 1998 saw the release of ''Lessons From the Light. What We Can Learn From the Near-Death Experience'', co-authored with Evelyn Elaesser. The book discussed a wide range of paranormal phenomena, including out-of-body experiences, children's near-death experiences, near-death experiences in the blind, as well as healing and paranormal abilities in near-death experiencers.<ref name="Publishers Weekly">Book review: Lessons From the Light. What We Can Learn From the Near-Death Experience. ''Publishers Weekly'', Oct. 26, 1998, p. 55</ref> Another co-authored release appeared in 1999. This time Ring co-operated with Sharon Cooper for the release of ''Mindsight: Near-death and out-of-body experiences in the blind''. In the book Ring & Cooper discussed the possibility of sight and vision among blind near-death experiencers.<ref name="Twemlow">Twemlow, Stuart W. Book Review: Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind, by Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper. ''Journal of Near-Death Studies'', 21(1), Fall 2002</ref>
In November 2008, Ring visited Israel as part of a peace delegation and subsequently protested the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip as completely disproportionate.<ref>Richard Halstead, [http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_11332378 Marin has mixed response to Israel's bombing of Gaza] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307194832/http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_11332378 |date=2012-03-07 }}, ''Marin Independent Journal'', 29 December 2008. Accessed 2009-06-02.</ref> Kenneth Ring also is a co-author of ''Letters from Palestine'' (2011).
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{official website|http://kenring.org}} *[https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/28/nyregion/connecticut-q-a-kenneth-ring-you-never-recover-your-original-self.html ''New York Times'' interview with Kenneth Ring]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ring, Kenneth}} Category:1935 births Category:Living people Category:Near-death experience researchers Category:American parapsychologists Category:21st-century American psychologists Category:People from Kentfield, California Category:20th-century American psychologists