We all want to believe in a higher power. Attending weekly worship services is a part of the Bible Belt culture. There is also the growth of the spiritual book market and those who practice yoga. Not to mention how folks pray feverishly to…Someone…when a beloved family member is in danger. Yet, the thought of life after death is a hard sell in the science- and technology-driven 21st century. But when a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon admits the likelihood of a consciousness that survives beyond the body and the physical brain, well, it’s hard to dismiss him.

The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope, a new book by Allan J. Hamilton, MD, FACS offers compelling evidence that there’s more
to us than science wants to admit.

“I am one of the least likely people I know to believe in the supernatural, let alone openly discuss it,” admits Dr. Hamilton, who is a script consultant for Grey’s Anatomy. “Doctors are trained to disregard the inexplicable and unbelievable. Ours is a world of clinical data, physical evidence, and hard facts. And yet, I can’t deny all the things I’ve heard, seen, and experienced.”

Hamilton, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, says he’s been privy to many supernatural encounters over the past thirty years. Uncanny coincidences. Comforting near-death experiences. What’s more, he adds, colleagues have confided in him that they too have had encounters they can’t explain—but to talk publicly about them risks their credibility.

It seems Hamilton has no such fears. In The Scalpel and the Soul, he challenges the assumption that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive. Through first-hand experiences, he validates the spiritual manifestations physicians see every day, and explores how premonition, superstition, hope, and faith not only affect how patients feel but can also change medical outcomes. The real-life stories that appear throughout this book enthrall and inspire readers.

He writes “I have learned to never hesitate to cancel a surgery if the patient feels unlucky on that day, or has a premonition of impending death,” he writes. “Once, I was driving into the hospital to perform surgery when I had to suddenly slam on the brakes because three buzzards were standing in the middle of the road, shredding the carcass of a dead jackrabbit,” he continues. “When I got to the hospital, as my patient was being wheeled into my operating room, I heard his wife lean over him, kiss him on the forehead, and refer to him as ‘my little bunny.’ I canceled the case. The warning of the buzzards was not a coincidence. Four hours later, the man suffered a massive heart attack. It probably would have been a fatal one had it occurred in the middle of my surgery—if I hadn’t heeded the warning from those buzzards.”

Hamilton has seen unshakeable faith commute a death sentence. He tells the story of a strong-willed, devoutly religious woman diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Her doctor estimated that she had less than four months to live. However, she refused to accept her death sentence, declaring that the Lord needed her alive to look after her severely impaired, hydrocephalic three-year-old grandson. She prayed to the Lord to give her the strength and resolve to endure and survive all of your chemotherapy and proved to be correct. She raised her grandson and years later she told a cancer survivor group: “You need to be a realist to believe in miracles, because one can only see the real truth with the heart and not with the eyes.”

Dr. Hamilton wishes that the medical community would simply admit that science simply doesn’t have all the answers. He is no longer looking for extrinsic guidance from his peers or the scientific literature. “I am content to be just what I am: amazed and excited about the possibilities.”

Following are Dr. Hamilton’s 10 Rules to Live by:

1. Find a doctor who cares about you

2. Never trade quality of life for quantity of life

3. Ask your doctor to pray with you

4. Don’t be turned into just another patient

5. Listen to your favorite music

6. Develop your own healing rituals

7. Never let a doctor constrain your outcome

8. Assign someone to be your guardian angel

9. Don’t let growing old make you crazy

10. Live your life with death in it.