Melvin L. Morse is consistently voted by his fellow pediatricians as being one of America's top Pediatricians. From 1997-2006, he has been identified by Woodword-White's Best Doctors in America (view) as one of the top pediatricians in the country. In 2006 he retired from a busy private practice in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington, USA.
Dr. Morse has researched near death experiences in children and adults since 1980. He and his second wife Pauline have five children between them. His strength in understanding spiritual visions and near death experiences is based on his previously full time practice of pediatrics and that he remains completely grounded in the non-spiritual aspects of daily patient care. His wife Pauline is a true partner in both their family life and in his spiritual research. He supplies the scientific research and she supplies the spiritual insight, the “faith and courage” needed to not both perceive spiritual insights with our right temporal lobes and how practically to apply them to our ordinary lives. Their current research has documented how to differentiate spiritual insights from our wish fulfilling fantasies, dreams, fears, and our ego projections of what we wish would happen or wish we are and will be. Ultimately we must learn how to apply the lessons that children have learned from nearly dying to transform our own lives. Dr. and Mrs. Morse are currently working on practical ways to access spiritual information to find happiness and spiritual meaning in our everyday lives.
In 2005, Dr. Morse, in collaboration with the Children’s Therapy Center of Valley Medical Center, founded the Austism Spectrum Diagnostic and Treatment Clinic. Before retiring, one half of clinical time was spent working with children who have autism spectrum disorders, disorders of attention, post traumatic stress syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and severe behavior disorders.
His interest in near death experiences evolved from his experiences working in Critical Care Medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital. He published the first description of a child's near death experience in the medical literature and was funded by the National Cancer Institute to complete the first case control prospective study in near death experiences. He was the head of the Seattle Study, the largest study in adults of the transformational aspects of the near death experience to date.
Dr. Morse graduated with academic honors from George Washington University School of Medicine. He interned in the Pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco and then completed a residency in Pediatrics at Seattle Children's Hospital. He is the recipient of a National Service Research Award and spent two years studying brain tumors and leukemia, also at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Morse was a founder of the Pediatric Interim Care Center, one of the nation’s first therapeutic foster homes for infants affected by prenatal exposure to cocaine. He has won numerous teaching awards.
Dr. Morse's research has been featured in documentaries in Japan, Australia, France, Canada, England, and the United States. He has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including 20/20, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Turning Point, The Tom Snyder Show, the Larry King Show, Good Morning America, Dateline, and Unsolved Mysteries, and has been the subject of lengthy profiles in the Seattle Times, Tacoma News Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. He has numerous scientific publications on death-related visions, including The Lancet and the American Medical Association’s Pediatric Journal.
Dr. Morse's first book, Closer to the Light, was an international best seller and is published in 38 countries and 19 languages. It explored the near death experiences of children. His best-selling second book, Transformed by the Light , is a long-term follow up of these children as adults, and documents the physical and psychological transformations resulting from near death experiences. His third book, Parting Visions, documents the entire range of spiritual visions associated with death and dying, including premonitions of death and after death visitations. It focuses on how we can use these experiences to help us to understand death, grief, and the often overlooked spiritual miracles in everyday life. His fourth book, Where God Lives, presents a comprehensive new scientific understanding of how the brain can resonate with energetic patterns of the universe to permit communications with the dead, viewing at a distance with the mind, past life memories and premonitions of the future. Book Descriptions
Morse ML: A Near Death Experience in a Seven-Year-Old Child.
American Journal of Diseases of Children. Vol 127: 951-961 1983
Morse ML, Savitch J, Bleyer A, et al: Altered Central Nervous System
Phamacology of Methotrexate in Childhood Leukemia. Journal of
Clinical Oncology . Vol 3 (1): 19-25 1985
Morse ML, Conner D, Tyler D: Near Death Experiences in a Pediatric
Population: A Preliminary Report. American Journal of Diseases in
Children. Vol 139 (6): 595-600 1985
Morse ML, Milstein JM, Haas JE, et al: The Effect of Hydration on
Experimentally Induced Cerebral Edema. Critical Care Medicine
Vol 13 (7) 563-565 1985
Morse ML, Castillo P, Venecia D, et al: Childhood Near Death
Experiences American Journal of Diseases in Children. Vol 140:
1110-1114 1986
Morse ML, Carr D, Mendelman P, et al: Ocular Tuberculosis in a Five-
Month-Old. Pediatric Infectious Disease. Vol 7 (7): 514-516
1988
Morse ML, Venecia D, Milstein JM, et al: Near Death Experiences: A
Neurophysiological Explanation. Journal of Near Death Studies.
Vol 7 (4): 223-228 Summer 1989
Morse ML, Perry P: Closer to the Light:
Learning from the Near Death Experiences of Children. Villard
Books, New York. 1990.
Morse ML, Neppe V: Near Death Experiences (letter) Lancet 4-6-91
pp. 386
Morse, Perry P: Transformed by the Light:
The Powerful Effects of Near Death Experiences on People’s
Lives. Villard Books, New York. 1992.
Drehobl, Fuhr MG: “Pediatric Massage: For the Child with
Special Needs,” Therapy Skill Builders. 1992. Foreword by Melvin
L. Morse M.D.
Eadie B: Embraced
by the Light, Golden Leaf Press, Placerville, California. 1993.
Foreword by Melvin L. Morse M.D.
Morse ML: Near Death Experiences and Death Related Visions:
Implications for the Clinician. Current Problems Pediatrics.
pp. 45-83 Vol 24(2) February. 1994.
Morse ML: Near Death Experiences of Children. J Ped Onc Vol. 11 (4)
October 1994 pp. 139-144
Morse ML, Perry P: Parting Visions: Uses and Meanings of Near Death and Spiritual Experiences. Villard Books. 1994.
Morse ML, Perry P: Where God Lives: How Our Brains Are Connected to a Spiritual Universe. 2002. Harper and Collins. 2003 French Edition was the European Book Sellers Association Non-Fiction Book of the Year.
Atwater PMH: “Beyond the Light.
What Isn’t Being Said
About Near Death Experiences,” Birch Lane Press. 1996. Foreword
by Melvin L. Morse M.D.
“Parting Visions: A New Paradigm
for Spiritual Experiences”
by Melvin Morse in The Near Death Experience: A Reader, Bailey
and Yates (Ed.) Rutledge, New York. 1996.
“Interview with Melvin
Morse” in Angels, The
Mysterious Messengers, R. Hauck Ed.. Ballantine Books, New York.
1996. pp. 213-230.
Bleyer A, Reaman G, Poplack D, Morse
ML, et al: Central Nervous
system Phamacology of High Dose Intravenous Methotrexate in Infants
with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Proceedings of the American Society
of Clinical Oncology 3: c722 1984
Morse ML, Poplack D, Bleyer A :
Altered Central Nervous System
Pharmacology of Methotrexate in Childhood Leukemia: Another sign of
Meningeal Relapse. Proceedings of the American society of Clinical
Oncology 3: C-144. 1983. Reprinted in METHOTREXATE UPDATE, December.
1984.
Hennsley JA, Christenson PJ, Hardoin RA, Morse ML, et al: Premonitions of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A Retrospective Case Control Study. Presented at the National SIDS Alliance Meeting, Pittsburgh, October. 1993. Abstract: Pediatric Pulmonol 1993; 16:393
Brett, Dr. Morse's oldest son, recently made
him a wristband which described his Dad as "Father, healer of
hate". This is his greatest accomplishment and award.
