Most NDEs are actually quite ordinary with not much to them. An analysis of NDEs that I read talked about those that are verifiable vs. Kelly Ogden also wrote about it for Meridian magazine. Greg Smith has an article on FAIR about the book. BTW, I suspect that the moniker "Spencer" might have been chosen by Pontius as a reference to WInston Spencer Churchill, who wrote The Last Lion:Visions of Glory. Spencer is being kept very anonymous and is almost a non-entity in some respects. They had a meeting where Spencer was present, but the transcript disappeared from the site after only being up there a short time. Pontius's wife runs a blog about the book. The "vision" portion was so preposterous and poorly written that it became a show stopper for people. One of the Amazon views said that Pontius should have ended the book with the NDE experience. People get sucked in on an emotional level and get hooked without being critical enough to wonder about inconsistencies in the story. There's a need to know that we live after this life. NDE's appeal on foundational level to quite a few people. Read the book all the way through, and have the following observations: IIRC it was after "Embraced." that Betty really went off track and got into folklore and mysticism with native American overtones because of her heritage. At least it was reasonable vs Juliann's quotes in her post #26 about "walking through the desk and couch" and knowing the terrible things that took place in and on them. etc. and things I didn't agree with at all, but chalked it up to her own interpretation. it is/was nothing like reported/quoted in "Visions." There were lots of parallels to the gospel which is why I think it was so popular. I read "Embraced by the Light" and actually liked a lot of it.
It was going on in Joseph Smith's day and it continues to this day.
There has always been a portion of LDS society who will buy into the lastest story. Now most people politely refer to it as "Taken In By The Light".
This made the rounds in the 90's and was a huge success among certain segments of church membership. Remember Betty Eadie's "Embraced By The Light". Oh it happens and will continue to happen.