Rocky collected money for the Mafia. A typical bagman, he was immersed in the material world of fast cars, quick cash and getting ahead by butting heads. Quantifying the Phenomenon: Prof. Bruce Greyson developed this scale to measure the depth of an individual’s near-death experience. One day, he was shot in the chest and left for dead on the street. He survived, though, and lived to tell of an experience that changed his life. ‘He described a blissful, typical near-death experience-seeing the light, communicating with a deity and seeing deceased relatives,’ says Bruce Greyson, a U.Va.-trained psychiatrist who interviewed Rocky after the shooting. ‘He came back with typical near-death aftereffects. He felt that cooperation and love were the important things, and that competition and material goods were irrelevant.’ That change in attitude didn’t sit well with Rocky’s Mafia friends, but they let him leave the family circle. It was his girlfriend who screamed bloody murder when he changed careers and started helping delinquent children and victims of spousal abuse. ‘She was just disgusted with him because, as she put it, he no longer cared for things of substance, meaning money and jewelry and […]