Download or read book Near Death Experience in Ancient Civilizations written by Gregory Shushan and published by Inner Traditions. This book was released on 2025-02-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cross-cultural comparison of ancient beliefs about death and the afterlife • Reveals the powerful influence of near-death experiences (NDEs) on the formation of religious beliefs, mystical literature, and ritual practices • Focuses on the afterlife beliefs of five ancient world regions: Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumer and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and Maya and Aztec Mesoamerica • Shows how the similarities among afterlife beliefs and their correspondences with NDEs reveal that they both stem from universal truths Taking readers on a thought-provoking journey into our ancestors’ beliefs about death, dying, and the afterlife, Gregory Shushan, Ph.D., reveals the powerful influence of near-death experiences (NDEs) on religious beliefs and ritual practices throughout human history. Focusing on five ancient world regions—Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumer and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and Maya and Aztec Mesoamerica—Shushan expertly explores each civilization’s afterlife beliefs, highlighting their similarities with NDEs and comparing them with each other. He explains how each of these civilizations developed independently of one another, with little or no cultural contact between them, yet there is a series of similarities between afterlife beliefs among these groups too consistent and specific to be mere coincidence. This leads to the profound implication that afterlife beliefs are not entirely invented by cultures: they also stem from universal truths derived from NDEs. Drawing on anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, the author explores how each civilization interpreted NDEs to form their beliefs and presents a rich understanding of how afterlife beliefs develop over time. He also explores the metaphysical implications of his discoveries, including what an actual afterlife would look like based on cross-cultural similarities and differences. Revealing that NDEs have occurred throughout human history, Shushan shows how they continue to influence our understanding of what lies beyond death to this day.
Download or read book Near Death Experience in Indigenous Religions written by Gregory Shushan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Near-death experiences are known around the world and throughout human history. They are sometimes reported by individuals who have revived from a period of clinical death or near-death and they typically feature sensations of leaving the body, entering and emerging from darkness, meeting deceased friends and relatives, encountering beings of light, judgment of one's earthly life, feelings of oneness, and reaching barriers, only to return to the body. Those who have NDEs almost invariably understand them as having profound spiritual or religious significance. In this book, Gregory Shushan explores the relationship between NDEs, shamanism, and beliefs about the afterlife in traditional indigenous societies in Africa, North America, and Oceania. Drawing on historical accounts of the earliest encounters with explorers, missionaries, and ethnologists, this study addresses questions such as: Do ideas about the afterlife commonly originate in NDEs? What role does culture play in how people experience and interpret NDEs? How can we account for cross-cultural similarities and differences between afterlife beliefs? Though NDEs are universal, Shushan shows that how they are actually experienced and interpreted varies by region and culture. In North America, they were commonly valorized, and attempts were made to replicate them through shamanic rituals. In Africa, however, they were largely considered aberrational events with links to possession or sorcery. In Oceania, Micronesia corresponded more to the African model, while Australia had a greater focus on afterlife journey shamanism, and Polynesia and Melanesia showed an almost casual acceptance of the phenomenon as reflected in numerous myths, legends, and historical accounts. This study examines the continuum of similarities and differences between NDEs, shamanism, and afterlife beliefs in dozens of cultures throughout these regions. In the process, it makes a valuable contribution to our knowledge about the origins of afterlife beliefs around the world and the significance of related experiences in human history.
Download or read book Otherworld Journeys written by Carol Zaleski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1988-11-03 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dozens of books, articles, television shows, and films relating "near-death" experiences have appeared in the past decade. People who have survived a close brush with death reveal their extraordinary visions and ecstatic feelings at the moment they died, describing journeys through a tunnel to a realm of light, visual reviews of their past deeds, encounters with a benevolent spirit, and permanent transformation after returning to life. Carol Zaleski's Otherworld Journeys offers the most comprehensive treatment to date of the evidence surrounding near-death experiences. The first to place researchers' findings, first-person accounts, and possible medical or psychological explanations in historical perspective, she discusses how these materials reflect the influence of contemporary culture. She demonstrates that modern near-death reports belong to a vast family of otherworld journey tales, with examples in nearly every religious heritage. She identifies universal as well as culturally specific features by comparing near-death narratives in two distinct periods of Western society: medieval Christendom and twentieth-century secular America. This comparison reveals profound similarities, such as the life-review and the transforming after-effects of the vision, as well as striking contrasts, such as the absence of hell or punishment scenes from modern accounts. Mediating between the "debunkers" and the near-death researchers, Zaleski considers current efforts to explain near-death experience scientifically. She concludes by emphasizing the importance of the otherworld vision for understanding imaginative and religious experience in general.
Download or read book Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations written by Gregory Shushan and published by Continuum. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Shushan challenges post-modern scholarly attitudes concerning cross-cultural comparisons in the study of religions. In an original and innovative piece of comparative research, he analyses afterlife conceptions in five ancient civilisations (Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica). These are considered in light of historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife 'journeys'. Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations is a significant study, for it presents a comprehensive new comparative framework for the cross-cultural study of myth and religion, while at the same time providing a fascinating exploration of the interface between belief and experience.
Download or read book Near Death Experiences and Reincarnation in History written by Enzo George and published by Rosen Central. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a history of beliefs surrounding near-death experiences and reincarnation from ancient times to the present day.
Download or read book Science and the Near Death Experience written by Chris Carter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-08-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scientific evidence for life after death • Explains why near-death experiences (NDEs) offer evidence of an afterlife and discredits the psychological and physiological explanations for them • Challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death • Examines ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and many from tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori Predating all organized religion, the belief in an afterlife is fundamental to the human experience and dates back at least to the Neanderthals. By the mid-19th century, however, spurred by the progress of science, many people began to question the existence of an afterlife, and the doctrine of materialism--which believes that consciousness is a creation of the brain--began to spread. Now, using scientific evidence, Chris Carter challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death and shows how near-death experiences (NDEs) may truly provide a glimpse of an awaiting afterlife. Using evidence from scientific studies, quantum mechanics, and consciousness research, Carter reveals how consciousness does not depend on the brain and may, in fact, survive the death of our bodies. Examining ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori, he explains how NDEs provide evidence of consciousness surviving the death of our bodies. He looks at the many psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs raised by skeptics--such as stress, birth memories, or oxygen starvation--and clearly shows why each of them fails to truly explain the NDE. Exploring the similarities between NDEs and visions experienced during actual death and the intersection of physics and consciousness, Carter uncovers the truth about mind, matter, and life after death.
Download or read book Becoming Osiris written by Ruth Schumann Antelme and published by Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. This book was released on 1998-09 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their Book of the Dead, the ancient Egyptians left humanity a comprehensive understanding of the death experience and the afterlife. Becoming Osiris is an accessible account of the initiatic stages of the immortalization process and the techniques necessary for the soul to achieve its objective of becoming a solarized being after death.
Download or read book Gaze Into Heaven written by Marlene Bateman Sullivan and published by Cedar Fort. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of nearly fifty documented near-death experiences of early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Download or read book After written by Bruce Greyson, M.D. and published by St. Martin's Essentials. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness. Cases of remarkable experiences on the threshold of death have been reported since ancient times, and are described today by 10% of people whose hearts stop. The medical world has generally ignored these “near-death experiences,” dismissing them as “tricks of the brain” or wishful thinking. But after his patients started describing events that he could not just sweep under the rug, Dr. Bruce Greyson began to investigate. As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached near-death experiences from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence—a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety. But Dr. Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to open our minds to these experiences and to what they can teach us, and in so doing, expand our understanding of consciousness and of what it means to be human.
Download or read book The Science of Near Death Experiences written by John C. Hagan and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens to consciousness during the act of dying? The most compelling answers come from people who almost die and later recall events that occurred while lifesaving resuscitation, emergency care, or surgery was performed. These events are now called near-death experiences (NDEs). As medical and surgical skills improve, innovative procedures can bring back patients who have traveled farther on the path to death than at any other time in history. Physicians and healthcare professionals must learn how to appropriately treat patients who report an NDE. It is estimated that more than 10 million people in the United States have experienced an NDE. Hagan and the contributors to this volume engage in evidence-based research on near-death experiences and include physicians who themselves have undergone a near-death experience. This book establishes a new paradigm for NDEs.
Download or read book Consciousness Beyond Life written by Pim van Lommel and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a cardiologist, Pim van Lommel was struck by the number of his patients who claimed to have near-death experiences as a result of their heart attacks. As a scientist, this was difficult for him to accept: Wouldn't it be scientifically irresponsible of him to ignore the evidence of these stories? Faced with this dilemma, van Lommel decided to design a research study to investigate the phenomenon under the controlled environment of a cluster of hospitals with a medically trained staff. For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied such near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. Now available for the first time in English, van Lommel offers an in-depth presentation of his results and theories in this book that has already sold over 125,000 copies in Europe. Van Lommel provides scientific evidence that the near-death phenomenon is an authentic experience that cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis, or oxygen deprivation. He further reveals that after such a profound experience, most patients' personalities undergo a permanent change. In van Lommel's opinion, the current views on the relationship between the brain and consciousness held by most physicians, philosophers, and psychologists are too narrow for a proper understanding of the phenomenon. In Consciousness Beyond Life, van Lommel shows that our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.
Download or read book My Descent Into Death written by Howard Storm and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2005-02-15 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not since Betty Eadie’s Embraced by the Light has a personal account of a Near-Death Experience (NDE) been so utterly different from most others—or nearly as compelling. "This is a book you devour from cover to cover, and pass on to others. This is a book you will quote in your daily conversation. Storm was meant to write it and we were meant to read it." —from the foreword by Anne Rice In the thirty years since Raymond Moody’s Life After Life appeared, a familiar pattern of NDEs has emerged: suddenly floating over one’s own body, usually in a hospital setting, then a sudden hurtling through a tunnel of light toward a presence of love. Not so in Howard Storm’s case. Storm, an avowed atheist, was awaiting emergency surgery when he realized that he was at death’s door. Storm found himself out of his own body, looking down on the hospital room scene below. Next, rather than going “toward the light,” he found himself being torturously dragged to excruciating realms of darkness and death, where he was physically assaulted by monstrous beings of evil. His description of his pure terror and torture is unnerving in its utter originality and convincing detail. Finally, drawn away from death and transported to the realm of heaven, Storm met angelic beings as well as the God of Creation. In this fascinating account, Storm tells of his “life review,” his conversation with God, even answers to age-old questions such as why the Holocaust was allowed to take place. Storm was sent back to his body with a new knowledge of the purpose of life here on earth. This book is his message of hope.
Download or read book Secrets of a Supernatural World written by Buck Stephens and published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revelation From a Near-Death Experience compares elements of Scripture, science, and personal revelation received during a near-death experience, which leads you to understand why things are the way they are, why you are you, and what your earthly and eternal purpose is. With a touch of good humor, uncharted territories are explored, rarely discussed in today’s churches, through megabytes of Scriptural and personal revelation. If you have ever wondered any of the following, this book is your answer! If God created the world and He is an all-knowing God, why did He create Lucifer who would rebel against Him and become “the devil”? Why did He create Adam and Eve if He knew they would fail? If God is love, how can He allow evil in the world? Who is Jesus anyway and why would His death “save me”? Don’t all religions lead to God? What about the aliens and the UFOs that have supposedly visited us? What about angels and demons; can we see them? Is there such a thing as the “supernatural”? Revelation From a Near-Death Experience provides the answers to life’s hardest questions.
Download or read book Near Death Experiences and Others written by Robert Gottlieb and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This ... collection from the ... editor Robert Gottlieb features twenty or so pieces he's written mostly for The New York Review of Books, ranging from reconsiderations of American writers such as Dorothy Parker, Thornton Wilder, Thomas Wolfe (genius), and James Jones, to Leonard Bernstein, Lorenz Hart, Lady Diana Cooper (the most beautiful girl in the world), the actor-assassin John Wilkes Booth, the scandalous movie star Mary Astor, and not-yet president Donald Trump"--Amazon.com.
Download or read book Near death Experiences in Antiquity written by Jenő Platthy and published by . This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book European Cases of the Reincarnation Type written by Ian Stevenson, M.D. and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-02 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many cultures accept that a person may die and then come back to life in another form, but Westerners have traditionally rejected the idea. Recently, however, surveys conducted in Europe indicate a substantial increase in the number of Europeans who believe in reincarnation, and numerous claims of reincarnation have been reported. This book examines particular cases in Europe that are suggestive of reincarnation. The first section provides a brief history of the belief in reincarnation among Europeans. The second section considers eight cases from the first third of the twentieth century that were not independently investigated, but were reported and sometimes published by the persons concerned. The third section covers 32 cases from the second half of the twentieth century that were investigated by the author. Many of these cases involved either children who exhibited unusual behavior attributed to a previous life, or adults who experienced recurrent or vivid dreams attributed to a previous life. In the fourth section, the author compares European cases suggestive of reincarnation with those of other countries and cultures.
Download or read book How to Survive a Near Death Experience written by John Smith and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was written from the events that took place from 1995 till the present day, with a lot of questions I have had as I grew up. Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? I searched the Scriptures and completed my doctorate,, hoping to find these answers, but they only came when I had my first NDE in 1995. I was told this is the only way you can learn the answers to these questions, so I listened. I was told at the beginning that if you go to court to get justice, all you get is law. This book will speak to readers in many different ways, because what is necessarily true on one level is not necessarily true on another, in other levels we not only see horizontal but vertical as well. Revelation 3:1To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. The very thought that a you can be dead and not know it is very disturbing; the possibility that man being dead while he is alive is very startling. All these things were explained to me, I hope you can find the truth of them also.
