Author: Gregory Shushan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1644118696
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
• 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.
Author: Gregory Shushan
Publisher: Continuum
ISBN: 9781441130884
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
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.
Author: Gregory Shushan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190872497
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
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.
Author: Carol Zaleski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195363523
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
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.
Author: Chris Carter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594779023
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
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.
Author: Marlene Bateman Sullivan
Publisher: Cedar Fort
ISBN: 9781462111275
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A collection of nearly fifty documented near-death experiences of early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Author: Bruce Greyson, M.D.
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 1250263042
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
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.
Author: Enzo George
Publisher: Rosen Central
ISBN: 9781725346598
Category : Near-death experiences
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Provides a history of beliefs surrounding near-death experiences and reincarnation from ancient times to the present day.
Author: Buck Stephens
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers
ISBN: 0768490200
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
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.
Author: Pim van Lommel
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061777269
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
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.
