ABSTRACT

The Near Death Experience: A Reader is the most comprehensive collection of NDE cases and interpretations ever assembled. This book encompasses a broad range of disciplines: psychological researchers discuss cognitive models and Jungian theories of meaningful archetypal phenomena; the biological perspectivedescribes how brains near death may produce soothing endorphins, optical illusions, and convincing hallucinations. Philosophers present empirical analyses and images in archetypal theories, and the symbolic language of comparative phenomenological theories. Christian, Jewish and Mormon responses to NDEs outline the religious perspective, and the mystical and spiritual interpretations of NDEs are also explored.

chapter |13 pages

1 The Light Beyond

The Experience of Almost Dying

chapter |16 pages

5 Unknown Well-Known Near-Death Experiences

Peter Sellers, Eddie Rickenbacker, Plato, and Black Elk

chapter |10 pages

10 Being of Light

Dreaming the Vision Onward

chapter |21 pages

11 The Near-Death Experience

A Staircase to Heaven?

chapter |18 pages

12 Near Death Experiences

Implications for Human Evolution and Planetary Transformation

chapter |8 pages

13 Ner-Death Experiences

Relevance to the Question of Survival After Death

chapter |20 pages

16 Near-Death Reports

Evidence for Survival of Death

chapter |18 pages

17 Neuroscience, Ketamine, and the Near-Death Experience

The Role or Glutamate and the NMDA Receptor

chapter |15 pages

18 Near-Death Experiences

In or Out of the Body?

chapter |17 pages

19 Parting Visions

A New Scientific Paradigm