Near-death experience as mystical experience.
Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1986 J Pennachio 31 citations
Near-death experiences share many characteristics with mystical awareness. Walter Pahnke's nine-category typology of mystical experience, originally used to assess psychedelic experiences, is applied here to illustrate the mystical nature of near-death experiences. The typology also describes the self-transformation that follows mystical states of consciousness, and such self-transformation is a known result of near-death experiences. The author argues that Pahnke's typology characterizes the near-death experience and allows it to be defined as a mystical state.