August 31, 2023
Jens Schlieter
The contribution discusses the genealogy of the concept of “religious experience” and its transformation into a category for the systematic study of religion/s from a historical perspective. As experience is necessarily subjective, the problem arises for the experiencing individual of how to know that a certain experience is “religious” – an encounter with the “divine,” or the “real.”...
Universitätsverlag Kiel | Kiel University Publishing eBooks
September 1, 2022
Jens Schlieter
2 citations
Der Begriff ›Near-Death Experience‹ bzw. ›Nahtoderfahrung‹, wurde als generischer Begriff von Raymond A. Moody 1975 geprägt. er sollte jene Erfahrungen zusammenfassen, die Menschen aus Zuständen der Todesnähe berichten. Ein genauerer Blick auf die Ideen- und Ereignisgeschichte der frühen 1970er Jahre zeigt allerdings, wie verschiedene Ströme der Konzeptualisierung von religiösen Erfahrungen –...
May 11, 2021
Jens Schlieter
2 citations
The contribution will discuss the impact of American Theosophist Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz (1878-1965) on the emerging "science of religion." Evans-Wentz first pursued Celtic studies, concluding in his The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. Here, in line with Theosophical doctrines and Psychical Research, he claimed a "Fairyland" as "a supernormal state of consciousness into which men and women...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
3 citations
The similarities between the experiences near death and drug experiences have often been stressed. This chapter goes a step further in providing evidence that the consumption of morphine, hashish, and especially more potent hallucinogens such as LSD in the 1960s and 1970s are to be identified as a major component, or “push factor,” of the emerging discourse on near-death. Not only were several...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
1 citation
A second “push factor” for the increase of near-death experiences (and their reporting), emerging in the 1960s and 1970s, is the introduction of new reanimation techniques that increased the relative and absolute numbers of individuals surviving critical situations (such as heart attacks). In addition, the chapter discusses the impact of the broadly accepted new definition of death, namely,...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
1 citation
This chapter focuses on a long-term development in Western societies addressed as “privatized death,” namely, the assignment of the dying into hospitals and other institutions. This trend, mirrored in the works of French historian Philippe Ariès and psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, so the chapter argues, served as a “push factor” for articulating near-death experiences. Near-death...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
Building on earlier conceptions of “metacultures,” this chapter defines four metacultures that are important for Western near-death discourse: Christian, Gnostic–Esoteric, and the Spiritualist–Occult, being religious in outlook; the fourth, however, the Naturalist metaculture, is of a nonreligious nature. The three former metacultures assign religious meaning to the content of near-death...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
The conclusion of the discursive history outlines that in contrast to studies that argue for a broad decline of Christian narratives of deathbed experiences in the early modern centuries, there is ample evidence of a continuous stream of Christian reports. These reports are, from the 18th century onward, seconded by a broad current of Spiritualist–Occult and Gnostic–Esoteric reports....
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
This chapter outlines how the term “out-of-the-body experience” emerged in spiritualist and parapsychological literature. As is shown, “psychical researchers” such as Frederic W. Myers and William James made a significant contribution. The chapter also deals with the “filter” theory or “transmission” theory, i.e., the idea of the brain as a means for the inhibition of consciousness. This...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
Raymond A. Moody had been introduced to experiences near death by George G. Ritchie. The latter had reported of an experience in which he had encountered Christ. This chapter discusses Moody’s first book of 1975, its motivation and motives, and compares Moody’s description of systematized “near-death experiences” with Johann C. Hampe’s systematic account of the same year, characteristic for the...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
The final chapter of the discursive history outlines how Robert Crookall’s and Robert A. Monroe’s books on “astral projection,” but also C. G. Jung and other researchers discussing paranormal and parapsychological phenomena in the 1960s and early 1970s, already assembled almost all phenomena that Moody could bundle in 1975 under the new term “near-death experiences.” However, the chapter points...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
This book offers a modern genealogy of “near-death experiences,” outlining the important functions of these experiences in the religious field of Western modernity. Emerging as autobiographical narratives in the legacy of Christian deathbed visions, narratives of near-death experiences were used in Western religious metacultures (Christian, Esoteric, and Spiritualist–Occult) as substantial...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
This chapter presents how discourse on experiences near death unfolded from 1580 to 1900 in the three religious metacultures (and occasionally in Naturalist metaculture). It takes its departure with Michel de Montaigne’s experience near death. It is argued that this testimony is supposedly the first report in a modern, autobiographical setting. It moves on to early modern Christian accounts,...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
The three decades treated in this chapter can be summarized as a consolidation phase of near-death discourse, transmitted mainly in parapsychology, Theosophy, and Spiritualist–Occult circles. A newly emerging element in near-death visions is the “tunnel” experience. Finally, the chapter highlights the impact of Aldous Huxley—especially his psychedelic drug experiences in combination with his...
Oxford Scholarship Online
September 20, 2018
Jens Schlieter
This final chapter secures the result of the survey by discussing the religious functions of near-death experiences for affected individuals, but also the functions of the reports for the audience. It outlines (a) ontological, (b) epistemic, (c) intersubjective, and (d) moral aspects. It has been argued that experiencers feel closer to God, are less attracted to religion, and are significantly...
Journal of Contemporary Religion
September 2, 2017
Jens Schlieter
19 citations
For about 25 years, mindfulness meditation has attracted growing attention. Developed in the context of a traditional Asian religious tradition, mindfulness meditation originally served soteriological goals. In therapeutic settings, it has been claimed, it has become a secular ‘consciousness technology’. So far, studies have mainly been interested in clinical evidence for salutogenetic effects....