7 papers in the library · 9 citations · publishing 2018-2022
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 Jens Schlieter 3 citations
The consumption of hallucinogens like LSD in the 1960s and 1970s was a major factor, or "push factor," in the emerging discourse on near-death experiences. Several near-death experiences were triggered by drugs, and the chapter observes shared beliefs between users of psychedelics and Gnostic–Esoteric near-death experiencers.
Universitätsverlag Kiel | Kiel University Publishing eBooks September 1, 2022 Jens Schlieter 2 citations
Raymond A. Moody coined the term 'Near-Death Experience' in 1975 to describe reports from people in states close to death. A closer look at the history of ideas in the early 1970s reveals that Moody's concept drew on diverse streams: religious experiences in boundary situations, mystical, extrasensory, and psychedelic drug experiences. The article argues that the discourse popularized by Moody's work is fundamentally a discourse about the possibility and reality of religious experience amid the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. Moody's thesis of a broadly uniform near-death experience was received as evidence for the resilience of religious experiences in late modernity.
May 11, 2021 Jens Schlieter 2 citations
The contribution examines how American Theosophist Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz shaped the early 'science of religion.' In his Celtic studies, he claimed 'Fairyland' is 'a supernormal state of consciousness' and 'Fairies' are 'intelligent forces' recognized by psychical researchers, drawing on Theosophy and Psychical Research. He later translated and commented on the Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927), the first Western-language translation, arguing it offers scientific proof of reincarnation and a theory of karmic hallucinations explaining cultural variants of after-death imagery. The author contends Evans-Wentz never advanced a rigorous methodology but contributed by valuing informants from the traditions and catalyzing the study of Tibetan Buddhist esoteric traditions.
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 Jens Schlieter 1 citation
A long-term shift in Western societies toward 'privatized death'—dying in hospitals and institutions—served as a 'push factor' for the articulation of near-death experiences. The chapter argues that near-death experiences can be partly read as a 'spiritual protest' against alienated, anonymous dying in institutions and the materialist approach of modern biomedicine that merely prolongs life. This protest is also present in criticisms of the 'denial of death.'
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 Jens Schlieter 1 citation
A second factor driving the rise in near-death experiences and their reporting during the 1960s and 1970s was the development of new reanimation techniques, which increased the number of people surviving critical events like heart attacks. The chapter also examines how the widely accepted redefinition of death as irreversible coma influenced near-death experiences and the surrounding discourse. This impact is evident in the work of Raymond Moody, who remained skeptical of the brain-death definition.
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 Jens Schlieter
Near-death experiences emerged as autobiographical narratives in the legacy of Christian deathbed visions and were used in Western religious metacultures as proof for survival after death. Certain features, such as panoramic life review and autoscopic out-of-body experiences, appeared in Occult and Esoteric circles in the 19th and 20th centuries through experiments with astral projection, drugs, and clairvoyant states. Only in the 1970s did Raymond Moody popularize the term "near-death experience," introduced by John C. Lilly, to unify these features into a single phenomenon. The study argues that these experiences reassure modern individuals that religious experience remains possible and may initiate new spiritual orientations, while also offering evidence for transcultural validity of afterlife visions.
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 Jens Schlieter
The term 'near-death experiences' was introduced by John C. Lilly in 1972, earlier than commonly thought, before being popularized by Raymond Moody in 1975. Books on astral projection by Robert Crookall and Robert A. Monroe, along with C. G. Jung and other researchers discussing paranormal phenomena in the 1960s and early 1970s, had already assembled almost all the phenomena Moody later bundled. LSD use sometimes triggered such experiences, and psychologists and psychotherapists like Russell Noyes, Roy Kletti, and Stanislav Grof showed growing interest. The post-Moodian 'Greyson scale' institutionalized the term, reflecting a still-dominant religious interest focused on mystic, esoteric, and transformative qualities.