Religion and Theology
June 16, 2026
Pieter F. Craffert
Abstract The debate between evangelical and skeptical scholars about Jesus’s post-mortem appearances has long been framed as a binary choice: either his followers literally saw a bodily resurrected Jesus (the Resurrection Hypothesis) or they experienced hallucinations and collective delusions (the Hallucination Hypothesis). This article argues that despite their radical disagreement, both...
Religion and Theology
June 19, 2018
Pieter F. Craffert
1 citation
Abstract Except for demon possession, possession is a neglected and under-researched topic in New Testament studies in general and Jesus research in particular. That is unlike scholars from other disciplines who realise that spirit possession is a central feature in the emergence and growth of most religious traditions. This article first explains possession as a complex neurocultural...
Journal of Early Christian History
September 2, 2017
Pieter F. Craffert
Divinities all over the world are seen, heard and smelled. It is remarkable how common reports of sensory perception of the gods are and how casually they are presented, similar to any other sensory perception. Furthermore, scholarship contains a fairly detailed picture of the first-person reports about seeing, hearing and smelling divinities. Both reports about sensing the gods and scholarly...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 28, 2015
Pieter F. Craffert
10 citations
The visible growth in possession and exorcism in Southern Africa can, amongst others, be attributed to the general impression in Christianity that, since Jesus was a successful exorcist, his followers should follow his example. Historical Jesus research generally endorses a view of Jesus as exorcist, which probably also contributes to this idea, yet there is no or very little reflection about...
Journal of Cognition and Culture
March 17, 2015
Pieter F. Craffert
In recent years there has been an increased interest in the study of out-of-body experiences (obes) by cognitive and neuro-scientists. Nowadays, far-reaching claims regarding the uncovering of the neural mechanisms and pathways, as well as the mystery ofobes in the anthropological and historical record are on offer. In this article the implicit assumption thatobes are much better understood and...
Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture
August 1, 2011
Pieter F. Craffert
The purpose of this article is to introduce biblical interpreters to shamanism and the study of the shamanic complex. The shaman represents an identifiable pattern of religious entrepreneurs with shared practices and beliefs based on alternate states of consciousness experiences. Based on the bodily and neurological potential for alternate states of consciousness experiences, shamanism finds...