Humanities
March 28, 2016
Michael N. Marsh
33 citations
Near-death and out-of-body experiences do not prove existence without a functioning brain. Despite expectations that cardiac patients would report seeing strategically placed markers during resuscitation, no corroborative empirical evidence for extra-corporeal cognition has emerged. These experiences occur as consciousness returns, not during brain death, and the memory required for recall is set down at that return. Most recollections are geo-physical, anthropomorphic, banal, and dream-like, offering nothing revelatory about life without a brain. With prevalence rates below 1% globally, subjects may have predisposed brains, and the experience itself may be a transient epiphenomenon similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Humanities
November 9, 2015
Bruce Greyson
31 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are vivid, often transcendent episodes that occur during life-threatening situations, involving sensations like leaving the body or entering another dimension. Reported across cultures and throughout history, 10% to 20% of people who nearly die experience them. While cultural factors shape some content, the core phenomenology remains consistent worldwide. This invariance could stem from universal psychological defenses, neurophysiological processes, or actual contact with a transcendent realm. Research is limited by NDEs' unpredictability. Regardless of cause, NDEs consistently produce profound, lasting changes in experiencers and may hold significance for others.
Humanities
May 11, 2018
Ruth Finnegan
5 citations
The basic principle of folklore is constant—unveiling the hidden riches within the ordinary things of everyday life, contributing to the humanities. Examples include studying orality, life stories of obscure individuals, practices of hidden amateur musicians via ethnography rather than written scores, and research by scholars outside formal institutions. An important new topic, being explored by folklorists and anthropologists, is the area of noetics, psychic studies, heightened or altered consciousness, and the shared mind. This has a long history in antiquity, the middle ages, and eastern philosophies, covering dreaming, contact with the dead, experiencing music, and new perspectives on consciousness. Consolidating these into a recognized field linked across disciplines would greatly benefit the humanities.
Humanities
September 30, 2025
David Nash
During World War One and its aftermath, most Spiritualist activity supported the war effort or comforted grieving families. However, a distinct strand of Spiritualism promoted universalism over nationalism, aiming to heal past and present conflicts and create a harmonious post-war world. This article examines the careers of Edward Bligh Bond, William Packenham-Walsh, and Margaret Murray, showing how they used Spiritualist contact with Tudor-era figures to rewrite Reformation history and reunite England culturally with its dead. Their work advocated collective reconciliation and a shared psychological, anthropological, and cultural heritage to overcome the rationalist nightmare of the war years and bring Europeans together.
Humanities
February 11, 2025
Magdalena Żółkoś
Wartime dream diaries serve as a testimonial practice that makes visible experiences hidden from public discourse and dominant narratives of war. Drawing on post-2022 Ukrainian dream diaries and the theories of Charlotte Beradt, Georges Didi-Huberman, and Wilfred Bion, the article argues that sharing dreams is not merely a constative speech act but a form of thinking about and acting on history. This ethical–political perspective frames dream sharing as a relational act of self-disclosure, not just a relay of content. To read records of war dreams is to be called upon to receive and offer hospitality to a dream.