Near-Death Experiences and Religious Experience: An Exploration of Spirituality in Medicine
Jonathan Kopel, Mark Owen Webb
Religions February 11, 2022 DOI: 10.3390/rel13020156 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Near-death experience |
| Keywords | Spirituality Religious experience Subject documents Naturalism Epistemology Environmental ethics Alternative medicine |
| Citations | 6 |
| Key points | Proposes that near-death experiences can be understood as religious experiences, and that this perspective may inform their epistemic evaluation. |
Abstract
There has been a continuous discussion of religious experience since William James, culminating in a rich and varied literature on the epistemology of religious experience in the late twentieth century. There has also been a burgeoning literature on near-death experiences (NDEs), largely on neurology and physiology and sometimes as possible counterevidence to naturalism. One important subject is largely missing, and that is a discussion of NDEs as religious experiences, and what light that might shed on their epistemic status. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. In part one, we will delineate the topic of NDEs and what medical science has to say about them. In part two, we will lay out a general view of the epistemology of religious experience. In part three, we will apply that understanding of religious experience to NDEs and draw what lessons we may.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on near-death experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times | 1987 | Historical analysis | |
| Neuroscience and the Near-Death Experience: Roles for the NMSA-PCP receptor, the sigma receptor and the endopsychosins | 1990 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Implications of near-death experiences for a postmaterialist psychology. | 2010 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Near-Death Experience as a Probe to Explore (Disconnected) Consciousness | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Near-death experiences between science and prejudice | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 25
- The Near-Death Experience Scale The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease June 1, 1983
- The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death Harvard Theological Review 1969
- Implications of near-death experiences for a postmaterialist psychology. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality February 1, 2010
- The neuroscientific study of spiritual practices Frontiers in Psychology March 18, 2014
- The Subjective Response to Life-Threatening Danger OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying December 1, 1979
and 20 more in the library