The Final Configuration of Near-Death Experiences (1960–1975)
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190888848.003.0011 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Near-death experience |
| Key points | Argues that the term 'near-death experiences' was introduced by John C. Lilly in 1972, not by Raymond Moody in 1975, and that the phenomena had been described earlier by several researchers. |
Abstract
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 to the fact that, in contrast to the opinio communis, the term had already been introduced by John C. Lilly in 1972. Other influences discussed are the use of LSD, which sometimes triggered near-death experiences, and the growing interest of psychologists and psychotherapists in such experiences (e.g., Russell Noyes and Roy Kletti or Stanislav Grof). It concludes with the institutionalization of the term as grasped in the post-Moodian “Greyson scale.” The latter serves as an example for the still-dominant religious interest in the experiences, i.e., their mystic, esoteric, and transformative qualities.
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 |