Online resources for the history of out-of-body experiences and death-related phenomena.
The Journal of near-death studies 2010 DOI: 10.17514/jnds-2010-28-3-p143-162 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 4 |
| Key findings | Argues that Google Books offers numerous copyright-free, cost-free historical sources on near-death and related phenomena, with examples including Engelbrecht's 1780 book and Myers's 1903 work, which researchers can download and convert to plain text for study. |
Abstract
Google Books is a digital library covering out of print publications about a variety of topics, among them materials relevant for a history of discussions, observations, and collections of cases of out-of-body experiences and death-related phenomena such as near-death experiences, deathbed visions, and apparitions. In this article, I provide examples of copyright-free and cost-free sources from Google Books that investigators of near-death and related phenomena can download and change into plain text; in many cases, I include passages that give readers a sense of the richness of these sources for both a historical and a contemporary understanding of near-death and related phenomena. Examples of books include Johann Engelbrecht's "The Divine Visions of John Engelbrecht" (1780), Augustine Calmet's "The Phantom World" (1850), Henri Roger Gougenot de Mousseaux's "Les hauts phénomènes de la magie" (1864), Edward H. Clarke's "Visions" (1878), William H. Harrison's "Spirits Before Our Eyes" (1879), and Frederic W. H. Myers's "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death" (1903). Examples of articles include those written by such authors as Ernesto Bozzano, Francis Power Cobbe, James H. Hyslop, Duncan MacDougall, Frank Podmore, and A. S. Wiltse.