Near-death experiences: Some logical problems and questions for further study.

Abstract

Anabiosis-The Journal for Near-Death Studies Cicero tells us, through the character of Scipio, of a panoramic vision coming as the result of a close brush with death.In this vision Scipio is met by Scipio Africanus, the Elder, a dead ancestor who guides him into paradise.James Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1928) contains a number of other cross-cultural examples of out-of-body experiences associated with NDEs.In one of these stories a dead Chippewa chief is carried home after battle.Along the way he separates from his body, and after several unsuccessful attempts to reenter his body, he returns in this spirit form to the battlefield.In despair, he finally cries, "I am seeking to return to my body."With a desperate effort he darts through what he sees as a flame that separates him from his body.Sometime later he awakens in his weakened body to tell of the ordeal.Similar accounts can be found in Orphic literature, Plutarch, many of the principle Upanisnads, the Zoroastrian's Bundahishn, and the work of the 18th-century Swedish mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg.I have no problem with any of these examples being used as indications that experiences similar or even parallel to the current literature can be found in ancient texts, but I think it would be a mistake to necessarily interpret them as confirmations of the fate of the dead.Moody (1975) seems to have a dim awareness of this himself; he offers one possible explanation for the parallels, as well as a rejoinder: