THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS FROM NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The subject of the article is the idea that religious beliefs are originated from near-death experience. Firstly, it is supported by the existence of a necessary connection between mystical (religious) and near-death experience: 1) the majority of people who have survived clinical death, in their near-death experience have had an experience traditionally considered religious; 2) a clear correla-tion of brain activation in delta-, alpha- and gamma-bands has been established for both groups of near-death and religious experi-ences; 3) near-death and mystical experiences are associated with similar functional changes in the autonomic nervous system. Secondly, it’s corroborated by the correspondence between the complex of near-death experience and religious ideas about the "afterlife". The opposite modalities of subjective reality in the state of clinical death are oniric experiences similar to religious images of Hell and Paradise. Thirdly, it is supported by the origin of the majority of archaic religious ideas from near-death experience: 1) there are numerous direct evidences that religious ideas come from near-death experience; 2) the variability of the genesis of reli-gious ideas from analogs of near-death experience has been recorded; 3) the relationship between shamanic practices and near-death experience has been established.