Revelation in Near-Death Experience

Abstract

Abstract Accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) across cultures often include claims of encounters with deities or spirits who impart information to the experiencer. Other accounts involve the experiencer obtaining knowledge by other means, without the assistance of a non-human supernatural being. While some cases involve deceased relatives, the most significant factor in others might be the soul’s perceptions of the body from a vantage point outside it, seeing or travelling to other realms, having a panoramic life review, encountering the soul of a person not previously known to have died, having prophetic visions, or more generalized impressions of universal understanding and/or union. In all these senses, NDEs can be seen as revelatory experiences, with profound information being conveyed to the individual through ostensibly mystical or ‘religious’ experiences.