Community attitudes toward near-death experiences: An Australian study.

Abstract

In an Aus t ra l i an survey of communi ty at t i tudes toward neardeath experiences (NDEs), 173 respondents were asked to read a hypothetical description of an NDE and to select from a range of explanat ions tha t might approximate their own. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents believed the NDE was evidence of life after death, while less t h a n 2 percent believed the NDE was a sign of menta l illness. Women, younger persons, and those who professed a belief in life after death were more likely to react positively to the NDE described. Many people who report a near-death experience (NDE) express a reluctance to disclose their experiences to others for fear of ridicule, negative labelling, stigma, or rejection. Is there a widespread social basis for this fear? Some surveys of social attitudes toward the NDE have been conducted with limited and special samples. For example, David Royse (1985) conducted a survey of 174 religious clergy, an '"almost exclusively male sample." He found attitudes to be positive and generally supportive of the NDEr. On the other hand, Annalee Oakes (1984) Dr. Kellehear is Lecturer in Sociology at Deakin University, and Dr. Heaven is with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Riverina-Murray Institute in New South Wales. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr. Kellehear at the School of Social Sciences, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia 3217. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 7(3) Spring 1989 9 1989 Human Sciences Press 165 166 JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES found a generally negative set of att i tudes among her sample of 30 critical care nurses. George Gallup, Jr. (1982) conducted a broad community survey of att i tudes toward the afterlife and polled people on ~'verge-of-death" experiences. That survey, however, did not solicit their explanations of these experiences, nor did Gallup ask respondents their att i tude toward those who claimed to have had such experiences. Surveys examining these issues and using community samples do not exist in the current literature. Yet the assumption of negative community att i tudes is a recurrent item in the popular and academic writing on the NDE, and is a view widely supported by anecdotal evidence. In 1975, Raymond Moody, Jr. devoted a section in his book Life After Life to the topic of '~telling others." The section describes rejecting social experiences directed at those who attempted to tell others about their NDE. According to Moody (1975, p. 86), "Others tried at first to tell someone else, but were rebuffed, so they resolved from then on to remain silent." One of Moody's respondents spoke of it in this way: ~'You learn very quickly that people don't take to this as easily as you would like them to" (Moody 1975, p. 87). Michael Sabom (1982) began his book with a personal account of his own initial skepticism but also later documented those of others (1982, p. 36). Kimberly Clark (1984) also observed that many of her clients feared telling others, especially their doctors, for fear that they would think them "crazy." Charles Flynn (1986, pp. 16-17) reported that near-death experiencers (NDErs) frequently encountered denials or negative labelling of their experiences. People around NDErs sometimes implied or suggested that a psychiatric problem might be developing for the NDEr. Others asked the NDEr not to raise the subject again. Recently Bruce Greyson and Barbara Harris (1987, p. 42) listed some of the interpersonal problems created when NDErs recounted their experiences to others. These included rejection, ridicule, being ostracized from family and friends, or being regarded as psychotic or hysterical. Individual accounts of social reactions have described a variety of att i tudes in the community but these have not indicated the proportion of the population in these att i tude categories. Furthermore such accounts tell us little about the social influences that help shape these attitudes. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate community explanations about the NDE and to describe the nature and proportional range of att i tudes to a hypothetical NDE. We also decided to investigate the relationship between these att i tudes and selected socio-demographic variables such as age, sex and education level. ALLAN KELLEHEAR AND PATRICK HEAVEN 167