The percentage of hell-like near-death experiences (NDEs) is probably much larger than has been previously claimed. In this article, I discuss current research into what are now termed "distressing" or "unpleas ant" NDEs, and my own findings from interviews of over a hundred such cases. I compare this information with earlier reports from Maurice Rawlings (1978, 1980), mythological traditions...
This paper illustrates the apparently providential timing and the healing character of near-death experiences (NDEs) and NDE-like episodes, through four case histories of persons whose lives, prior to their experiences, were marked by deep anguish and a sense of hopelessness. Spiritually, such case histories suggest the intervention of a guiding intelligence that confers a form of “amazing...
I compared five childhood near-death experiences (NDEs) reported by adults and another five NDEs reported by minors, in terms of Ring's five NDE stages, Greyson's four NDE components, Moody and Perry's 12 NDE traits, Sabom's 16 general characteristics, and Gallup and Proctor's 10 basic positive experiences. In this combined pool of 47 NDE characteristics (which were interdependent), only two...
This study explores the influence that a near-death experience (NDE) had on the family relationships of eleven NDErs, based on in-depth interviews. I detail the changes in relationships with extensive quotes providing data on family interactions. Analysis of the adjustments of NDErs within their family relationships reveals that while some families cope well and are positively influenced by an...
Allan Kellehear's article raised four questions for me: (1) whether the near-death experience (NDE) presents enough data about the nature of a transcendent society for it to be a useful model for earthly societies; (2) the degree to which transcendent societies have to address the practical considerations of a material society; (3) whether NDEs are projections of experiencers' cultural concepts...
Article arguing that as scientific research provides an ever-more-complete physiological explanation of the near-death experience (NDE), popular interest in NDEs will wane, because the transcendental interpretation, which holds that the NDE provides proof of an immaterial soul, an afterlife, and assorted paranormal phenomena, has always been the magnet that has attracted widespread attention to...
Article studying near-death experiences in persons who would be expected to have a high rate of both psychopathology and coming close to death, by interviewing sixty-one consecutive suicide attempters.
The medical records of 58 patients, most of whom believed they were near death during an illness or after an injury and all of whom later remembered unusual experiences occurring at the time, were examined. 28 patients were judged to have been so close to death that they would have died without medical intervention; the other 30 patients were not in danger of dying although most of them thought...