Recreating Near-Death Experiences: A Cognitive Approach

I describe a guided meditation that, when used by near-death experiencers (NDErs), recreates fragments of their NDEs. The meditation is based on Michael Persinger's neurological theory regarding the God Experience, and its success supports that theory. The present study included too few subjects to support quantitative analysis, and must be regarded as a pilot study.     

Different Kinds of Near-Death Experience: A Report on a Survey of Near-Death Experiences in Germany

This article provides a short summary of a representative survey on near-death experiences (NDEs) in Germany, which is the first of its kind in Europe. We tested several assumptions derived from previous research on NDEs, including the assumptions of a unified pattern of experience, the universality of the pattern, and the necessary link between NDEs and clinical death. We received replies from more than 2,000 persons, 4 percent of whom reported NDEs. The patterns of the NDEs did not seem to correspond to earlier findings: aside from being much more diverse, they also differed with respect to cultural variables, particularly the difference between religious interpretations and the differences between post-socialist East Germany and West Germany.     

The Structure and Function of Near-Death Experiences: An Algorithmic Reincarnation Hypothesis

Hypothesizes that a near-death experience (NDE) is the subjective experience of having the state of consciousness in which a person experiences the last moment of his or her life being turned, in stages, into the state of consciousness experienced as the point of no return. The life review this, as is interpreted as a review of the states of consciousness experienced during our lives. Our responses to reviewing our own behaviors while in specific states reinforces and classifies them into those to repeat in future lives and those to avoid. We examine a modification of the traditional doctrine of reincarnation that takes into account biological and cultural evolution. This allows an understanding of how the attributes of NDEs could have undergone selection even though all opportunities for mating have already passed at the time of death.     

The Evidential Value of Near-Death Experiences for Belief in Life After Death

In this paper, I explore the issue of what evidential value near-death experiences (NDEs) offer for belief in life after death. I survey the major positions on this issue, ranging from writers who believe that NDEs already offer convincing evidence for life after death, to physicalists who believe that they offer, at best, a very weak case. I argue that the present NDE evidence does suggest the possibility of life after death; however, such evidence is not yet overpowering or convincing. However, I go on to argue that NDEs do offer persuasive evidence for life after death for the individual who has the NDE. I end by suggesting that further research should be done on the most impressive type of NDE evidence for life after death, veridical perceptions during an NDE.     

Amazing Grace: The Healing Effects of Near-Death Experiences on Those Dying And Grieving

Kenneth Ring (1991) argued that near-death experiences (NDEs) act as compensatory gifts helping individuals cope with and understand life's difficulties. He saw NDEs as conferring amazing grace on individuals whose lives were spinning out of control toward self-destruction. Expanding on Ring's contention that NDEs can be seen as healing gifts, this study presents evidence of seven categorical situations where participating in or knowledge of NDEs and nearing-death awareness experiences serve as healing agents in facing one's own death or the death of a significant other. NDEs and nearing death awareness seem to free persons from paralyzing death anxiety and, consequently, allow them to focus on additional ways to help each other face dying and grieving.     

马克思主义在法国——托尼·昂得莱尼教授在中山大学的演讲

第二次世界大战以来,马克思主义在法国经历了60年代的繁荣和其后的衰落的不同阶段,20世纪90年代马克思主义在经济学、社会学和哲学等领域有所恢复,但是其影响相当有限,因为传媒对它仍然有某种敌视的态度。尽管如此,还是有一些杂志发表马克思主义的文献。此外,在法国还有一些马克思主义的学会,马克思主义对于法国的左翼政党和工会也有少许的影响。马克思主义在法国的衰落在客观上是因为工人阶级的阶级基础发生了变化,媒体的影响太大,而在主观上是因为法国共产党思想保守,内部分裂,不关注现实社会运动,对于西方所出现的个人主义无法在理论上给出说明等。     

Toward A New Eternalist Paradigm for Afterlife Studies: The Case of the Near-Death Experiences Argument

In contemporary Western culture, death has been widely censured because of its conceptual implications; it lies at the boundaries between reductionism and metaphysics. There is not yet an efficacious epistemology able to solve this contraposition and its consequent collision with science and tradition. This article analyzes Near Death Experiences (NDEs) as a prototypical argument in which the two perspectives conflict. Specifically, it analyzes the epistemological antinomies of the ontological representations of death, inhering in passage versus absolute annihilation. Indeed, the NDEs theme permits the examination of the logical contradiction between monistic reductionism and its ontological counterpart to improve the discovery of a new paradigm that integrates the ecological with eternalist views.     

Shared Near-Death and Related Illness Experiences: Steps on an Unscheduled Journey

This paper discusses the key social features in shared journeys into near-death experiences (NDEs) and related illness experiences of other people. Of special interest in this paper is the way that those persons who are not ill or near death account for their sharing of these experiences. These are often people who are caregivers or intimates of NDErs or dying people but who claim to share part of the NDE or dying experience. We provide case examples to illustrate the essential psychological and social experiences that these people undergo during their joint experiences with NDErs and other seriously ill people. From an analysis of the recurrent themes emergent in these joint experiences we identify and discuss the major conceptual steps in the creation of their personal explanations: (1) Exit the Familiar, (2) Extraordinary Experiences, (3) Extraordinary Experiences End, (4) What Happened to Me? (5) The World Responds, and (6) The Return of the Native. In the final analysis, the processes that these people undergo in the search for explanations is similar in most respects to those at the center of near-death and other related illness experiences.     

Near-Death Experiences in patients with locked-in syndrome: Not always a blissful journey

Memories of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) most often are recounted as emotionally positive events. At present, no satisfactory explanatory model exists to fully account for the rich phenomenology of NDEs following a severe acute brain injury. The particular population of patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS) provides a unique opportunity to study NDEs following infratentorial brain lesions. We here retrospectively characterized the content of NDEs in 8 patients with LIS caused by an acute brainstem lesion (i.e., “LIS NDEs”) and 23 NDE experiencers after coma with supratentorial lesions (i.e., “classical NDEs”). Compared to “classical NDEs”, “LIS NDEs” less frequently experienced a feeling of peacefulness or well-being. It could be hypothesized that NDEs containing less positive emotions might have a specific neuroanatomical substrate related to impaired pontine/paralimbic connectivity or alternatively might be related to the emotional distress caused by the presence of conscious awareness in a paralyzed body.     

Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind: A Study of Apparent Eyeless Vision

This article reports the results of an investigation into near-death and out-of-body experiences in 31 blind respondents. The study sought to address three main questions: (1) whether blind individuals have near-death experiences (NDEs) and, if so, whether they are the same as or different from those of sighted persons; (2) whether blind persons ever claim to see during NDEs and out-of-body experiences (OBEs); and (3) if such claims are made, whether they can ever be corroborated by reference to independent evidence. Our findings revealed that blind persons, including those blind from birth, do report classic NDEs of the kind common to sighted persons; that the great preponderance of blind persons claim to see during NDEs and OBEs; and that occasionally claims of visually-based knowledge that could not have been obtained by normal means can be independently corroborated. We present and evaluate various explanations of these findings before arriving at an interpretation based on the concept of transcendental awareness.     

The Amplification and Integration of Near-Death and Other Exceptional Human Experiences by the Larger Cultural Context: An Autobiographical Case

Although I became a parapsychologist in part to help me understand the near-death experience (NDE) I had in 1952 as an undergraduate, it was not until 1990 that I began to integrate my NDE into my life. Doing so alerted me to the role the larger cultural context plays in regard to NDEs and other exceptional human experiences (EHEs). I propose not only that we need to draw on cultural resources to amplify the meaning of our exceptional human experiences, but that EHEs themselves carry the seeds of cultural change.     

Eternal Connection: An Exploratory Study of the Effects of Learning About Near-Death Experiences on Adult Grief

We examined the effectiveness of a near-death experience (NDE) psychoeducational group bereavement intervention in reducing distressing aspects and enhancing a growth aspect of grief among bereaved adults. Participants were 22 females and 2 males (2 African American, 3 Asian, 2 Latina/o, and 17 White non-Latina/o) ranging in age from 20 to 71, with a mean age of 35.3 years. In this experimental design, we randomly assigned 12 participants to the experimental group and 12 participants to the waitlist control group. Effect size findings based on Hogan Grief Reaction Checklist scores indicated modest to substantial benefits of the NDE learning module intervention for bereaved adults in the form of decreased panic behavior, blame and anger, and detachment and increased personal growth. Conclusions include that further research into the effectiveness of NDE-related psychoeducational programs with bereaved individuals is warranted.     

The Stories We Tell: Introduction to the Special Issue on Ethical Challenges in Community Psychology Research and Practice

This Special Issue examines ethical challenges in community psychology research and practice. The literature on ethics in community psychology has remained largely abstract and aspirational, with few concrete examples and case studies, so the goal of this Special Issue was to expand our written discourse about ethical dilemmas in our field. In these articles, researchers and practitioners share stories of specific ethical challenges they faced and how they sought to resolve them. These first‐person narratives examine how ethical challenges come about, how community psychology values inform ethical decision making, and how lessons learned from these experiences can inform an ethical framework for community psychology.     

The Near-Death Experience: Knowledge and Attitudes of College Students

There is a considerable literature documenting the effects of a near-death experience (NDE) on persons who actually undergo the experience, in terms of their attitudes and opinions about NDEs. However, investigations of how much nonexperiencers know about NDEs and their attitudes towards them are in short supply. This study examined the relationship in people who have not had an NDE between attitudes toward and knowledge of near-death experiences. Subjects were undergraduate students, with a mean age of 32 years. The Near-Death Phenomena Knowledge and Attitudes Questionnaire was employed to assess attitudes toward and knowledge of NDEs. Results indicated that both knowledge and attitudes were relatively normally distributed, and that level of knowledge significantly predicted attitudes towards NDEs, accounting for 34 percent of the common variance.     

The Near-Death Experience as a Shamanic Initiation: A Case Study

The field of near-death studies shares a number of interesting, often compelling, similarities with the ancient spiritual tradition known as shamanism. Not least among these similarities is the fact that a near-death experience (NDE) is a time-honored form of shamanic initiation. I present a case example illustrating how a deep NDE can propel a person who had no prior knowledge or interest in shamanism into spontaneous, often classic, shamanic experiences, while living an apparently normal life in the midst of modern Western society.     

The Experiences of Indigenous Australian Psychologists at University

Disparities exist between Indigenous Australians and non‐Indigenous Australians on indicators of life expectancy, alcohol and drug use, adult and juvenile incarceration, and rates of hospitalisation for self‐harm, suicide, and mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use. Psychology is a discipline that can assist in remedying these issues, yet disparities are evident in Indigenous participation in higher education generally, as well as within tertiary psychology education specifically. Ten Indigenous Australian psychologists were interviewed to investigate possible barriers and enablers for Indigenous students studying psychology at university. Hermeneutic phenomenology guided the research and its analysis, whereby the data went through a process known as the “hermeneutic circle”; data were analysed in itself, as well as part of the whole, leading to the world views of the participant and researcher converging into a “horizon of meaning.” Sources of support for Indigenous students included family support, financial assistance, and Indigenous student support centres. Potential barriers to university study of psychology were negative conceptions of higher education and psychology by the Indigenous community, “culture shock” upon relocating to the metropolitan area, a lack of Indigenous content and staff, and culturally insensitivity by staff members. Efforts should be made to address these barriers to participation, as well as to support those structures and services that were supportive for students.     

For Goodness Sake: How Religious Stories Work to Make Us Good and the Goodness that They Make

Studies in Philosophy and Education -