A critique of Kellehear's transcendent society

Allan Kellehear argued that the otherworld society envisioned in near-death experiences (NDEs) is similar to utopian societies. However, his cultural analysis, based on 9 Mormon NDEs, did not reflect the diversity of near-death visions from other cultures. I suggest that these Mormon NDEs were neither as utopian as Kellehear assumed nor representative of contemporary NDE reports, and that a more complete analysis would reveal a variety of NDEs and otherworld visions reflecting the experiencers' sociocultural back-ground. Robert Bellah's model of religious evolution provides a model for charting the NDE's change over time and cultures, and allows us to differentiate the perennial features of the NDE from the transient culturally-determined ones — a first step in understanding the role of NDEs in the quest for an ideal society.Howard Mickel, Ph.D., formerly Chairman of the Department of Religion at Wichita State University, is currently Director of the Theta Project, an educational and research effort focusing on near-death and related experiences.