The Mystery of Frightening Transcendent Experiences: A Rejoinder to Nancy Evans Bush and Christopher Bache

In this essay, I review Christopher Bache's (1994) perinatal account of near-death experiences (NDEs) and suggest that it does not go far enough. I then present a new model, bliss/abyss, derived from the study of mysticism; show that pleasant and frightening NDEs can be accommodated within the model; and discuss the predictions that can be drawn from the new theoretical framework. The implication for near-death research is that there may be several types of frightening NDEs beyond the three types recently identified by Bruce Greyson and Nancy Evans Bush (1992). I emphasize understanding the powerful emotional force that ensures that all frightening experiences, whether NDEs, perinatal, or spontaneous, have a taste of hell. Extending Bush's intuition, I argue that both pleasant and frightening transcendent experiences intimate the ultimate reality through the colored glasses of bliss and horror respectively. Finally, I suggest areas for further research.