Near-death experience as mystical experience.
Journal of religion and health – March 01, 1986
Source: PubMed
Summary
Many people report profound self-transformation after near-death experiences, a phenomenon often associated with mystical awareness. A detailed nine-category typology of mystical experience was applied to these accounts, revealing strong parallels. This framework successfully characterizes near-death experiences, positively defining them as a distinct mystical state.
Abstract
Near-death experience exhibits many attributes of mystical awareness. Assessing the mystical quality of psychedelic experience, Walter Pahnke identified a nine-category typology of mystical experience. It is used here to illustrate the mystical nature of near-death experience. The typology also describes the self-transformation which follows the mystical state of consciousness. Self-transformation results from near-death experience. Pahnke's mystical typology characterizes the near-death experience and allows for a definition of near-death experience as a mystical state.