Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions

Near-death experiences (NDEs) occur across cultures and throughout history, but how people experience and interpret them is shaped by their cultural background. This book examines historical reports from explorers, missionaries, and ethnologists about traditional indigenous societies in Africa, North America, and Oceania, showing that while NDEs are universal, their content and meaning vary by region. Shamanic practices across different cultures often involve elements similar to NDEs, such as leaving the body, traveling to other realms, meeting deceased relatives, and returning with new insight. The book draws on anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive evolutionary science to explain the similarities and differences between these phenomena, presenting dozens of previously unrecognized NDE accounts and exploring themes like possession, burial practices, lucid dreams, religious revitalization movements, and out-of-body experiences.

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Abstract

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are indisputably part of human experience, known from accounts from around the world and throughout history. This book examines the role culture plays in how people experience and interpret NDEs, and reveals how afterlife beliefs often originate in such extraordinary experiences. It also explores the relationship between shamanism and NDEs. The book focuses on traditional indigenous societies in Africa, North America, and Oceania, drawing on historical reports of explorers, missionaries, and ethnologists. These sources indicate that though NDEs are universal, the ways in which they are experienced and interpreted vary by region and culture. In contrast, despite wide differences between shamanic practices across cultures, shamanic experiences often involve elements very similar to NDEs, including leaving the body, traveling to other realms, meeting deceased relatives, and returning with new insight or information. Through an interdisciplinary analysis incorporating ideas from anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive evolutionary science, this book explains the continuum of similarities and differences between these phenomena. It presents a fascinating and engaging journey through afterlife beliefs and experiences of indigenous peoples from three continents, presenting dozens of hitherto unrecognized NDE accounts. Along the way, it also explores themes such as possession, burial of the dead, lucid dreams, religious revitalization movements, out-of-body experiences, and implications for beliefs that human beings really do survive physical death.