Near-Death Experiences in Ancient Civilisations

This is a remarkable achievement, persuasively arguing that NDEs are a universal factor in the origins of the world’s afterlife beliefs. It is an updated edition of a book first published in 2009 and covering five ancient world regions: Egypt, Mesopotamia and Babylon, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and Mesoamerica. A key argument is that cultural similarities are not due to diffusion (p. 41 ff.), but rather to commonality of human experience around the death process, that of disembodied consciousness following physical death. The book begins with a discussion of universal, cultural, and individual features of the NDE, navigating both similarities and differences. One interesting metaphorical parallel is the mediaeval bridge with the more modern tunnel, both marking a transition into another realm. The civilisations selected are largely culturally independent, and produced a religious literature containing descriptions of afterlife experiences.

The second part consists of a detailed discussion of these ancient civilisations, while the third is comparative and analyses the overall interfaces between experience and belief; in this respect, experience is primary. Among the key common themes are out of body experiences, ascent and encountering the corpse, knowledge and enlightenment, judgement and life review, encountering deceased relatives and ancestors as well as beings of light, dangers and perils, entering other realms, and transcendence. The key metaphor is that of a journey, and these ancient accounts are thematically consistent with recurring core elements of the NDE. Gregory discusses the comparative merits of experiential origins in terms of NDEs, shamanism and dreams, concluding that ‘the components of the NDE are more consistent cross-culturally than dreams, hallucinogenic drug experiences, or shaman visionary journeys. They also correspond more often afterlife descriptions in the ancient texts. (p. 219)

The next chapter considers Jungian, cognitive and social psychology, neurotheology, and metaphysics, arguing for the primacy of experience over belief. Gregory advances the HH Price view of a mind-dependent afterlife, which makes a lot of sense. I’m not sure it is in fact as speculative as he argues, given the rise of post-materialist positions stressing the primacy of consciousness, although this has to be a presupposition. In his conclusion, he puts forward a holistic view of the afterlife, suggesting that the perceived otherness of the being of light and deceased relatives support a genuine metaphysical element – certainly my own view, as it meshes with other avenues of research. This is an important contribution to our understanding of NDEs in a variety of cultural contexts.