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Liber XXXIII · Theosophy

Liber XXXIII · Theosophy · Chapter VIII: Reincarnation & the Afterlife

Near-Death Experiences: History, Research and Explanations

Near-death experiences explained: the Myth of Er and medieval return-from-death visions, Raymond Moody, clinical studies, brain theories and culture.

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A near-death experience (NDE) is a vivid, often life-changing experience reported by some people who come close to death, typically including a sense of peace, leaving the body, passing through darkness or a tunnel, meeting a light or deceased relatives, reviewing one's life and reaching a border before returning. The term was popularised by the psychiatrist Raymond Moody in Life After Life (1975), but accounts of people who "died" and came back appear in Plato, in medieval Christian vision literature and in Tibetan Buddhism. Researchers agree that the experiences are real and fairly common among survivors of cardiac arrest; they disagree on whether they reveal an afterlife or the workings of a brain under extreme stress.

What Is a Near-Death Experience?§

Moody assembled a composite description from about 150 accounts: hearing oneself pronounced dead; an unusual noise; moving through a dark tunnel; finding oneself outside the body and watching resuscitation; meeting deceased relatives or a "being of light"; a panoramic review of one's life; approaching a border or limit; and a reluctant return. He stressed that no single account contained every element. Later researchers, notably the psychologist Kenneth Ring and the psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, turned these features into questionnaires, such as Greyson's NDE Scale (1983), which allowed experiences to be compared and graded.

NDEs occur in cardiac arrest, drowning, severe injury, childbirth complications and sometimes in situations of perceived danger where the person is not physically near death at all. Many experiencers report lasting changes: less fear of death, a stronger sense of meaning, more concern for others and less interest in material success. Others struggle to integrate the experience or to speak about it.

Not all experiences are pleasant. Studies since the late 1970s, including work by Greyson and Nancy Evans Bush, have described distressing NDEs marked by terror, emptiness or hellish imagery, a reminder that the popular image of light and welcome is only part of the picture.

Return from Death in Ancient and Medieval Sources§

The best-known ancient example closes Plato's Republic (c. 375 BCE). Er, a soldier killed in battle, revives on his funeral pyre after twelve days and describes the judgement of souls, rewards and punishments, and the choice of new lives before the souls drink from the river of forgetfulness. Plato used the story to argue for justice and the immortality of the soul, and its ideas of judgement and rebirth link it to the traditions discussed in our guide to reincarnation and the afterlife. The Indian Katha Upanishad offers a different model, in which the boy Nachiketas visits Yama, lord of death, to learn the secret of what lies beyond (see the Katha Upanishad).

Christian writers told many return-from-death stories. Paul's account of a man "caught up to the third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12) was not a near-death narrative, but it shaped later visionary literature. Gregory the Great's Dialogues (late sixth century) and Bede's Ecclesiastical History (731) contain accounts of people who died and returned; Bede's Northumbrian Drythelm, guided by a shining figure, sees places of purgation, a fragrant flowery meadow and the edge of heaven before coming back to life and becoming a monk. Medieval vision texts such as the twelfth-century Vision of Tundale elaborated the journey. The scholar Carol Zaleski, comparing these with modern NDEs, found striking similarities of structure alongside clear differences: medieval visions emphasise judgement and purgatory, modern ones love and learning.

In Tibet, the delok (literally "returned from passing") were people, often women, believed to have died for some days, visited the realms of the dead and come back with messages from the deceased and warnings about karma. Their narratives fit the Buddhist framework of the intermediate state described in our guide to Tibetan Buddhism.

From Albert Heim to Raymond Moody§

The first systematic modern collection came from the Swiss geologist and mountaineer Albert Heim, who in 1892 published accounts from climbers who had survived falls, soldiers and others. Most described calm, rapid thought, a life review and sometimes beautiful music or light, rather than fear. The early Society for Psychical Research gathered deathbed visions and apparitions of the dying, and in 1926 the physicist William Barrett published Death-Bed Visions, describing dying people who appeared to see deceased relatives.

The modern field began with Raymond Moody, a philosophy graduate turned medical student, whose interest had been stirred by the psychiatrist George Ritchie's account of his own experience in 1943. Life After Life (1975), with a foreword by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose On Death and Dying (1969) had opened public discussion of dying, sold millions of copies and gave the experience its name and its standard sequence of elements.

Near-Death Studies: Ring, Sabom, Greyson and van Lommel§

Moody's book prompted more careful research. Kenneth Ring's Life at Death (1980) interviewed over a hundred people who had come close to death and found core experiences in a substantial minority, regardless of religious belief. The cardiologist Michael Sabom, initially sceptical, published Recollections of Death (1982), comparing patients' descriptions of their own resuscitations with medical records. In 1978 researchers founded what became the International Association for Near-Death Studies, with its own journal.

The most influential clinical study was led by the Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel and published in The Lancet in 2001. Of 344 cardiac arrest survivors in ten Dutch hospitals, 62, about 18 per cent, reported an NDE, and the occurrence did not depend on the duration of unconsciousness or the medication given. The British-American physician Sam Parnia's AWARE study (published 2014) placed images on high shelves in resuscitation areas to test claims of seeing from outside the body; very few patients recalled any awareness, and none of the hidden images was identified, though one patient described events in the room with some accuracy. Such studies confirm that NDEs are common and difficult to predict, without settling their cause.

Explaining the Near-Death Experience§

Neurological and psychological explanations try to account for each element. Lack of oxygen or excess carbon dioxide in the brain has been linked to tunnel vision and light, since the visual system degrades from the periphery inward. The neurologist Kevin Nelson has argued that many experiencers are prone to REM intrusion, the blending of dream sleep with waking, which also produces sleep paralysis and vivid imagery. Experiments by Olaf Blanke and colleagues in 2002 showed that electrical stimulation of the temporo-parietal junction can produce out-of-body sensations, and researchers have noted resemblances between NDEs and experiences produced by certain anaesthetics and psychoactive substances. The psychologist Susan Blackmore's Dying to Live (1993) set out a comprehensive "dying brain" hypothesis, and animal studies have recorded surges of organised brain activity just after cardiac arrest.

Survivalist researchers answer that NDEs can occur with a flat electroencephalogram, that some patients report accurate observations they could not have made by ordinary perception, and that the experiences are lucid and well remembered rather than confused. Critics reply that the timing of the experience is uncertain, that verified "veridical" cases are few and poorly documented, and that recall can be shaped afterwards by what patients learn.

Culture, Religion and the Afterlife Debate§

Cross-cultural studies, such as the sociologist Allan Kellehear's Experiences Near Death (1996), show that the tunnel and the life review are common in Western accounts but rarer elsewhere, while figures met in the experience usually match the experiencer's religion: Christ or angels for Christians, Yama's messengers in some Indian accounts. Supporters see a universal core interpreted through culture; sceptics see a cultural script layered on brain events.

NDEs have become central to modern popular belief in the afterlife and have fed Spiritualist, Theosophical and New Age views of the soul's survival and its journey through subtle planes, explored in our guide to astral projection and dreams. Bestselling memoirs such as Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven (2012) have attracted large audiences and sharp criticism; one popular account of a child's visit to heaven was publicly retracted by its young subject in 2015. Most churches treat NDEs cautiously, valuing their message of hope while declining to base doctrine on them.

Frequently asked questions§

How common are near-death experiences?§

Prospective studies of cardiac arrest survivors have found that roughly 10 to 20 per cent report an NDE. Estimates from population surveys vary widely because definitions differ and many people do not talk about their experiences.

Who coined the term near-death experience?§

Raymond Moody popularised the term in Life After Life (1975). Similar experiences had been described much earlier, for example by Albert Heim in 1892 and in ancient and medieval return-from-death stories.

Do near-death experiences prove life after death?§

No scientific consensus supports that conclusion. NDEs are real experiences with lasting effects, but researchers disagree about whether they reflect a mind independent of the brain or physiological and psychological processes in a brain under extreme stress.

Are all near-death experiences positive?§

No. A minority of reported NDEs are frightening, involving terror, isolation or hellish imagery, and experiencers of these may need particular support.

Sources and further reading§