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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > Comparative religion
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Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R2,698
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Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions (Hardcover)
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Near-death experiences are known around the world and throughout
human history. They are sometimes reported by individuals who have
revived from a period of clinical death or near-death and they
typically feature sensations of leaving the body, entering and
emerging from darkness, meeting deceased friends and relatives,
encountering beings of light, judgment of one's earthly life,
feelings of oneness, and reaching barriers, only to return to the
body. Those who have NDEs almost invariably understand them as
having profound spiritual or religious significance. In this book,
Gregory Shushan explores the relationship between NDEs, shamanism,
and beliefs about the afterlife in traditional indigenous societies
in Africa, North America, and Oceania. Drawing on historical
accounts of the earliest encounters with explorers, missionaries,
and ethnologists, this study addresses questions such as: Do ideas
about the afterlife commonly originate in NDEs? What role does
culture play in how people experience and interpret NDEs? How can
we account for cross-cultural similarities and differences between
afterlife beliefs? Though NDEs are universal, Shushan shows that
how they are actually experienced and interpreted varies by region
and culture. In North America, they were commonly valorized, and
attempts were made to replicate them through shamanic rituals. In
Africa, however, they were largely considered aberrational events
with links to possession or sorcery. In oceania, Micronesia
corresponded more to the African model, while Australia had a
greater focus on afterlife journey shamanism, and Polynesia and
Melanesia showed an almost casual acceptance of the phenomenon as
reflected in numerous myths, legends, and historical accounts. This
study examines the continuum of similarities and differences
between NDEs, shamanism, and afterlife beliefs in dozens of
cultures throughout these regions. In the process, it makes a
valuable contribution to our knowledge about the origins of
afterlife beliefs around the world and the significance of related
experiences in human history.
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