Varieties of Near-Death Experiences

It seems the world is netting more and more NDEs by the day.

Some days I wonder if modern near-death experiencers are messengers like the mystics or prophets of old, who returned from the wilderness (or the cloister) with messages from the gods for the societies they lived in. They were vehicles, in a sense, transporting or translating sacred messages to their communities from the other side.

With the advent of modern medicine, more and more people are able to return to life after clinical death. In the past, when societies had massive monasteries and a steady stream of people committed to a lifetime of spiritual practices, perhaps there were many more NDE-like visions that arose from deep states of mantra, meditation, and prayer. People like Padre Pio, St. Francis, Milarepa, or Ramakrishna would have been a more familiar sight. Every town had its local patron saint or shaman, sometimes celebrated but more often misunderstood, who lived on the outskirts of the city.

But in today’s world, where major religions are in steady decline and the pews appear emptier by the year, it may be that NDEs are filling the gap in our modern society.

At the end of the day, we are told by all religious and mystical traditions to cultivate a more conscious connection to the other side. And it turns out that one of the most helpful ways to do this is listening to people who have had an authentic and profound mystical encounter with the spiritual plane of reality.

May we all continue to gain faith and trust on our journeys through life by the power and beauty of these stories. NDEs may just be the defining modern version of religious and spiritual experience.

William James and the Varieties of Religious Experience

Psychologist and philosopher William James published a seminal book in 1902 called The Varieties of Religious Experience. It was based on a series of lectures he delivered at the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902.

In the foreword of the book we read:

Published in June 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experience was an immediate best-seller and brought about something of a Copernican revolution by looking at religion not as it appeared in the object (God or the universe or revelation) but as it appeared in the subject (the believing, doubting, praying, and experiencing person).

William James writes the following about his intention and purpose for the book (and the lectures that formed its basis):

The problem I have set myself is a hard one: first, to defend . . . “experience” against “philosophy” as being the real backbone of the world’s religious life . . . and second, to make the hearer or reader believe, what I myself invincibly do believe, that, although all the special manifestations of religion may have been absurd (I mean its creeds and theories), yet the life of it as a whole is mankind’s most important function.

The core mission of this book that I believe James articulates—correctly—is elevating experience over philosophy.

What does this mean exactly?

Direct experience will always trump dogma or theory. That is what the Buddha taught. That is also what Jesus taught. And it is what Socrates taught. In fact, all true mystical paths teach the importance of direct experience over theoretical knowledge.

The European explorers of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, after returning from the “New World,” or from remote regions of Africa and Asia, were respected and listened to far more than the anthropology professors in the universities—as all they had was theoretical knowledge from books. Likewise, speaking personally, I would never surrender myself to a surgery by a doctor fresh out of school who had only read about surgery but never practiced it.

Experiential knowledge is far superior to theoretical knowledge.

James is correct, then, in saying that experience and not philosophy—nor dogma nor creed—is the real backbone of religious life.

Throughout the book, James draws on a wide range of sources, including autobiographical accounts, religious texts, and the writings of mystics, theologians, and philosophers. He uses examples such as

1. Conversion experiences

2. Mystical experiences

3. Awakenings via religious revivalism

4. Psychological transformation

5. Healing and miracles, both of physical and psychological wounds

6. Religious or spiritual vocation, those who are called to serve as ministers, missionaries, or spiritual leaders.

He uses many figures—St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, George Fox (founder of Quakerism), and many more—to explore the diversity of religious or spiritual experiences and the ways they can lead to permanent and enduring transformation.

James’s book is a classic, and if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. While dated and confined to a historical moment (roughly a hundred years ago), its wisdom and understanding of the core essence of religious experience is, well, timeless.

Varieties of Near-Death Experiences

I believe that if James were alive today he would be absolutely fascinated by NDEs.

Why?

Because they are the example par excellence of a transformative mystical experience. They, like the other subjects in his book, offer examples of people who have had direct subjective experiences of such intensity and potency that they have had long-term impact on their personalities, worldviews, and behaviors.

Like James’s studies on religious experience, NDEs center subjective experience and are therefore within the domain of psychology and phenomenology. The secret to NDE studies lies in understanding the inner experiences, thoughts, emotions, and perceptions of individuals undergoing religious or mystical experiences.

It is not about dogma. It is not about beliefs. It is about experience.

There is also an incredible variety and diversity of near-death experiences. No two are the same. They seem to be what Donna Rebadow calls “designer” deaths, in the sense that they are uniquely designed for each individual person. Perhaps based on their own beliefs, history, and sensitivity they are given a certain experience that will serve them in the appropriate way.

Some people encounter deceased loved ones. Others see angels, or beings of light. Still others see neither but end up in a beautiful field of lush green grass and swaying trees, with colors they have never seen before. Some near-death experiencers see what they call God or the Creator, and yet many others have an experience of appearing to be alone but nonetheless receive “downloads” from an unknown source. Some travel through a tunnel, some see or merge with “the light,” while others encounter a velvety blackness or void, as did David Williamson.

What distinguishes NDEs as a mystical experience is their sheer vividness and overwhelming realness—the result of which has such a profound effect that they often permanently transform the individual’s worldview and understanding of the world. These experiences are a direct encounter with what the psychologist Carl Jung called the numinous, a Latin word that means “awe-inspiring, or the power to arouse spiritual or religious emotion.”

These experiences can also change behaviors—experiencers get sober, change careers, or pursue what they have secretly been yearning to do. Often critics will say of NDEs, and of religion, faith, or spirituality in general, “Well, we have no proof these experiences are real. Like, really real. They could simply be a malfunction or side effect of brain chemistry gone haywire. A last gasp of a dying brain ejecting some DMT out into the bloodstream.”

But—we might counter back—what about the transformative effect these experiences often have on these people’s lives? Getting sober? Changing careers to something much more meaningful? Shifting to being more loving, kind, and compassionate? Beginning to serve others in the community on weekends? If that is a side effect of malfunctioning brain circuitry, I’ll take that any day of the week!

Some people experience a conversion after their NDE and join a religion or faith after being an atheist throughout their life. Others leave their religion because they feel that the creeds and dogma of their faith can’t hold the immensity and multidimensionality of their NDE. Regardless of these differences, people who experience NDEs are, quite simply, never the same.

“And that is the hallmark of a spiritual experience,” says Peter Panagore, “it is an experience that changes the course of your life towards love.”

So, it turns out that the diversity and variation of NDEs doesn’t invalidate them but rather substantiates their authenticity. This concept is similar to how we understand falling in love. We wouldn’t argue that “love” or “falling in love” doesn’t exist simply because there are so many different ways it can happen—fast and instantaneous, slow and thoughtful, or completely out of left field with plenty of dramatic turns and twists. Instead, we recognize that there are simply many variations of love and numerous ways two people can find it together.

In other words, diversity is a feature, not a bug. Likewise, the vast breadth of variation when it comes to NDEs signals an infinite field of potentiality. Out of that potentiality are limitless possibilities that can manifest in many different ways.

Challenges to Materialism

A common theme shared by NDEs and William James’s understanding of religious experience is the sudden shift an individual undergoes from the ego (the daily personality) to a transcendent or transpersonal state of consciousness. Carl Jung wrote about the numinous and true individuation as the lifelong move from the ego to the Self—the spiritual component of the human psyche. Joseph Campbell described the hero’s journey and the hero’s or heroine’s need to discover the cut-off and disowned aspects of the psyche to find wholeness.

This transpersonal domain is what allows us to access a sense of wholeness. It is where God lives, and therefore our true soul essence is hidden there. When we encounter it, suddenly and unexpectedly (as people do during an NDE), people’s very orientation to life, their worldview and understanding, are deconstructed and then completely rewired by it. It is the doorway into a new life and a new way of being.

Rumi says:

When someone is counting out gold for you,
Don’t look at your hands,
Or the gold.
Look at the giver.

People are given a glimpse behind the veil, and the true teaching, it seems, is to let that glimpse, that gift of gold, lead us to pursue the giver. It is important not to become attached to the gold, to those spiritual experiences we have had.

This is why integration and making sense of one’s mystical experience—whether borne from an NDE, a religious experience, a psychedelic experience, or a meditation experience—is the cornerstone to living up to the gift one has been given. Almost all people who have had major transformative experiences talk quite a lot about the importance of integration.

That is, to let the experience alter and transform one’s core beliefs, understandings, and way of being in the world.

May we all be nourished and inspired by the many beautiful accounts of religious and spiritual experiences—especially those of people who have died, been allowed to visit the other side, and returned to share the tale.