What Is It Like To Be Dead?

Near-Death Experiences, Christianity, and the Occult

Jens Schlieter (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

376 Seiten

2018
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-088884-8 (ISBN)

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Studies of "near-death experiences" show that such experiences not only provide a new certainty of post-mortem survival, but often function as a call for fundamental change in the present. Reported aftereffects encompass changes in attitudes, beliefs, and life orientation. It is said that "experiencers" have lost their fear of death, found their purpose in life, or become "more spiritual." The experience often declared to be indescribable, inexplicable, or ineffable is held by many to be the most important of their lives and, moreover, the best proof available for matters "transcendent."

In What Is It Like To Be Dead?, Jens Schlieter argues that to understand recent testimonies of near-death experiences, we need to be aware of the history of innumerable reports of earlier near-death experiences that were communicated and handed down in scores of newspapers, journals, and books. Collections of such testimonies have been published for more than 150 years, accompanied by attempts to classify and interpret them. Schlieter analyzes the religious relevance of near-death experiences for the experiencers themselves, but also for the growing audience attracted by these testimonies. Near-death experiences bear ontological, epistemic, intersubjective, and moral significance, ranging from reassurance that religious experience is still possible to claims that they initiate a new spiritual orientation in life, or offer evidence for the transcultural validity of afterlife beliefs. This study is the first to document and analyze four centuries of near-death testimonies before the codification of the genre in the 1970s, offering the first full account of the modern genealogy of "near-death experiences."

Jens Schlieter (Ph.D. University of Bonn, Germany) is Professor of the Systematic Study of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern, Switzerland. His publications comprise contributions on methodological and theoretical questions of the study of religion, on Buddhist bioethics, and comparative philosophy.

Preface
Acknowledgements

Introduction
Outline of the Argument and Remarks on Method

Chapter I: Near-death experiences as Religious Discourse

Chapter II: The Different Strands of Death: Western Discourse on Experiences Near Death (1580-1975)

Chapter III: "Near-death experiences" as Religious Protest against Materialism and Modern Medicine in the 1960s and 1970s

Chapter IV: Wish Fulfilling Expectations, Experiences, Retroactive Imputations - In Search of Hermeneutics for Near-death Experiences"

Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	11.09.2018
Reihe/Serie	Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	160 x 236 mm
Gewicht	640 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
	Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	0-19-088884-9 / 0190888849
ISBN-13	978-0-19-088884-8 / 9780190888848
Zustand	Neuware