Otherworld Journeys

Dozens of books articles television shows and films relating near-death experiences have appeared in the past decade. People who have survived a close brush with death reveal their extraordinary visions and ecstatic feelings at the moment they died describing journeys through a tunnel to a realm of light visual reviews of their past deeds encounters with a benevolent spirit and permanent transformation after returning to life. Carol Zaleski''s Otherworld Journeys offers the most comprehensive treatment to date of the evidence surrounding near-death experiences. The first to place researchers'' findings first-person accounts and possible medical or psychological explanations in historical perspective she discusses how these materials reflect the influence of contemporary culture. She demonstrates that modern near-death reports belong to a vast family of otherworld journey tales with examples in nearly every religious heritage. She identifies universal as well as culturally specific features by comparing near-death narratives in two distinct periods of Western society: medieval Christendom and twentieth-century secular America. This comparison reveals profound similarities such as the life-review and the transforming after-effects of the vision as well as striking contrasts such as the absence of hell or punishment scenes from modern accounts. Mediating between the debunkers and the near-death researchers Zaleski considers current efforts to explain near-death experience scientifically. She concludes by emphasizing the importance of the otherworld vision for understanding imaginative and religious experience in general.